WORD A Creative Writing Commentary

Author: ABIGAIL MITCHELL

The word "Wright" can be substituted for both its other spellings, "write" and "right." It is for this reason that, given her occupation, Nancy Means Wright's name is a fitting, double-barrel pun.

Wright is author of 11 books of fiction, nonfiction and poetry, five of which are mystery novels published by St. Martin's Press. Her first novel, written when she was just 25, earned her the position of Bread Loaf Scholar. She currently serves as Scholar for the Vermont Humanities Council and lives in Cornwall, Vt., where she continues to write.

Inspired by Nancy Drew, Wright wrote her first novel about her obnoxious older brother when she was only in fourth grade. However, Wright tells me, "My mother threw it out-my first rejection."

At Vassar College, Wright was taught that "nice girls don't write mysteries." So, it was not until after two novels, two nonfiction books and two chapbooks of poems that Wright set out to write her first mystery. This was inspired by a true story of a pair of dairy farmers who, distrusting banks, stowed their money in the barn. The farmers were assaulted and left for dead, but their perpetrators were eventually captured when the money they were spreading was discovered to smell like barn. "I had to turn that into a mystery," said Wright. "Mystery novels begin in chaos and end with an ordered universe - I like that."

The process of writing a mystery novel begins for Wright with an idea. After a period of research, Wright plunges into the writing. In her words, "I don't outline - rather, I try to stay open and ignorant and let the plot spin itself out of the characters-their flaws. As old Heraclites said, 'Character is destiny.'" From my own small experience writing, I have found the necessity for a balance between those aspects of a story that I flesh out prior to writing, and those which come out during the actual writing process. There is a need to be simultaneously purposeful and flexible.

In terms of craft, Wright focuses mainly on the characters. "I love quirky, offbeat characters - making a collage of people I know, throwing in self and memory, creating a distinctive voice," she says. Locale, Wright believes, is more than just a setting, and should function as a kind of character in itself. If craft is seen as "genre-specific," then it makes sense that character and place are foremost considerations in the development of a good mystery.

Kurt Vonnegut said that writing cannot be taught, though, like in the game of golf, a pro can help someone take a few strokes off his or her game. She would advise aspiring writers to do the same. "But mostly," she said, "read, read, read and write, write, write. I'll be buried in lots of unpublished as well as published manuscripts, but I'll have lived a hundred lives."