When Gillian Flynn sits down to write a book, she never knows the ending.
Such was the case when the New York Times bestselling author wrote her thrilling novel-turned-film “Gone Girl,” she tells TODAY.com.
“I see it at the beginning. I always know my beginning scene,” Flynn says. “I pictured it with ‘Gone Girl’ — a man coming home to a house and the door is wide open, and that moment of feeling like, ‘Why is the door wide open?’”
As a self-proclaimed true crime fanatic, Flynn says her initial scenario invoked fear around, “What would it be like to have your spouse mysteriously disappear? And everyone says, ‘It’s always the husband.’”
“And you cannot not look guilty. Because if you’re crying, people say, ‘Oh, he’s putting on a show.’ And if you’re not crying, people say, ‘Oh, he doesn’t care. He’s a freak.’” she adds. “So, you know, I started playing with that from there.”
For any book Flynn writes, be it her 2006 debut “Sharp Objects” or 2012’s “Gone Girl,” the plot unfolds as she gets inside her characters’ heads.
This means Flynn reaches the story’s end nearly at the same point the reader does — but she gets to choose how the characters are remembered in their final moments on the page.
For “Gone Girl,” Flynn says the twisted ending readers now know didn’t always exist. Instead, she tells TODAY.com how the book originally painted characters Amy and Nick.
“There was the one (ending) I was originally going to go with — that you didn’t know that Amy had framed Nick until the very end, so you didn’t meet Amy at all,” Flynn says, explaining that the draft’s entire story was “all Nick’s point of view as he’s bouncing around, looking more and more guilty.”
In this end of the story, which “no one read” aside from Flynn, the reader would have discovered Amy framed the man they’d been following for the entire novel, naturally prompting more sympathy for Nick.
“And then I started thinking, ‘Who is this woman who did all this stuff?’ I kept getting obsessed with, ‘Who would do this?’ And so then I was like, ‘I need Amy in this story. I can’t hide her until then. That’s no fun,’” Flynn says.
As readers know, Amy became the focal point of the page-turner. But Flynn wrote other endings, too.
“I had the Ozark grifters come back into (Amy’s) life at the end and frame her,” Flynn says. “I did have one ending where she was going to go to jail and that lasted for a day, literally. I was like, ‘She would never go to jail. Amy would never go to jail.’”
Though Flynn is known for her twists, she says she’s more interested in making points about the human psyche and larger-scale world issues.
“I always say, I write character studies and themes and I hide it all inside the chocolate of a juicy mystery, so that I can get people to read it,” she says.
Now, Flynn is working on screenwriting and also became a publisher herself, starting her own imprint, Gillian Flynn Books.
Flynn chatted with TODAY.com about her books, her new imprint and the advice she’d give aspiring authors.
This interview has been edited.
How did you decide to make the move into publishing with Gillian Flynn Books?
It started with Molly Stern, who was my publisher during “Gone Girl,” asking me if I’d be interested in an imprint.
I wasn’t looking to have an imprint. But I realized I could create my own mission statement and could make sure there were voices getting out there who weren’t just copying whatever previous popular book was, falling into a pre-arranged shape or done only by people who already have platform.
I find a really dangerous trend, that this current market is really squashing out the kind of voices that I love, which are the quirky, weird, off kilter, not easy to put inside a box.
The current series that I’m publishing, Margot Douaihy’s series, is about a punk rock former addict nun who is totally tattooed and solves mysteries in New Orleans. Or Stacey Horn’s nonfiction book, “The Killing Fields of East New York,” is all about white collar crime and how it decimated a community. These are things that aren’t necessarily going to get snapped up immediately. And I wanted to give that voice.
Was it intentional that all the authors you’ve published so far have been female?
It is not. It has just happened to be the ones that have come to me that I really, really love. It has not been an intentional thing, but it has been the ones so far that have really drawn me.
Would you agree the audience predominantly consuming crime and thriller storylines are women? Why do you think that is?
I think women are more acquainted with fear than men are. We live with it as part of our everyday. Hopefully it doesn’t obsess you or control you too much, but I don’t know any woman who doesn’t, in the very back of her mind go, ” could walk out the door and if I walk down the wrong corner, if I stay out too late, if I get in the wrong place, something really, really bad could happen to me.” I don’t know very many women who haven’t had some sort of close up moment that made them a little frightened. I mean, we all carry that with us.
