A Work in Progress

Most of us don’t have a clue how we’d begin to write a novel. In this story, the writer Richard Ford explains how he does it. Richard Ford is one of the best observers of middle-aged American male angst. He’s now in the middle of writing his third book about Frank Bascome, the divorced dad protagonist of Ford’s Pulitzer prize-winning novel Independence Day. Richard Ford prepared for two years before starting this novel, and Caitlin Shetterly asked him to describe precisely how he works.