CR 058: Author Diane McKinney-Whetstone on the Joy of Not Knowing Where the Story Will Go
The critically acclaimed author discusses her writing process and her latest novel, “Family Spirit.”
Although Diane McKinney-Whetstone knew at age 10 that she wanted to be an author, it would be nearly 30 years before she would begin to write in earnest. “I didn’t actually start fiction writing until almost 40,” she says. “I thought about the things I would regret not having done at the end of my life, and trying to write a novel would have certainly been a major regret if I didn’t try. And once I acknowledged that, I started getting signals from the universe. And then it became this internal thunder I couldn’t ignore. And that is when I actually started writing fiction.”
The result was Tumbling, McKinney-Whetstone’s 1996 critically acclaimed debut that was referred to as a “remarkable first novel” by Publishers Weekly. In the decades since, she has published six additional novels, each one bringing to life different eras of her beloved hometown of Philadelphia.
Her eighth novel, Family Spirit, tells the story of the Maces, a family of clairvoyants who, despite having the gift of sight, are blind to the trauma caused by generations of familial secrets and lies. Added to the mix is Nona, the novelist who is writing the Maces’ story, and as a result is forced to confront some secrets of her own.
I recently chatted with McKinney-Whetstone about the novel, her writing process, and why the pre-dawn hours are her favorite time to write.
This content contains affiliate links. I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.
SANDRA EBEJER: Where did the idea for Family Spirit come from?
DIANE MCKINNEY-WHETSTONE: I don’t know why the notion of clairvoyance appealed to me. It never has [before], certainly in the context of my fiction. I mean, there’s a bit of magic realism in some of my books—I think in my first book a character could see into the future—but never in a way that would sustain an entire novel. For whatever reason, that just appealed to me. So I thought, “I’m going to write about a clairvoyant family in Philly.” That was all I knew. It was just that kind of really broad idea. And once I started writing, it started to take shape.
That’s a good segue to my next question. You’ve said in interviews that you don’t plot out your novels. So what is the typical process for you? Do you just sit and begin writing?
Generally, when I start out, what I know [is] I want to write a book. And beyond that, things start coming to me. What will I write about? What am I thinking about? What’s appealing to me? That process can go on for weeks, where ideas just float in and out of my mind. And then the notion of clairvoyance came to me. I thought, “That’s really interesting. Huh.” But I didn’t want to do it in a way that was not grounded. I didn’t want it to be an entirely otherworld book. I wanted to ground it in a way that there were real issues and relevant things. That the story would have its internal logic, of course, but that the people also had, beyond the fact that they can see into the future, their sense of normalcy, so the reader could identify with some of the things they were going through that had nothing to do with their clairvoyance.
The story jumps around in time, and we meet characters at different points in their lives. If you don’t plot out a novel, how do you write without getting timelines mixed up?
I do get mixed up. [Laughs] I wish I didn’t, but I do. When I’m writing, I’ll structure and then restructure and pull things apart and put them back together until they make sense to me and have a flow that seems to work for me. With this particular novel, the character Nona, the woman writing the book, became a stabilizer for me. I could go in and out of what was going on in her world to also ground where I was in the Mace’s world. And initially, she started off being like a fill-in for me. Because, at the outset, I’m not sure that this is possible, that people can have ceremonies and see into the future. I don’t know if I believe that. So I approached it with this sense of not knowing, which is good for me when I’m writing because then I discover things. And so I thought Nona would fill in for me and be skeptical. But then she changed in ways I hadn’t expected, and she became more than this objective observer. As she wrote the characters, she actually became a participant in the story that I had not expected to happen, so in that sense, she was no longer a fill-in for me or for a reader who may have doubts about the Maces’ abilities. She became another character that I had to work with.
So in thinking about the character Lil—you jump around to different parts of her life. Did you write her story chronologically and then structure it so it changes in time? Or did you bounce around in time as you were writing?
Both happen. At points, I’m bouncing around, the characters are bouncing around, and I’m just following them and wherever they land. And that just seems to make sense for the structure of the book. In other cases, I’m writing in a more linear way, and then I pull pieces out. I mean, [the scene] when Ayana chokes on the lollipop initially opened the novel, because I was starting from a young Ayana, but then, as it turned out, it [needs to] happen much later in the novel. So I will pull things from where I thought they should be and put them where [they belong], once I’ve gotten more into the story and discover some things.
