Alice Fitzpatrick: Let go of expectations of immediate perfection in your creative writing

Alice Fitzpatrick has contributed short stories to literary magazines and anthologies and has recently retired from teaching in order to devote herself to writing full-time.  Her summers spent with her Welsh family in Pembrokeshire inspired the creation of the Meredith Island Mysteries series. Secrets in the Water, released in June 2024, is the first in the series.  The second book, A Dark Death, is coming in June of this year. 

Author Alice Fitzpatrick

The traditional mystery appeals to Alice's keen interest in psychology as she’s intrigued by what makes seemingly ordinary people commit murder.  Alice lives in Toronto but dreams of a cottage on the Welsh coast. To learn more about Alice and her writing, please visit her website at AliceFitzpatrick.com.

In this interview, Alice explains how a life dominated by mystery shapes her writing. She describes herself as a plantser, and says it's important to let go of expectations of immediate perfection in your creative writing.

A life shaped by mystery influences novels

On Creative Writing: What life experiences have shaped your writing style?

AF: Mystery has dominated my life. My Polish relatives, whom I never met, lived under Communist rule which might explain my father’s secretive nature. He spoke little about his past and his family, but when he did, he told a different story each time.  

A Dark Death, by Alice Fitzpatrick

Like my protagonist’s aunt and father, people in my British family had a habit of disappearing from my life.  My uncle Terry died when my mother was pregnant with me; his son, my cousin Terry, broke off all communication with the family for over fifty years; and my great-aunt Marie exiled herself to the Isle of Man.  

I was partway through the first draft of Secrets in the Water when I realized my protagonist’s determination to discover how her aunt died her aunt fifty years previous mirrored my desire to find out what had happened to my family members.  So it’s no wonder I wrote a book which at its heart is the story of a woman seeking to reclaim her family’s history.  

Other authors write crime fiction because it allows them to set the world straight, to bring justice to victims, or order to chaos.  But given my family secrets, for me it’s the need to understand what happened and why.  It’s like finding the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle.  Only then is the picture complete.

Early creative writing was a balm for lonliness; created worlds that welcomed everyone

On Creative Writing: Can you trace any common themes across your writing?

AF: I had an isolated childhood, so I wrote to create worlds into which I could escape and feel less lonely.  When I decided to write a mystery series, I wanted a setting where everyone feels welcome, so I created Meredith Island. 

In the mid-nineteenth century, an eccentric American industrialist came to this small Welsh island and built his vision of an English manor house for his young bride. When she died in childbirth, he abandoned the house and returned to the United States. But the estate workers stayed and made their home here. It is this unique shared history that binds them together.  

Thus the series is dominated by a sense of community and characters who are proudly self-sufficient and protect each other when confronted with murder.

A creative writer who's a plantser!

On Creative Writing: Are you a plotter or a pantser? (For writers or short stories and novels).

AF: I’m a plantser—a combination of pantser and plotter. Before I begin to write, I must know the identities of the first victim and their murderer, the motive and method of death, the relationship of the victim to the other characters, and everyone’s secrets. I carefully outline up to the murder. But I have only a vague idea how to proceed with the actual investigation, and I prefer it that way.  

Struggling to finish my last book, I decided it might help if I plotted the final scenes.  But even with the ending of the book outlined, I resisted completing it.  At this time, I learnt that people who can visualize a task as being finished often have trouble actually completing it.  I realized that was me, and it explained why plotting sabotages my process.  But outlining also denies me the most enjoyable part of writing: discovering new things about my characters as I explore their stories.  So to insure the writing is fresh, I keep plotting to a minimum.

On Creative Writing: What advice/guidance would you give to writers?

Let go of expectations of immediate perfection in your creative writing

AF: “The first draft of a story is to tell you what the story is.  The next drafts are a search for the best way to tell this story.” - Darcy Pattison

Margaret Laurence is reputed to have put off starting a new book because she was afraid of getting it wrong, and it wasn’t until the need to write outweighed her fear of making a mistake that she could begin.

I can sympathize with this. As a perfectionist—and what writer isn’t or doesn’t aspire to be—I’d obsess about getting the first draft as good as I could. In the past, this would stop me in my tracks as I edited and re-edited what I’d already written, afraid to continue in case, like Laurence, I got it wrong. Darcy’s advice gives me permission to let go of expectations of immediate perfection. Wandering off the path is a valuable part of my process.

On Creative Writing: Do you edit as you write, or write and edit later?

AF: Ideally I want the story to flow, uninterrupted by my demanding, slightly neurotic editor. 

By separating the creating and editing processes, I achieve a distance which enables me to view my writing more objectively when revising. 

I’d prefer to complete the first draft before rereading or beginning to edit, but while that works well for a short story, it’s not practical for a novel.  I’m constantly making notes to myself to check previous scenes in case I’ve already revealed a clue, to reorganize events, to delete irrelevant information, or to change the name of a character.  When the notes become overwhelming, I’m forced to go back and tidy things up before continuing or risk chaos.