As a writer, Michael Farris Smith is not one to get ahead of himself.
“I’m not the kind of writer that works with an outline or a plot,” Smith said during his visit to the Columbus Exchange Club on Tuesday at Lion Hills Center. “Each day, I just write down a sentence or two about what I think needs to happen next and pick up from there. What I want to do is find a character and follow him around, go where he goes. To me, once you outline the story, you’ve robbed the characters of their free will. As I write, I am excited to find out what happens next, so I am discovering the story along the way. I figure it’s the same with the readers.”
It’s hard to argue with Smith’s approach.
His first full-length novel, “Rivers,” was published in September 2013 to glowing reviews. Now in paperback, the novel landed Smith with a handful of literary awards, as well as a new contract with publisher Little Brown.
As he spoke with the Exchange Club, Smith said he was in the final editing phase on his next novel which is going through final revisions and should be published in the spring of 2017. Those revisions include two name changes.
“Originally, it was ‘Lay My Armour Down,’ which nobody liked,” he said with a chuckle. “So it became ‘Dark of Night.’ Nobody liked that, either. Finally, one of the people in New York said the book has kind of a feel of a country song. He suggested I look at some old country album titles and while I was doing that I came across a Bob Dylan album called ‘Desolation Row’ and that gave me an idea.
“The novel begins with a woman and a child walking down the interstate with a plastic garbage bag filled with everything they have in the world. You don’t know why it is they are out there, but it’s obviously not a good situation to be in. So, thinking about the story and Dylan’s ‘Desolation Row’ became ‘Desperation Road.'”
Smith, 45, has lived in Columbus the past seven years. In addition to his own writing, he teaches writing at Mississippi University for Women.
The success of “Rivers” and the ensuing whirlwind of appearances, tours and interviews that followed has been somewhat of a surreal experience for Smith, a husband and father of two young girls who said the laid-back, homey atmosphere of Columbus suits his nature.
“When ‘Rivers’ came out, I can’t tell you how many times someone would ask me, ‘Are you going to stay in Columbus?'” he said. “I never understood that. I liked Columbus before ‘Rivers’ came out and I don’t like it any less since.”
Even before “Rivers” hit the bookstores, Smith was already at work on “Desperation Road.” He admits that the challenge of starting a second novel was at first a little daunting.
“I remember sitting down and asking myself, ‘OK, now how did I do this anyway?’ At that moment, it was like learning all over again,” he said. “But what I discovered is that you don’t get too far ahead. You just sit down and write a sentence, then another. Sentences become paragraphs and paragraphs become chapters. You just follow the characters, see what they do and tell the story.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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