Author reveals secrets behind writing method

From the publishing house that released the popular PostSecret books comes a work of fiction that deals with secrets in a very different way. "The Safety of Secrets," the second book by author Delauné Michel, explores the relationship between two women, Fiona and Patricia, whose friendship was forged on a secret from their childhood that continues to haunt them as adults. Loyalty and betrayal are the main themes at play, in addition to the question of whether Patricia and Fiona's relationship can persist even after their secret is revealed. The Index recently had an opportunity to talk to Ms. Michel about her book and her thoughts on its themes and her own friendships.

Chris Boning: First of all, who are your favorite writers?

Delauné Michel: The top of my list in terms of being the most influential is Chekhov, Anton Chekhov - not only his plays, but his short fiction. I think in terms of really any kind of fiction writing ... reading Chekhov is a great education because [with] any theatrical piece one has to be very lean and spare, and one has to be all about the action moving forward, and Chekhov was really a master in writing a sentence that on the surface is what the character is saying but also has so many layers of intentions and information about what is going on in that character's life and relationships. ... I love Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, Willa Cather. I love Mona Simpson, Catherine Harrison. I love P.D. James and Michael Connelly and Raymond Chandler ... Richard Price and Richard Ford. ... There's so many.

CB: It sounds like you're very well-read.

DM: I love to read, and I am pretty much self-educated, so reading was how I learned how to write, basically.

CB: When you say you're self-educated, does that mean just as far as your writing career is concerned or in general?

DM: I didn't go to college. I finished high school at the end of 11th grade. I did study acting in New York for three years and trained as an actor. I didn't go to college, much less go through an M.F.A. program, so yes, I am very much self-educated as a writer and in terms of the liberal arts education that I have through my own studying and reading.

CB: What's your writing process like?

DM: I start out by writing an outline of the book. I write a history of the characters, starting with their birth. Not all the characters, but the main characters because I need to know who these people are and at any given point in their lives what they were doing. ... I write an outline and then three pages long-hand, and then I transfer that into the computer and when I do that I do my first edit. Then the next day, I will read the three pages I put to the computer and do another polish/edit on them. Then I write my three pages long-hand and put those into the computer. And the next day read those again, so it's kind of like a leapfrogging thing, ... but in the beginning, it's very much [the] long-hand is the characters' voices. ... The characters pretty much dictate the novel to me. I feel like I'm taking dictation from them.

CB: What inspired "The Safety of Secrets"?

DM: I had finished my first novel, "The Aftermath of Dreaming," which is about a young woman in a relationship with a man much older than her, and while I enjoyed exploring that topic, I was ready to leave behind that area of relationships for a while and move into another area. And for me, another area that is extremely important is my friendships with women. They really are the bedrock of my life, and when I thought about friendships with women, it made me think about the issues of loyalty and betrayal, and about the one thing [that connects] both of those. I realized it was a secret. A secret can be the one thing that binds us closer together and exactly the thing that tears two people apart, so I thought that was interesting. I decided to look at friendship that has secrets from its past and really a glue holding them together, and I wanted to look at, would that friendship survive if that secret was let loose in the world?

CB: Are there any characters in the book you personally identify with?

DM: I would probably say more Fiona. She is a fictive character, but I did give her pretty much [the bulk] of my acting career because it worked well for what I wanted her career to be like, and it was kind of fun getting to set up the situations in Hollywood, which are so vastly important when someone is in them, but looking back it's all kind of funny and ridiculous ... But, finally, she's a fictive character. It is fiction, [and] all of the tragedies and things that happen to her are not things I experienced at all. But in terms of a voice and an outlook at the world in terms of being from the South and living in Los Angeles and having a kind of fish-out-of-water, Southern mentality in L.A. - that's very much me.

CB: Which part was most difficult to write?

DM: I would think Fiona's husband [Neil], frankly. It's an important relationship, but just looking at it technically, the character really is just there to support her and to be a foil. You immediately see the triangle that happens in terms of loyalty and betrayal with Fiona telling Patricia before she tells Neil, ... but he's not a huge character like Zane. He ... doesn't change much, so with a character like that I think the trap one can fall into is the kind of being bland on the page, and I hope I didn't fall into that. ... The other ones were so real to me, and their voices were so loud, it was more a matter of getting them to shut up than making sure they were being heard.

CB: What do you want people to take away from this book?

DM: I hope that it will allow them to look at their own friendships and their lives and to look at their relationship with loyalty and betrayal. I think that whole triangle thing that happens - which I think is just fascinating - I don't know anyone, at least women, who have not fallen into that. We have our best friends, and suddenly we have a partner and then there is that whole funny thing of, Where do my loyalties lie? ... I don't think men go through that. And talking to other women who have read the book, they have said that back to me.