I don’t want to spoil anything, but there are things about Nona’s life that make it into the story she’s writing that she’s trying to avoid. Does that happen to you? Do you find that you’re writing something and things you don’t want to address land on the page?
Absolutely. It happens. My worldview will fall onto the page. I didn’t want to deal with politics. It’s just so heavy for me right now, and I [thought], “I’m not going to write about that.” But then things happen in the story. There’s a scene with Nona and her husband, and she’s like, “Someone’s going to mistake you for an immigrant, and think you’re coming for their job.” That just fell onto the page. And I let it stay. That happens, where there’s some things I don’t want to deal with. But if it needs to be there and it lands onto the page, I’ll just say, “Yes, it needs to be there.”
At one point Nona stops herself from getting mad at her characters because “getting mad at her characters was never helpful.” Do you ever get mad at your characters? Do you carry them around with you when you’re not writing?
I do. I can get disappointed. The empathy wears away and I’m like, “You shithead. Why would you do that?” Those thoughts happen with the characters, and it’s not helpful, because then I’m judging them, and if I’m writing from a posture of judgment, the whole narrative will be skewed in ways that I don’t want it to be. I always try to approach them with this deep empathy, so I can really try to understand what it is that they’re feeling, why they’re reacting the way they do, and even if I don’t understand it, to accept it without judgment. So yes, that’s me. I mean, a lot of Nona’s writing process is, in fact, my writing process. I don’t know where I’m going. I get scared by things. I don’t want to deal with them, but they keep coming up, so I keep having to address them. So, yes, a lot of her process comes from me.
There’s a scene in the book where Nona visits a fortune teller in the name of research for her book. Do you do any research of your own for your novels?
I do, but I like to imagine it first, even stuff I know nothing about. I like to write it out from my imagination. And I’m always amazed at how very close the imagination gets to what would happen when I do research to confirm it. I didn’t visit [a fortune teller]. In my youth, at the boardwalk or whatever, my friends and I would go to a fortune teller. That kind of thing I’ve certainly done but not in any kind of serious way to have someone tell me what’s going to happen. I’ve not done that, but I watched some special on psychics in New York, and I was amazed at what these seemingly normal people went through when they were trying to help somebody. It was similar to the way [the character] GG is with [clients]. So, yeah, I do research, but after I’ve already imagined it.
You didn’t begin to write fiction professionally until you were nearly 40. Were you working in another field prior to becoming an author?
I’d always done public relations work that was very heavy on writing. When I started my first novel, I was actually at the USDA Forest Service in the research branch. I was the public affairs director, so I was responsible for taking the research and making it palatable for lay audiences. It was nice writing because it was stuff I didn’t understand, like how a gypsy moth defoliates trees, that kind of thing. So to ask questions about it and then put it in a form that everyone could read and understand and even be excited by was really good for me. But I got to the point where I was actually writing dramas. I remember once it was like, these trees are dying in North Carolina, and even though they’re sitting in this fog, it’s not air pollution that’s killing them, it’s this little bug. And I’m like, really? My job is to dissect the research that’s given to me and put it out there. So I wrote kind of a “the butler didn’t do it” [piece]. I started [writing] that it was this bug that was killing these trees, not the air pollution, even though they’re sitting in a cloud. I wrote a whole story about that, but implicit in that was “maybe the butler did do it.” I realized after that, I gotta start writing for myself because this is getting crazy. Either way I’m going to get fired.
At that point, I knew it was time to devote myself. I had children. [I was] married, busy, and I had to find a time that was mine alone, that I didn’t have to negotiate with family, other obligations, job, or anything, which for me was very early, between five and seven in the morning. I started getting up at five o’clock, sometimes 4:30 and just writing, not knowing where it was going. It was such a magical time. Sometimes I’d look up and it was eight o’clock. Everyone was late. My husband was late for work; the kids were late for school. It got to the point where the principal sent a letter: “Please help them to get to school on time.” It was so embarrassing. It was a messy process, and I suppose it still is.
I’m in different circumstances now. Children are long grown, and my husband knows to stay out of my way. But writing and putting a book together is still a very messy process for me. It’s not linear, it’s not organized. It’s just messy. And I’ve accepted that’s part of it. Part of my work is to get into the mess and let it consume me. It’s like cleaning out a closet. Everything’s in the middle of the floor, then I put things one by one where they belong [until] I have an organized closet.
Do you still get up at 4:30 a.m. to write?
