Conclusion of Novel Journey's Chat with Liz Curtis Higgs

Last week, we featured the first part of an interview with Liz Curtis Higgs. This week is the conclusion. To learn more about Liz Curtis Higgs, her books, her ministry, and to join her newsletter and more, please visit www.lizcurtishiggs.com.

[Interview conducted via the phone with Jessica Dotta]


Do you ever find yourself not putting something you want in your novel because you're afraid of how your reader may react?

Actually, my theory of the writing process is to put everything in and not censor it—thinking in terms of what's acceptable, what's appropriate, what might step on a toe. I'm trying to write all the way to my heart, so I put on the page everything. Then, when I go back the next day and edit that scene, I'm going to start taking stuff out, because now I’m thinking like an editor or reader, and I'm saying, "Ooh, that one phrase or thought takes it a little too farther than I think some people will want to go." And so out it comes. You've read Grace In Thine Eyes.

Loved it.

Well, bless you. You put an amazing review on Amazon, and I'm ever grateful for that.

Well, you know, I was reading the novel and had not realized what biblical story you were patterning it after.

That's good.

And I hit the middle of the book and I'm like, ”Oh no she did not!"

[laughing] Oh, yes she did

And that is what I love about your writing. I sincerely recommend your books to everyone. When I get your books, I do not open them until I have nothing on my plate that day, because I get so enwrapped in your novels.

Well, that's the goal, so thank you so much for falling right in line with that. Anyway, mentioning Grace in Thine Eyes and getting back to what I don't put in, there's a good example of a very difficult scene that occurs in that book. We don't have to go into details, it was hard enough to write, yet I knew I had to write it as realistically as I could. Because I was writing a great deal of personal experience, I could go deeper than some writers might, simply because I've been there. And so then, once all that pain, frankly, was on the page, I could go back and take out—sometimes it was just a word—or sometimes it would be just a phrase added that was just a little more than we needed to say. However, I want it to be real to my readers, I want them to experience exactly what the heroine was experiencing, so I fight for some things.

A couple of reviewers have said of Grace this is a book for mature readers, but honestly, I write for women. I don't write for teens. In fact I think one of the dangers of Christian fiction is that it's so sanitized that it doesn't speak to us at all. That it doesn't come to any deep place, because it's skimming across the surface of what a woman really experiences in life. And so, with care, and much prayer, I'm writing. If God ever checks my spirit and He pulls me back, I'm obedient, believe me. I never want something in my novels just to shock or be graphic. That is not my goal. But sometimes we have to feel what the woman is feeling in the story, and that means sharing a detail that will make us all sigh and say, 'I know what that's like.'

Do you ever grow frustrated by the limitations in the CBA?

Not at all, because some of them are wonderful and wise. Let's not go some places, you know. I'm grateful. I do have a lot of readers to write and say, 'I'm used to reading secular novels and I'm so grateful that in your novels you don't have A. B. C. or D'. I think we offer a wonderful alterative to that. I have never, ever, felt cramped by the expectations of my publisher. Ever. But, I also have a really fabulous publisher that understands what I'm trying to do and is supportive of it, and they know I'll listen if they flag something. But I try to get to it before they do. In other words, I try to do that in my self-editing process before I ever turn the manuscript in.

What feedback have you received from non-Christians or those who only read ABA fiction?

Well, that's been thrilling for me because I only came to know Christ at 27, so I had a number of years out there in the big, bad world. My heart is always for that woman, who has not found the Christ yet, doesn’t know how much God loves her, and happens to read fiction.

I love to reach that woman, and we have very carefully packaged these books to appeal to a reader who might not normally reach for Christian fiction. For example, the trilogy is very clearly based on Jacob, Leah and Rachel, but it never says that on the book cover. Grace in Thine Eyes, very clearly—about half way through the book you figure out—is based on Dinah from Genesis 34, but we don't say that. You could have on the back, 'Here is Dinah, moved to 19th century Scotland' but I think that would do more harm than good.

I want every reader to come to these stories, ready to be taught, ready to have an experience, and ready to travel with me, not having preconceived notions about what they're going to find there.

Do you receive fan mail (from secular readers)?

Oh, absolutely. The publisher has been very gracious about not only putting my books in the general market bookstores, but also by buying ads in magazines like Scottish Life, The Highlander, which are read by Americans of Scottish descent, who just love books about Scotland and have no clue that these books have Christian content. And so that's been thrilling. I did get one woman, oh this was just fascinating, she wrote me a letter and said, 'I've read Thorn in my Heart, you're a wonderful writer, but I kept thinking how much better this book would be if you just didn't have all that religious stuff.

