Character-driven 'chapters' become writer's first novel

COLUMBIA — A novel may be described as plot-driven or character-driven, but to Will Allison, plot is almost always driven by character.

"A wise writer said that stories begin in autobiography and end in dreams. I think a lot about that when I write," says Allison, author of "What You Have Left" and a participant at the recent South Carolina Book Festival.

"Everything in my first book started with something in my life or the life of someone who is important to me. By the time it was finished, the book was completely fictionalized and unrecognizable as having had an autobiographical impulse. But it is the characters that propelled the story."

Allison, a Columbia native now living in South Orange, N.J., is the former executive editor of Story magazine and editor at large of Zoetrope: All-Story. His short fiction has appeared in numerous periodicals and has been cited in "The Best American Short Stories" and Pushcart Prize anthologies. His first novel was released by the Free Press in 2006, a mere 10 years in the making.

"I had written a short story, and when I was done with it, I knew that I wanted to write more about these characters," says Allison, who is at work on a second novel. "So I wrote another, unrelated short story, and then another, and somewhere along the way I started thinking of them more as chapters in a novel. It wasn't until halfway through the book that I had some sense of what the story was. Which is to say I sort of snuck up on writing a novel. Leading up to it I had published most of the 'chapters' in magazines, which took forever; there were hundreds of rejections along the way."

"What You Have Left" was named one of 2007's notable books by the San Francisco Chronicle, and was selected for Barnes & Noble's Discover Great New Writers and Borders' Original Voices, and was a Book Sense selection. Allison won't be sneaking up on his second novel.

"I have a deadline for the first time ever, and felt I couldn't afford to make as many false starts as I did with the first one. I needed a sense of where it was going early on. And I do. It's set in New Jersey, a straight chronological narrative told in the first person. The challenge is to sustain that first-person narration without it feeling claustrophobic to the reader. The hardest and most important thing for me is figuring out what the tone of the book is, what the narrator's attitude is toward the material in the book."

In it, a father is writing a story to be read by his daughter after he dies. This premise gave Allison his structure.

"It was only when I figured that out that I knew what the tone should be."

On writing book-length fiction, Allison says he sits down afraid every day.

"But I do have faith at this point that if I keep working on something long enough that eventually it will click. And I have to believe that. If I'm still interested in the story during the writing, I have to think a reader may be."

Allison received a B.A. in English and political science from Case Western Reserve University as well as an M.A. in English and MFA in creative writing from Ohio State, where he later taught. Before devoting himself to writing full time, Allison had been a ghostwriter, busboy, room service waiter, clerical temp, landscaper, house cleaner, process server, antique store salesman and, most prestigiously, baseball card dealer.

He says the experience of being the editor of a short fiction magazine has benefited him significantly as a writer.

"It made a huge difference for me. I was at Story for three years, which was the longest tenure of anyone in that position at the magazine, and coming out of there I ended up being a much slower writer. Slower as in writing and rewriting and revising again. It gave me a clear sense of where the bar was set. Every day I was rejecting most of the 20,000 manuscripts we got each year, which wasn't fun. And much of the time I thought a lot of them were better than some of the stories I was writing.

"It's a relief not to have to do that anymore."

Reach Bill Thompson at bthompson@postandcourier.com or 937-5707.