I do. Particularly if I’m really into the writing and I have a deadline. That is my time. I just have access to parts of my brain that leave by one or two o’clock. I’m amazed when I have struggled with something later in the day and then look at it in the morning and the answers just come, and I figure things out. I think it’s something, too, with the sun rising and what’s going on with the Earth, the changing from night to day. There’s something there, a kind of magic I can tap into.
Philly plays a huge role in your books, including Family Spirit. What is it about the city that makes you want to continue to incorporate it into your stories?
I know the city, since I was born and raised here, and since I don’t know the story, the city can be the thing I can come back to over and over again to direct me. It’s like a kind of mindfulness. It can pull me back. And it’s got so many textures to it, so many contraries. It’s a lot of old money in Philly, but also real poverty. And the differences in the neighborhoods where one block is this functioning, nice community, and then a couple of blocks over, it’s like bedlam. It’s very historical, even as it tries to be this future-oriented city. It’s also a city of neighborhoods. It can have a really provincial, almost Southern feel to it. It’s got so many textures. It’s that thing where you’ve got this relative that has all of these faults, but you love them. That’s my relationship to Philly. It’s always a good place to start and then carry throughout.
A lot of authors say they use their writing to figure out a problem or learn something new about themselves. Is that the case for you? Do you feel as though you walked away from writing this novel having learned something new?
Wow, that is such a good question. I do try to figure things out. I do try to learn something. I try to write from a place of not knowing, so that I can always leave myself open as I explore the characters and the setting and the plot, such as it is. I like to leave myself open and discover things. I was thinking a lot with this novel about clairvoyance generally, but also about the difference between intuition and clairvoyance, and do we all have this capacity to know things that will happen before they happen? I was thinking a lot about my maternal grandmother, Lula, who I dedicated the book to. She didn’t have a formal education—she was born in the late 1800s—but she just knew things. She knew when it was going to rain, how to adjust her yeast roll recipe based on how much humidity was in the air. She knew about people—who was fundamentally good, who to avoid. She just knew things. How, I don’t know, but she did, and as I was writing the book, I realized what a gift that is.
I mean, I’m educated, and I read a lot, and that’s how I know things. But that wasn’t the case with her. Some people, I think, are just gifted with this sense about things, about the world, and also about what might happen. I was grappling with that as I was writing the book, and I think that helped me to keep the clairvoyance grounded so that it would still feel real to me. I came through with this awareness that, yeah, education is good, it’s vital, it’s necessary, it’s all of that, but it’s not everything. Is it possible to not have that and still be able to tap into this inner knowing of things? Do we all have that capacity? Does it erode and get worn away as we get older and, ironically, smarter? I came away from that with the feeling that I think it is possible. I think it is possible to know things in many kinds of ways. That was my learning from this—that if I’m still enough, maybe I can have awareness about things that otherwise I wouldn’t. Maybe I’m capable of that. Maybe we all are.
Who are your influences as a writer? Who do you turn to for inspiration?
I’ll read Toni Morrison, because she shows what’s possible with language, even though not many of us are on the plane that she was. But we’re humans, we can aspire to that. I’ll read her a lot for inspiration.
You’ve taught fiction writing at the college level in the past. Was there a particular piece of advice that you found yourself giving to students over and over?
Yeah. What you think is the beginning maybe is not the beginning. Maybe it’s the middle. Maybe you need to write more to discover where the story should start. Maybe this isn’t the starting place. That’s one thing I found over and over in [my students’] work. They would start with something and then try to follow that path, and maybe that’s not the path that the story needs to go. Also, the story knows what it’s about. It’s up to the writer to discover it and then render it. That’s the writer’s responsibility, to discover this story. So don’t approach the story with the sense of already knowing everything that will happen.
Also, particularly with younger writers, there was the tendency to under-fictionalize, to take things exactly from their lives as they lived them and to place those things in a character in exactly the same way. There’s no room for the imagination, no room for wonder, no room for questioning. And they’re like, “Well, this is how it happened.” Well, that’s the problem. That’s why the story is problematic. It shouldn’t be how it happened.
You know, they say “write what you know.” I don’t buy that. I say, “Write what you can imagine.” Because you don’t know what you know until you’ve gone through the process, and then you’ll discover what in fact you know and learn along the way and enhance your knowing of things. So that was probably the biggest: write what you can imagine.
To learn more about Diane McKinney-Whetstone, visit her website.
To purchase Family Spirit, click here.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
You might also enjoy…