[laughing] Oh no!!

It was fascinating to enter into dialogue with her because her e-mail was kind of 'I'm sure you'll never write me back'. That's absolutely not true, I write everybody back, however critical they would be, because usually if someone is critical, it isn't as much about my book as it about something that my book touched inside them. So my goal is to minister to them and not worry about what they say. The key is how can I encourage you?

So I wrote to her and I said, 'Oh that was such a fascinating comment, and I'm going to take it that you like my writing, but I'm also going to say there would be no story without this faith element from me. I could never write a novel separate from my faith in Jesus Christ and my desire to sit down and share that faith with anyone who will sit down and listen.' Then, of course, she opened up and said 'here's why I'm so negative on religion.' We just went back and forth a few times in e-mails. It was a fabulous time. We ended on such a sweet note together. She said 'I will look forward to reading your future novels, and that was amazing, since she started out by saying 'yuck.'

I just invite that dialogue with my readers, because they teach me and they give me a chance to minister, which is really what it's all about to me.

When your fans write you, or you meet them in person, what do they most want to know about you?

Well, a lot of times it's 'What's this Scottish connection?' I wish I could say, "Oh well, my great grandmother lived in . . . " But the fact is, we've done our family lineage back a couple of centuries, and we've yet to hit any root there. We're in Ireland, Wales, England, and we're in France. We do have Walkers and Crawfords on my side of the family. So I feel certain there's either Scots or Scots-Irish blood back there somewhere. But that wasn't the connection. It was simply God saying—a sort of—"Go to Nineveh—Go to Scotland."

And now, it's just such a part of my life, it's literally my home away from home. That's a question people often ask, is why Scotland.

I just did a wonderful book signing, oh the people were so fun. They had wild questions, one said, "I've never been in a castle, describe what it's like to stand in a castle." So I got to stand up and try to do this visual imagery for everybody.

A lot of times they ask, 'Did you always want to be a fiction writer?' And I can point back to my childhood when I wrote I don't know how many novels in my teens. I mean they were awful. [Laughs]You don't want to read them, but clearly that desire to tell stories goes way back for me. Between the ages of ten and seventeen I did a bunch, then went silent while I spent ten years as a bad girl. And then when I came to the Lord, the first thing I felt called to do was speak, and so I've been a public speaker for twenty years. Then, of course, I segued into writing but that was non-fiction, and then it was children's, and then came the Scottish historical fiction call. The rest is what we've shared already.

Lots of fiction writers are going to tell you they started writing in their teens and twenties, but I waited because God said wait—until my forties, and I think that's okay.

What do you think are misconceptions that people have about you?

Wow, you might have to ask them that. Misconceptions? Well, I think people in general assume that fiction writing is easy, that you sit down and the stories just flow out of you. It is the hardest work I have ever done. I've done full time radio, I've done speaking before twenty thousand people—no problem. I've done lots of different things, but fiction is so hard.

First you have to go to that world in your head. Because my world isn't the one that's out the window, because it's a couple of centuries back, I can take a couple of hours just to get myself settled in to 18-whatever, and hear the cadence of the voices, feel the flow of the day. We run around like chickens now, and then, it was a different pace. You know, you read Jane Austin and it's like, "You did what all day? It took you a whole day to write a letter?" This is a different world than we know.

So there's the getting into that place, and the hard part is that today's world, the contemporary world keeps busting into your historical head. You'll just be there, and then all the sudden, somebody is at the door or saying "Liz, you got a phone call." They don't have phones in 1789, how can the phone be ringing?

Funny story, I get so into the world of my books that I sometimes lose touch with what's going on. My family and I were riding to church, and I looked out the window and said "Wow, look at all these flowers for April. I can't believe we have this many flowers in people's gardens in April. And they turned around and said, "Mom, it's August." But I had been so in April, in my books that I was still there. So that can happen, and they'll tease me.

So there's getting into the world, and knowing if you're going in the right direction. In other words, because I do play it a little loose when I go into a scene, I let the characters go. I just follow them. Sometimes they say amazing things. Amazing as in "What? Where are you going? Why would you have that discussion? Well, okay, I'll keep going with you. I'll see."

At the end of the writing day, you can think 'wow, that was fascinating' but it didn't advance the plot one iota. Then you have to throw it all out and start over again the next day. Those kind of three steps forward, two steps back can be very frustrating and also you begin to second guess yourself. Was I right to dump that? Should I have kept that? It's a lot of that—back and forth. Every word is fought for in fiction.

