Mccall Smith reveals his writing process: ‘It comes formed on to the page’
Prolific novelist Alexander McCall Smith said henever struggles with new plots because he just sits down and they come to him fully formed.
The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency writer said he writes 1,000 words per hour and rarely has to make alterations, while producing “five or six books a year”.
In addition to his po pularM ma Precious Ramotsw ebooks, set in Botswana, his other series include the 44 Scotland Street and Sunday Philosophy Club novels set in Edinburgh and Detective Varg titles based in Sweden.
Speaking in an online event for the Edinburgh International Book Festival, he said: “I sit down and it comes to me. I’m very conscious of my good for tune in that respect and I am very pleased that that’s the way I work because it doesn’t require me to agonise before I start a book.
“I’ ve got a general idea of what will happen but when I sit down there is a blank sheet there – metaphorically, as I use a computer – and I wait for the text to come, and it comes. I don’t really have to think about it, it’s rather strange.
“I don’t say to myself, ‘What’s going to happen now? It just comes and it comes very quickly. I write about 1,000 words an hour and I don’t really have to revise it. It comes formed on to the page.
“I think that all that’s happening there is that I’ve developed particular brain pathways to that part of the subconscious mind which is composing fiction. It’s the same way in which we hear a melody in our minds and then we can articulate that in some way, but it comes from somewhere deep inside.”
Mccall Smith is one of Scotland’s most successful international novelists, selling more than 40 million books, translated into 46 languages around the world.
The author also said it was essential to stick to a regime, and his own involves getting up to work at 4 am before returning to bed after two or three hours of writing.
He said: “I do find that the early morning is quite a good time for me because it’s quiet, the telephone isn’t ringing and one’s mind is fresh.”