fuonlyknew

Interview with Author Angela Shaeffer 

When did you decide you wanted to become an author?

Even as a child I wanted to write a book. (The Mystery of Silver Glass Pond!) I majored in advertising and minored in English so had a few creative writing classes. A few years later I enrolled in a writing program when my oldest child was a toddler. But soon that goal was forgotten as life became too busy for pursuits that required homework.

Twenty years later, that toddler was now in college and my youngest (I have four children) was in school and I had more time to think about what else I wanted to do with my life. I enrolled in my first post-college writing class at 43 years old.  It’s never too late to pursue a dream!

Did your story change much from when you first started writing until the final draft?

My opening sentence was the four short sentences of everyone “needing Jill” all at once. “Mom, did you pack my hat?” “Jill, where should we store the extra drinks?” “Babe, can you hand me the sunscreen?” “Mommy, sit by me!”

I loved starting off showing how a mother wears so many different hats and often needs to be everything to everyone all at once.

But in workshops, because readers didn’t know anything about the family or even where they were, it didn’t make sense. This was all part of the process of me learning to write well. In a master class I spent days reworking a better opening sentence. Literal days—hour after hour. Even a single word can change a meaning or the cadence of how it’s read. At one point it sounded like the lyrics to a bad country song. Finally, I started much earlier in the action and it all came together.

How do you handle writer’s block?

Skip the scene that’s holding you back and start somewhere completely new—a much, much later part of your story. Don’t worry about what happens during or after the scene that’s stumping you and write something completely different.

I pants’d my novel for this very reason. I was stuck for days (weeks?) with what happened the day after the accident. So I moved forward to what I did know. Jake and his mom were bugged by each other and what did that look like. That’s something I could envision and I started writing those scenes instead.

If you could put yourself as a character in your book, who would you be?

I’m all the characters. I think that’s why I could visualize the scenes and write the dialogue easily. I identify with Jill. I’ve experienced her desire to have an organized plan for life and her family and the belief that if you’re organized, everything else will fall into place. And that parenting perfectly is possible. It’s not.

I often felt like Jake as a teen—I don’t think its uncommon for teens to feel unseen. Sometimes I’m Matt and so frustrated when I feel like someone is exerting control over my decisions. Also, I relate to the feeling that he had to suppress his grief because someone else’s was perceived as greater.

Even when he’s a jerk and trying to be the favorite–these are human tendencies and we can all fall into these types of traps.

How did you come up with the title of your book?

My first chapter was an assignment for a Novel Writing class. I dashed off a title: Finding Paradise (it couldn’t be Paradise Lost, obviously), never thinking it would be permanent for the next six years. I liked the idea of alluding to a broken family finding happiness again.

Years later, the first time I thought my novel was finished, I hired a developmental editor who (among so many very helpful critiques) said she didn’t think the title fit the story. By then the theme of misunderstandings was clear and The Things They Didn’t See came pretty quickly.

Who are your favorite authors and why?

Fredrik Backman and Liane Moriarty. Both write beautifully flawed relatable characters and stories woven with multiple points of view. You make judgments, then as you get to know the characters better, you see them differently—their goodness or at least their good intentions.

My favorite example of this is Backman’s My Grandmother Told Me To Tell you She’s Sorry. A child lives in an apartment building with many good neighbors, but Britt-Marie is a crotchety old woman, that readers love to hate. Yet in his next book, Britt-Marie Was Here, you learn more about her and gain so much compassion and love for her.

Humans are complicated and both Moriarty and Backman do a wonderful job of showing complexities in entertaining and riveting stories.

Do you buy books or borrow from the library or a friend?

Books are very much my friends. I want to display all my books on shelves and remember our good times together. I also love lending books to friends and finding something I know they’ll love. I’m a pretty good matchmaker!