Is there such a thing as too much love?

Best-selling author M.L. Stedman discusses movie adaptations and gives writing tips in an exclusive interview

HER DEBUT NOVEL asks a simple question: What could go wrong when something is motivated by good intentions? A lot, apparently. Australian author M.L. Stedman tells a tale of love and morals in her debut novel, The Light Between Oceans.

When Tom Sherbourne takes the job as a lighthouse keeper in Janus Rock, isolated Australian island, he brings his young wife Isabel along with him. Several years and two miscarriages later, Isabel, grieving and hurting, hears a baby crying. Washed ashore is a dead man and a wailing baby girl: Tom thinks this must be reported to the authorities immediately, but Isabel, the love of his life, believes this is heaven’s way of sending them a child. With no witnesses to their decision but the silent island, the couple decide to keep the baby.

As the book’s blurb reads: “And we are swept into a story about extraordinarily compelling characters seeking to find their North Star in a world where there is no right answer, where justice for one person is another’s tragic loss.”

“The plot isn’t based on personal experience of that specific set of events. But I think everyone grapples with moral dilemmas from time to time in life — often just little things, though sometimes more significant,” Ms. Stedman said in an e-mail interview.

“The specifics of the dilemma don’t matter — we all have experience of being in that place, of struggling to do the right thing where there’s no clear-cut answer, of making irreversible decisions on the strength of imperfect information, and that’s what I wanted to explore in the book. What do we owe those we love? What should be sacrificed when love and duty are in conflict? In this complex world of ours, how do we find our North Star?”

ON THE MOVIE ADAPTATION

The Goodreads Choice Awards Best Historical Fiction 2012 winner and nominated for the Dublin Literary Award 2016, The Light Between Oceans has a movie adaptation coming out in September starring Alicia Vikander ( The Danish Girl, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Jason Bourne), Michael Fassbender ( 12 Years a Slave, the X-Men series, Inglorious Basterds), and Rachel Weisz ( The Mummy, The Bourne Legacy, The Lovely Bones). Derek Cianfrance of Blue Valentine fame wrote and directed it.

Ms. Stedman said she was “thrilled” with the movie version.

“I’m delighted it has become this particular movie. The acting, the direction, the cinematography, even the music, are all superb. The filmmakers and actors have all taken such care with the source material, and to my mind have brought forth from it something truly beautiful. Derek [Cianfrance] is exceptionally talented and inspiring, and I feel a great debt to him for how faithfully he has crafted the adaptation,” she said.

When asked about her thoughts on movies often botching good novels, she said she was glad hers remained “faithful to the spirit” of her novel. She said she had initial discussions with the producers, the studio, and with the director (“Derek could recite chunks of the novel by heart — he had a very deep understanding of and affinity for it.”).

“I’ve certainly heard a lot of writers bemoan the movie version of their book, so it’s a huge relief to be able to say that I love how this one has turned out... It depends upon the particular book and film, doesn’t it? I can think of some examples that haven’t been brilliant, but I can think of others, such as To

Kill A Mockingbird and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, where the book and the film are equally excellent.”

A lawyer and a writer now based in London, Ms. Stedman said “she’s working on some things” when asked about a possible second novel. “When there’s news, I’ll share it,” she said.

Below she talks about what it takes to be a writer.

The Light Between Oceans is your debut novel, which is heavy and a tear-jerker. Where did you get your inspiration and why did you decide on this genre or topic for a debut?

I don’t plan what I write. I usually just find that a picture or a phrase or a sound comes up, and I follow where it leads. For this story, I closed my eyes, and I could see a lighthouse, then a woman and a man, then a boat washed up on the beach carrying the body of a dead man and a crying baby. Everything that happens in the book stems from this initiating image, a bit like the idea of the Big Bang — a seemingly tiny initial point turned out to be incredibly dense, and just expanded outward further and further, revealing itself over time in my mind. So it wasn’t actually a question of “deciding” at all: I didn’t even know it was a novel when I started writing it.

Can you describe your writing process? Do you have a routine? How long did you write your novel?

It took around two years to write it. I don’t really have a routine of how and where I write, as long as I have quiet and I know I won’t be disturbed or interrupted, preferably for long stretches of time. I write “from the inside outward” rather than “from the outside inward.” Lots of people build the “scaffolding” first, plotting out their story and structuring it, working it all out, and then sit down to write what they’ve already decided upon. By contrast, I wait for the story to unfold for me as I write the words, without demanding to know where it’s going, and I make sense of it later.

Who are the writers you look up to?

There are so many! The novelists I’ve admired the longest (in no particular order) include Graham Greene, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Charles Dickens, Marilynne Robinson, Cormac McCarthy, Jane Gardam, Andre Gide, P. G. Woodhouse, Nancy Mitford, Katherine Mansfield... and many, many more. Add to that a very long list of poets and playwrights and we’d run out of space here completely.

What are your tips for budding writers?

My main tip is: take the time, through trial and error, to find out how you write best, and do that. Don’t listen to what other people tell you that you “should” be doing if it doesn’t work for you. Personally, I think it’s very important to keep a lot of private space for creativity — that “negative capability” that Keats describes thrives in a state of unknowing. The poet Rilke, too, talks about “living the questions” — it’s not about having all the answers. I think there’s something about following what comes up, recording it faithfully, and editing carefully afterwards. But that’s just my preference, not a rule for others. Another tip I’d give is: ignore any tips that don’t feel right to you.

You hired a writing coach. Do you advise that starting writers do it, too?

“Coach” sounds very goal-orientated, which I wasn’t: I just met a writing tutor occasionally. I did it just for pleasure, without any expectation or demand, and that’s perhaps the biggest tip that I would offer anyone starting out: write because you love it. Write because that’s how you want to spend those unrepeatable heartbeats. Don’t write to please anyone else, or to achieve something that you hope will retrospectively validate your choice.