Shannon Mullally is a two-time winner of the International 3-Day Novel Contest. Her latest novel, The Second Detective, won the 40th Annual International 3-Day Novel Contest. Shannon holds a doctorate in creative writing from the University of Denver and a master of fine arts in writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She writes, edits, and lives in Grand Haven, Michigan.
You can find The Second Detective on the Anvil Press website, which is currently offering a 30% off discount!
What initially appealed to you about the contest?
When I first heard about the contest back in 2004, I had been studying the OuLiPo group and the Fluxus movement and was very interested in how artists and writers used constraints to free their imaginations and create something truly unexpected.
So when I heard about the 3-Day Novel Contest, I was already primed for it. It presented this extreme constraint, and I knew it would push me outside of my comfort zone and my old writing habits. I thought it sounded like a brilliant experiment. And I was curious to see what the experience and the result would be.
Aside from the hopes of winning, what did you think you would get out of this difficult writing exercise? Did you find that to be true in practice?
I thought I would get a manuscript that I couldn’t have predicted or come by any other way, and if I didn’t win, I could still look do something else with it.
I also knew from Love Block that I would learn something new about my writing. With Love Block I found out I could be funny, and with The Second Detective, I found out I could create a world that could sustain other books. In both cases, this was really valuable information that I might not have discovered otherwise. I was pigeonholing myself without realizing it.
How did you come up with your concept?
I like to write fiction as a way to investigate a bigger question, as an attempt to make sense of it or answer it or figure out what I think about it. And before the 2017 contest, I had been thinking a lot about long-term relationships, namely what it takes for people to make them work, what qualities they might have, and what would happen if there was a way for people to stay together forever: what would that look like, how would it be possible, and would it actually be a good idea?
That’s when I came up with the idea of a detective being asked to track down someone who might have already died but came back as something else. For instance, what would you do if your husband really was an animal, like a parrot? I was fairly confident I could spin a story from that premise and not run out of steam or ideas or material in the contest.
How did you approach outlining your piece going into the weekend? Was it rigid, taking time constraints into account, or more free-form?
My outline for The Second Detective was really bare-bones. It was a list of numbered scenes that would mention which potential character or characters would be in the scene. I did not take time constraints into account. And I didn’t follow the outline during the contest. I don’t remember referring to it again after I made it.
But it might have helped get my subconscious chewing on it and working on possibilities and permutations before the contest. Because when I started writing, the story poured out of me. I’m glad that I didn’t adhere to an outline because there were three big twists in the book and two of them I gasped when I wrote them because I never saw them coming myself.
What did your writing/working space look like over the weekend? Eg. Did you set it up to be as cozy as possible, or did you make it very business-like so you’d stay focused?
Both. I had a laptop both times, so I would carry it around and set it up different places and start typing away in whatever position I felt comfortable in because I like the sense of movement, of continually changing things up. I think it helps my momentum not to stick in the same spot or position for too long.
What is one indulgent/comfort that you couldn’t have gotten through the weekend without?
Pizza. Tastes good, and it is a time saver.
Has the experience of writing a novella in only 3 days helped you in your other writing?
Yes, both books expanded how I thought about myself as a writer in really valuable ways, which has led to a certain confidence to try new things.
It proved to me how important it is for me to get out of my own way in the creation and editing processes no matter what I’m writing or for what purpose. I set my own limits for myself now on other projects so I don’t endlessly rework something and lose the originality or magic or even the joy.
How does your writing process differ during 3-Day vs. longer projects?
The 3-Day Novel Contest short-circuits my writing process. There’s no time for collecting and gathering and arranging. Instead, my focus becomes closely following and inhabiting the characters and their investigations as they unfold. In fact, The Second Detective reads almost like a play or a film and could easily become one. Love Block too was really fun to read from aloud; it was like a performance.
If there was only one piece of advice you’d offer to someone about to sign up for the first time, what would it be?
In a nutshell, try something new for yourself as a writer; give yourself a constraint within the constraint of the contest. For example, Love Block and The Second Detective were both experimenting with genre in fun and interesting ways. You don’t want to get bored as the writer. My hunch is you want to be in the difficult but more exciting position of having to keep choosing which direction to go in as opposed to losing interest.
Also, read The Second Detective. I say that because it is the best blueprint I could give someone for how to solo write a book in three days that will charm your socks off, and I will probably follow it myself again. You can see all my strategies and choices quite clearly if you read it with that purpose in mind.
How did it feel to go back and edit something that you created in such a short period of time?
It felt really rewarding in its own way because I and everyone else involved accomplished this high-wire balancing act. We want the book to be the best it can be and of the highest quality, but at the same time not make the mistake of editing away what makes the book so unique and charming and distinctly itself.
Something is infused into the book from the intense conditions it was made in and you don’t want to lose that. So it is the same book just more itself. I would describe it as an intensely focused polishing process. And that takes skill, dedication, and patience. And I can attest the end result of that time and care is worth it. I have two beautiful books because of it. So honestly the editing process when it’s completed feels like another victory.