How I Write Fiction: The Unplanned Journey
by Karma Kitaj | Blogging | Jul 24, 2026
A writer's desk — the place where stories unfold.
I'm sitting in the office where I did all the work of writing my novels, years ago. It's over the garage, a lovely private space, and being here again brings it all back. The long hours. The deep absorption. The rare experience of rarely losing interest in what I was doing.
My husband once looked at me skeptically and said: "You never even wrote a story! Why do you think you can write fiction?" He had to eat his words later — and he was so proud of me when the books came out. I treasure that.
Plotters and Pantsers
I've discovered there are two types of writers. There are the "plotters" — those who carefully map out each chapter before they write a word. And then there are writers like me. I never knew what these stories would be, or even which characters would appear, other than Miriam. Everything evolved.
I once wrote that I felt I was "channeling" their stories, and an experienced writer told me: "That's just as it should be." I'm not sure there are any shoulds in writing, but my style — even in writing my PhD dissertation or professional papers — has always been fluid. Organic. I loved getting to know my characters, and as they evolved, they did and thought many surprising things throughout these stories.
I loved coming back to work in the morning to see what was going to happen next. The characters always knew. I didn't.
Where Miriam Came From
My original impulse was to write about the life my mother could have had — if she'd had the gumption, which she didn't. So Miriam's journey to New York City, her entry into the theater world, her visits to the Romany Marie salon and Frank Shay's bookstore, her time in Provincetown — all of these afforded her the opportunities to meet and hobnob with the cultural elite of her era, which thrilled her.
An aside: when we threw an 80th birthday party for my mother — who had by then moved herself to Beverly Hills — I found in her address book names of people to invite. It turned out that many of her new friends were has-been actors. Right up her alley. Theater and somewhat famous movie people. So perhaps Miriam was in her all along.
Learning to Write Fiction
Although I had no experience writing fiction, I enlisted editors to help me, sought out beta readers for feedback, and read widely — books about writing craft, about the theater world, about every aspect of the stories as they came up in my characters' lives.
Julia Cameron's book The Right to Write was inspirational. She wrote: "We tune into a stream of inspiration. We allow it to flow through us. We are an open channel." That described my experience exactly.
Douglas Bauer's The Stuff of Fiction: Advice on Craft was also enormously helpful. His instruction about dialogue has stayed with me: be an eavesdropper, he says — listen to real conversations. They're not very interesting, full of filler words and dead ends. Omit all of that. Dialogue should advance the narrative. There's a distinction between "on the nose" writing — direct, explicit — and "off the nose" writing, which hints, suggests, uses innuendo, and prompts the reader to fill in the blanks in her own way. The latter is far more interesting.
Characters With Complexity
Another lesson from my reading: characters need complexity. Not all bad, not all good. They need room for growth and change. They have to be relatable, but not perfect — or perfectly horrible. They have texture.
As a psychotherapist, I had studied Internal Family Systems, founded by Richard Schwartz, and I found this framework useful in creating characters. None of us likes all of our parts. Not even the so-called good ones — the ones our superego forces us to abide by, or at least keeps niggling us to live by. Characters who feel real carry that same internal tension.
The Last Line of Every Chapter
There's also the matter of the last line of each chapter — it should entice the reader to turn the page. So I'd write one, not knowing myself what was going to happen in the next chapter. I'd be surprised along with the reader. That was part of the fun.
You might wonder why I eventually gave up writing fiction for making visual art. I wonder too, sitting here. But I do love color and shape and line. I guess I'll never be bored.
Do visit my art website at KitajArt.com to see where the storytelling continues — just in a different medium.