I think the crime genre, when it’s done right, really can touch on that issue and give us a vocabulary and a means to talk about it, and give us almost a way to purge that fear a little bit — understanding that it’s out there and that I’m not crazy. Sometimes you have that moment of, like, “Am I crazy to be nervous in this situation? Is it me?” And the answer is f—— better safe than sorry.
Writing wise, what are you working on right now?
I’m working on a lot, writing wise. Most of it is screenplay stuff. Ever since I adapted “Gone Girl” for the screen, I’ve been really attracted to screenwriting and creating film and TV. And that’s largely because I grew up in a household where my mom taught reading and my dad taught film. And so, to me, they’re both equally viable ways of telling a story.
The one I’m most excited about is adapting “Dark Places,” my second book, for HBO. It’s not official yet, but fingers crossed.
I’ve told myself that after I get these couple projects done, that I’m going to shut down that part for a little bit and just finish this book I’m writing. It’s daunting writing a book after “Gone Girl.” You have the demons on your shoulder going, “Is this too much like ‘Gone Girl’? Is it not enough like ‘Gone Girl’?”
What is your initial writing process like?
I write in my head all the time. I can’t turn it off. I was writing something in my head on the way to work today, on the way to the office, that is not going to go anywhere. It was just something I was thinking about, like, “Oh, it’s a great line. What is that? Where’s that line go?” It’s describing a character or describing a moment or scenery.
One of the walls in my office is a whiteboard. It’s got whiteboard wallpaper just entirely on it, which is fantastic for a writer. But it looks like the scribblings of a mad woman because I just write different ideas for different projects. People will look at it and it really does look like a crazy person because it’s all over.
Do you still write down those random ideas?
Yeah. I’ll probably never remember where it’s at or to look at it. But every once in a while I do go like, “Ah, I wrote that down somewhere.” But I’m like, “Did I write in my email? Did I write on my wall. Is it in a notebook?”
What does the rewriting process look like for you?
I loop around and rewrite a little bit as I go. But my aim is generally to get a crappy first draft. And that’s what I would tell anyone who wants to be a writer because you’re never going to know what’s wrong with your story until you have a really crappy first draft. And then don’t be afraid of it. You can go back and see what’s wrong.
Then I rewrite and I rewrite and I rewrite. I mean, I love rewriting. That’s when I get happy. That’s my happy spot. Though, writing the actual opening draft is terrifying — and it’s suspenseful because you really don’t know where you’re going.
At what point do you let people read?
Not until it’s done. Third or fourth draft. I want to make sure that I’m writing the book I want to write. I think you give it to people early on, and they’re telling you, “Oh, I could do this.” Even if you really respect them, and it’s a great idea, it’s not what I want. It’s really hard to get to a point where you say, “I don’t want to you to tell me what I should do here.”
So I figure it all out. I get it in really, really good shape. And then I give it to my husband, first and foremost. He’s an amazing reader and editor, basically. And then I give it to a very small circle of friends — very small, like, two.
Have you ever made major changes after hearing feedback?
I will admit, I give it to people and I change very little afterwards. I’ll listen, though. My husband will say something like, “This scene is cool. It goes on a little long.” OK, yeah.
I take it back — for “Dark Places,” he did give me some criticism. I made big changes on that one. But for the most part, it’s more, “This seemed to go on too long. Make your point. Should I move along from this?” That sort of thing.
Do you have any advice for writers navigating the world of publishing right now?
Whatever you do, don’t chase what seems popular right now. It’s very tempting. It may pay off, but you’re still always going to be the knockoff of someone else. You’re going to be the, “If you like so and so, you’ll like this person.” And how much do you want to be that? Do you want to have your own voice? That’s why you’re writing. So even though the market is tighter, the great voices do get found. It may take a little longer, but it’s about unique, interesting, great writing.
When I did “Sharp Objects,” we got rejected quite a bit. At that time, it was sort of strange. People always said women don’t want to read about dark women, and we proved that wrong. Might take more. Might take a little longer. But it’ll get there if you have a bold and unique voice. Those are the ones that usually make it through the clutter of all the imitators.
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