Do you bounce your story off a reader or critique group as you write?

Never. First of all because I'm not sure what's going to happen, and I'm such a people pleaser, I know if I describe the story to somebody, and they even wrinkle their brow, I would be thinking, oh, okay, this isn't going to work. So no.

Of course, I do have a proposal and outline, which I share with my editor and agent, but it's so big picture, it's so general that it leaves me lots of room to move around. When I compare that description to the actual finished novel, I always laugh. However much I thought I'd cover, I cover half that, and so much that I thought would happen, didn't happen.

One thing I'm asked often is why did you not number Thorn in My Heart, Fair is the Rose and Whence Came a Prince—1, 2 & 3. Real simple. I had no idea there was going to be a series. I thought I was writing one novel, Thorn in My Heart that's it. Half way through, I thought, 'Oh my goodness, look what happens next in the biblical story, when Rachel says give me children or I'll die. Oh wow, this is drama, I have to write that book, but I'll finish the story in the second book.' So there's Fair is the Rose, and I'm figuring this will be it. Halfway through that, I thought, okay, we're never going to get this all covered because we've got to get Jamie back home. He's got to face his brother, face his father who he deceived. So there were three books. The trilogy really does end with Whence Came a Prince.

Grace in Thine Eyes is meant to be a stand-alone. You can come into it cold—not having read the trilogy. But it is sort of a part two, but I wouldn't have dared give it a number. So, I can confound readers that way, and I don't mean to. That would qualify me as a hem-of-the-skirt-writer, wouldn't it?

Now the next trilogy, I'm going into it, expecting it to be a trilogy. But I guarantee you, it will either be two books or four. I went to the right pub house—who says, 'Whatever, Liz, keep writing, and we'll make it work.' I am so grateful.

What do you wish you had known earlier, when you started to write fiction that might have saved you time or frustrations?

I think frustration and the time spent is all part of the package. I think if I would have known, back in 1995 when God said Scottish historical fiction, if I had known what was ahead of me, I would have said, 'Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not going there,' because it is such hard work, because these books take so long. Grace in Thine Eyes was a 14-month writing project for me. And I never take that long with any book. Bad Girls of the Bible took me six months.

What new author are you excited about—that you see coming up on the horizon?

Wow, that is such a good question. I have the blessing of reading manuscripts before they're published to offer a word of endorsements. I'm reading a novel right now that I'm just knocked out by. It's by Allison K. Pittman. It's the second in a series, and I'm so excited about this one. It's called Speak through the Wind, coming out Spring of 2007. I can't wait to finish it. Write my endorsement. Back up and read the first one, which was Ten Thousand Charms. And let me tell you, I don't say that very often.

She has a wonderful sense of how much to include in the historical and when you're overkill. She also does an exceptional job of engaging all the senses. Writers often forget about sense of smell. We need to know they're there. She just includes unique ones. I think I'm impressed with the uniqueness of the details.

The writing is really there, so there's one name I'd love to throw out there to check out.

Did you want to leave with any parting words?

Oh, I love parting words. If you are a reader, may I simply say, 'God bless you for being there.' I am so, so grateful to my readers. I don't know if you can understand how much it means to a writer. When you write, it means you're alone. You are alone in that room. It's you and the Lord and the computer, and that's it. So when a reader responds, even a couple of sentences to say, 'I really enjoyed this book,' those are treasures. So never hesitate to write, email a writer because it is the payment that we get that matters far more than royalties or any of that.

If you're a writer, my beloved brother or sister, hang in there. If you're not published yet and God has clearly called you to write—nobody would ever write for the fun of it, when it's such hard work—so hang in there. Keep polishing your craft, and worry more about craft than any other element in the writing business—marketing or promotion, or agents or publishers. You just get the 'write' right, and I believe God will take care of it.

About the Author:
Liz Curtis Higgs is the author of twenty-four books, with more than three million copies in print. In her series of best-selling Bad Girls of the Bible books, Liz Curtis Higgs breathes new life into ancient tales about the most infamous—and intriguing—women in scriptural history. Her best-selling historical novels, which transport the stories of Rebecca, Leah, Rachel, and Dinah to eighteenth-century Scotland, also help readers see these familiar characters in a new light.

As a gifted speaker, Liz Curtis Higgs has presented more than 1,500 encouraging programs for audiences both nationally and internationally. She received the Council of Peers Award for Excellence from the National Speakers Association, becoming one of only thirty women in the world named to their Speaker Hall of Fame.