Index cards. Outlines. Daily word counts. Pilot Vball pens.
Like athletes who adhere to specific routines on game day, writers have their own tools and routines for, shall we say, getting the ball into the end zone. (This metaphor is brought to you by a Google search for “part of field where a touchdown happens.”)
Ashley Elston, who wrote the Reese-endorsed thriller “First Lie Wins,” has an eye-catching method for keeping track of a novel in progress. As she approaches the end of her first draft, Elston pulls a six-foot sheet of brown butcher paper from a roll on a specially installed rod near her desk. This two-yard stretch then becomes a playing field for her story, beginning with chapter descriptions jotted on large sticky notes. She said in a phone interview, “If I can’t sum up what’s happening, maybe it shouldn’t be there. It has to have a purpose.” She went on, “I sit back in my chair and start thinking about what’s not working and how I need to move things around.”
When Elston gets her first edit back, she adds comments and questions to the paper. She also keeps track of what day it is for her characters or their mileage if they take a road trip. “It’s a very visual process for me,” she said. “I want to be able to see the whole view and physically be able to move my notes around.”
Elston honed her visual approach as a wedding photographer — a job where, as she put it, “you’re telling the story of that day, from getting dressed to the vehicle the couple is leaving the reception in.” This chapter of Elston’s career came to a halt after her third son was born, when a medical emergency coincided with long-planned nuptials. “I was like, I have to shoot a wedding in four hours. I’m not leaving my baby. It was a horrible moment,” Elston said. Luckily, she was able to find substitute photographers at the last minute: “The bride was happy and then my son was fine. But I looked at my husband and I was like, ‘I’m done.’ I finished what was on the books and I never booked another wedding after that.”
Elston developed the butcher paper technique while writing six novels for young adults; “First Lie Wins” is her first for grown-ups, and her inaugural best seller. In October, on the eve of a weekend trip to Ole Miss to celebrate a milestone birthday, she learned that Reese Witherspoon had selected the novel for her January book club pick. Not surprisingly, Elston had a huge smile plastered on her face while tailgating: “Because I’m a Reese pick and nobody knows it yet, and everybody’s like, ‘You’re taking turning 50 well.’”
