Debut novelist Rebecca Fallon on ambition, motherhood, crafting dual timelines, and writing a novel built around the person who isn't there.

We discuss

Why quitting a stable job to write a novel can be framed as a calculated bet rather than a leap of faith.
How to prototype the writer's life before fully committing to it.
What genre fiction can teach a literary novelist about plotting and structure.
How a single late-stage scene revealed who the actual protagonist of the book had been all along.
The unsexy spreadsheet work behind a novel that moves between timelines.
A method for getting inside a child's consciousness on the page.
Why each character has to serve a distinct function—and what happens to the ones that don't.
How music, photographs, and even PowerPoint can become tools for holding a character's voice.
The difference between flow-state writing and the surgical work that comes after.
What changes when you stop drafting airy scenes and start asking what each scene needs to earn its place.

About Rebecca Fallon

Rebecca Fallon is a New England-born Londoner and a graduate of Williams College and the University of Oxford. Family Drama is her debut novel.

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