Laurie L. Dove, author of 'Mask of the Deer Woman' - Mystery Thriller writer discusses keeping busy, magical realism, and sneaking up on the story.
Writer's Routine
Dan Simpson
4.9 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 7 February 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Laurie Dove is a do-er. She likes to keep busy. Alongside writing for numerous places like CNN, Animal Planet, the LA Business Journal, and many more, Laurie was elected local Mayor back in 2015, has a Masters Degree from Harvard, and has just published 'Mask of the Deer Woman'.
It tells the story of Carrie Starr. Once a detective in Chicago, Carrie has hit rock-bottom after a personal tragedy and returned to the reservation in which she grew up to be their local Marshal. When a college student goes missing, Carrie must wrestle with the reasons why her own daughter disappeared.
We discuss why Laurie has found time to write for pleasure when she makes money writing for other people, also how she dealt with the ambiguity of magical realism, and why she likes to sneak up on the story. You can hear how fiction comes from character, how hard it is to find an organic ending to the first novel in a series, and why the only way to find out how to write novels... is to write novels.
This week's episode is sponsored by the 'Charley Scott Mysteries', by Vanessa Westermann. To find out more about these feel-good thrillers set in the stunning Canadian countryside, head here - www.vanessa-westermann.info/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, welcome along to a brand new episode of writers' routine. This week, we're with Laurie Dove. |
| 0:15.0 | Laurie writes a little bit of everything, really, for all sorts of publications like Animal Planet, CNN, the LA Business |
| 0:21.4 | Journal and so many more. She's written nonfiction books and has a new novel out. It's called |
| 0:27.4 | Mask of the Deer Woman. We discuss why she gets through many thousands of words in a day. |
| 0:34.7 | It's quite a big number. Why is she aiming so high? Can they all be useful? |
| 0:39.6 | A lot of those words are writing my way in and I just sit down and write, whether it's by |
| 0:46.4 | hand or on the computer. And I know that if I start writing and I write long enough, I will |
| 0:52.4 | eventually get to the point where I'm writing |
| 0:54.9 | something that belongs in the story and that is good for the story. I usually start off with |
| 1:00.7 | words that are just for me and they go something like this. Okay, this is fine. We can do this. You're |
| 1:06.2 | going to have a great idea. Just keep writing. I find that once I do that and I kind of take that pressure off, |
| 1:13.6 | then I can get into the story. Also, thinking about detective fiction, you can get tips, |
| 1:19.2 | hints and tricks on how to make your protagonist stand out uniquely. I didn't read very widely |
| 1:25.3 | in the genre that I wrote this book in, and I think that helped me |
| 1:28.9 | because when I was bringing this character together, she really, this is, I know this sounds |
| 1:37.1 | strange. She really came into my head fully formed. I knew that she was complicated, she was complex, she was at the time mired in grief. |
| 1:49.0 | And there would be times when, you know, you would just want to shake her and say, |
| 1:53.9 | get out of your head and go do something. |
| 1:57.3 | But all of that, I think, is really central to who she is as a character when we first |
| 2:03.1 | meet her. It's all on the way with Laurie Dove in this week's writer's routine. |
| 2:13.9 | Yes, welcome along. This is writer's routine. It's where we take a look inside an author's working day. |
| 2:19.0 | We scope out their day to steal some secrets and hints to get our own stuff down. |
... |
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