First pages are impossible… so we’re hearing from authors about how they got them right.
In this episode, Jane Roper discusses the first pages of her second novel, The Society of Shame, and how she forced herself into a different writing process to get the book done. We also talk about the necessity of being hard on your characters, finding your story by giving your protagonist the worst possible version of what they think they want, and digging into the details your subconscious has offered you as you write your way forward.
Roper’s first pages can be found here.
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Click here for the audio/video version of this interview.
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Jane Roper is the author of two novels, The Society of Shame, and Eden Lake, and a memoir, Double Time: How I Survived–and Mostly Thrived–Through the First Three Years of Mothering Twins. Her writing has appeared in Salon, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Millions, Poets & Writers, The Rumpus, Cognoscenti, Writers’ Digest and elsewhere, and has been included in the anthology Labor Day: True Birth Stories by today’s Best Women Writers. She has taught writing at GrubStreet, Follow Your Art Community Studios, The University of Iowa, the Sanibel Writers’ Conference, and The Muse & The Marketplace. Jane is also a freelance copywriter and brand strategist. Originally from Fairfield, Connecticut, Jane is a graduate of Williams College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She currently lives just north of Boston in a drafty Victorian house on a hill with her husband, singer-songwriter Alastair Moock, and teenage twins.
Passages: Jane Roper on The Society of Shame