Hi, this is Celeste. I have been writing poems since 2017 and my low-fantasy crime novel Project Dylan since 2022.

Letters for Creatives is the place where I share my thoughts on writing, creativity, resources for creatives, and interview creators and authors bi-weekly. If you want to get them in your inbox, you can always subscribe! You can take a look at the archive before you get the next letter from me.

You can now become a sponsor to get your product featured (620+ subs of writers and creatives).

Book a sponsor spot

I have been into house and deep house music for god knows how long. It is the perfect genre if you don’t want to listen to instrumental music while you work on your manuscript. That usually gets me to write for 3 hours non-stop, so try it ;)

As I shared my reading list last time, I have been reading I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai. You can check out her newsletter on writing the opening and ending of a novel, publishing and all things storytelling. I am going to try my best to attempt and analyze Makkai’s book below.

(Please don’t throw books at me if I am not doing a great job here. I am not a literature graduate and English is my second language. It took my whole life to get here, writing this, literally. The best thing that my mum got me was English tutoring classes, which was hell.)

If you still want to learn along with me as I analyze my way to better storytelling skills, I very much appreciate it. This one for the series would be free. If you want to get them in the future, you can always upgrade anytime :)

What you get with a paid subscription (monthly/yearly)

• Are you looking to get behind-the-scenes of published authors? Have full access to the interviews with published authors and indie creators.

• Are you trying to get better at storytelling? Get your full access to Literature Lab, deconstructing fiction for you.

• Full access to newsletter issues for paid subscribers (On writing, creativity and mental wellness as a creative)

• You also get exclusive creative challenges and fiction/writing craft book recommendations for your creative/writing life

Get 10% off for 1 year

I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai

“You’ve heard of her,” I say—a challenge, an assurance. To the woman on the neighboring hotel barstool who’s made the mistake of striking up a conversation, to the dentist who runs out of questions about my kids and asks what I’ve been up to myself.

Sometimes they know her right away. Sometimes they ask, “Wasn’t that the one where the guy kept her in the basement?”

No! No. It was not.

Wasn’t it the one where she was stabbed in—no. The one where she got in a cab with—different girl. The one where she went to the frat party, the one where he used a stick, the one where he used a hammer, the one where she picked him up from rehab and he—no. The one where he’d been watching her jog every day? The one where she made the mistake of telling him her period was late? The one with the uncle? Wait, the other one with the uncle?

No: It was the one with the swimming pool. The one with the alcohol in the—with her hair around—with the guy who confessed to—right. Yes.

They nod, comforted. By what?

My barstool neighbor pulls the celery from her Bloody Mary, crunches down. My dentist asks me to rinse. They work her name in their mouths, their memories. “I definitely know that one,” they say.

“That one,” because what is she now but a story, a story to know or not know, a story with a limited set of details, a story to master by memorizing maps and timelines.

“The one from the boarding school!” they say. “I remember, the one from the video. You knew her?”

She’s the one whose photo pops up if you search New Hampshire murder, alongside mug shots from the meth-addled tragedies of more recent years. One photo—her laughing with her mouth but not her eyes, suggesting some deep unhappiness—tends to feature in clickbait. It’s just a cropped shot of the tennis team from the yearbook; if you knew Thalia it’s easy to see she wasn’t actually upset, was simply smiling for the camera when she didn’t feel like it.

It was the story that got told and retold.

It was the one where she was young enough and white enough and pretty enough and rich enough that people paid attention.

It was the one where we were all young enough to think someone smarter had the answers.

Maybe it was the one we got wrong.

Maybe it was the one we all, collectively, each bearing only the weight of a feather, got wrong.

Literature analysis

The protagonist does not reveal who she is referring to in the conversations until multiple versions of the story are on the page. It creates a sense of suspense and plays the trick that leads the reader to read from the first sentence to the next sentence, the next paragraph and so on. Then you get the name of the victim, Thalia.

Makkai purposefully omits quotation marks when it comes to the conversations. Each sentence is one possible version of the incident. The paragraph becomes much smoother without quotation marks but you don’t know where someone stopped talking in the sentence. It is a bunch of tangled cables metaphorically. It suits the book perfectly as it is mystery/thriller and you want suspense!

Wasn’t it the one where she was stabbed in—no. The one where she got in a cab with—different girl. The one where she went to the frat party, the one where he used a stick, the one where he used a hammer, the one where she picked him up from rehab and he—no. The one where he’d been watching her jog every day? The one where she made the mistake of telling him her period was late? The one with the uncle? Wait, the other one with the uncle?

Then it goes back to describing what the people were doing when they are gossiping about the incident. And it goes back to the conversation again.

My barstool neighbor pulls the celery from her Bloody Mary, crunches down. My dentist asks me to rinse. They work her name in their mouths, their memories. “I definitely know that one,” they say.

Next is what the book is about.

What is she now but a story, a story to know or not know, a story with a limited set of details, a story to master by memorizing maps and timelines.

Then the protagonist tells you what the incident is.

She’s the one whose photo pops up if you search New Hampshire murder, alongside mug shots from the meth-addled tragedies of more recent years.

Then the prologue ends with what the book in fact about. The incident would not have happened if the Thalia does not have certain traits that attacts the predator in the first place.

It was the story that got told and retold.

It was the one where she was young enough and white enough and pretty enough and rich enough that people paid attention.

It was the one where we were all young enough to think someone smarter had the answers.

Maybe it was the one we got wrong.

Maybe it was the one we all, collectively, each bearing only the weight of a feather, got wrong.

Share Letters for Creatives

Makkai said in an interview that she starts by developing the plot and the setting when she starts a new book. Then, she thinks about characters, character arc and how they could be vulnerable in the story. She researchs and let the ideas marinate in her mind for a few years until she started typing the manuscript (writing and typing are different for Makkai).

Makkai plays with the fact of how inaccurate the memory can be by making the protagonist in 2018 looks back at an incident in 1995. Even though the narrator is an unreliable one, it comes out as if she is talking about the truth.

If you like reading this letter, you can show your support by:

Restacking, sharing or clicking the little heart❤️

Share

Leave a comment

Become a better writer/creative with full access to:

• Future issues of the Literature Lab, deconstructing the mechanics of groundbreaking fiction

• 120+ newsletter issues on creativity, storytelling and writing

• 19 interviews with creators and published authors, on their writing/creative process, getting over roadblocks, their creative hero and more

• 2023 and 2024 writing/creative prompts

Prompt #17

Pick up one of your favourite books and try to analyze the prologue (and so on). When you start a writing project, you can go back and check all your notes.

Sending love,

Celeste