Writers' Rituals - Larry Karp

The Mysterious Writing Habits of the World's Top Crime Writers

Oct 14, 2008

Writing a novel requires an idea, the right words, and something extra. Mystery writer Larry Karp shares the secrets of his approach to writing, from idea to execution.

Are writers obsessive-compulsive? Overly superstitious? Or do habits and rituals provide security for writers who never know where the next idea, or the words to write it, will come from?

Searching for clues to the secrets of writing, Suite 101 has an exclusive interview with Larry Karp. His latest series is a ragtime historical-mystery trilogy: The Ragtime Kid, The King of Ragtime, and a third coming Spring, 2010.

Q: How much research and plotting do you do before you're ready to write a book?

A: Very little. I begin with a character or characters in a situation within my knowledge base, and start writing the first draft. My characters will never follow a set plot, or preconceived character descriptions. As I go along, I do the research that the story demands.

Q: What hours do you devote to your writing and what time of day do you prefer to write?

A: I've found that I apparently work on my stories while I sleep, because when I go directly from breakfast to writing, the work flows. If I get involved in other activities before writing, it's generally a real struggle. so I write from about 10am to 1:30- 2 pm, then have lunch, and spend most of the afternoon on publicity.

Q: Do you take breaks, and if so, what do you do during them?

A: I stop every 45 minutes or so, do back and shoulder exercises for five minutes, then go back to work. I specifically do nothing that would occupy my mind and distract me from my story.

Q: Where do you write?

A: I'm fortunate enough to have a room separate from the house. There is no phone in the room, and no one comes down there, save for an emergency. The last time I was interrupted was in 1997, when a neighbor came down to tell me my wife had broken her ankle. I finished the sentence, then went up to take her to a doctor.

Q: What do you write with?

Q: ...and why is that your preference?

A: I type automatically, so the words just go onto the screen seemingly straight from my head. I can correct errors easily. I can shift text here and there with a couple of mouse clicks. I can revise critical passages 50 or a hundred times. I can do multiple backups, to avoid loss of work. I can print out an entire draft (to make those revisions that never seem to occur to me on the screen) in just a few minutes. And I can't read my own handwriting.

Q: What do you like to keep within arm's reach while you're writing?

A: General thesaurus, slang thesaurus, dictionary, printed references, pencil, paper

Q: What can you see when you look up from your writing?

Q: What was the first thing you wrote which was published?

A: When I was eight, I wrote, printed, published and distributed a neighborhood newspaper containing a detective serial called Richard Richard, Private Dick. Otherwise, I remained unpublished until 1972, when I wrote a short article for the Seattle Times on rude bicyclists.

Q: What is your latest book?

Larry Karp was born in Paterson, NJ and now lives in Seattle WA. Find out more about Larry and his writing from his website.

The copyright of the article Writers' Rituals - Larry Karp in Writing Techniques is owned by Janice Hally. Permission to republish Writers' Rituals - Larry Karp in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.