Method Writing

How I've applied Stanislavski's teachings to my writing

Here I go again, inventing an approach (philosophy, if you like) and a term that turns out to be a well-established concept already. But I don’t mind, I see it as a kind of confirmation that I’m onto something, and rather than having to drill down into other people’s thoughts on my own this topic, I have taught myself not only the mechanics of it, but also what it means specifically to me.

The wheel I reinvented this time is Method Writing.

Most of us will know what Method Acting is. At least if we’ve ever watched a film starring Daniel Day Lewis. Other actors of the past known to use this method were Marlon Brando, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe. But just in case you don’t know, in brief, Method Acting is a dramatic technique where actors draw on personal memories and emotions to create a genuine psychologically authentic peformance rather than “pretending” to feel. The goal is to “be” rather than “show” emotion, achieving a lived reality in an imaginary situation. If I’ve understood correctly, if used authentically in writing, this “being” rather than “showing” emotion would, ironically, generate a story that “shows” rather than “tells”.

The Method is built upon the teachings of Russian Director Konstantin Stanislavski, and I must have sensed the similarities between an actor drawing on her genuine emotions to create a character within theatre and a writer drawing on the same source to create a character within a story very early on in This Writing Life of mine, because I bought Stanislavski’s book, An Actor Prepares, during my first year on The Creative Writing Programme twelve years ago.

Of course I haven’t read it yet, but I will, especially now, that I’ve found my own way into this process.

For just over a year now, I’ve been researching my grandmother-in-law’s (Ruth) experiences during the outbreak of World War II. I have spent days in the archives of the Imperial War Museum in London and in Somerville College Oxford. I have downloaded articles from the New York Times and from relevant local papers. I have read history books and e-mailed back and forth with Francis M. Carroll, a Professor Emeritus of history in Canada. I’ve talked with family members to learn of often used expressions and favourite pastimes. I’m reading novels written by women which are set in New York and written at this time, and I’m studying the fashion, the politics, the Depression, the corruption, the buildings, the judicial system, the religious beliefs and on and on it goes.

This year I jokingly started telling writerly friends that I’m engaging in Method Writing. It all started when a non-writerly friend came round for a cup of tea, looked at my files and gasped at the amount of (unpaid) work I’ve put in. “Do all writers do this?” she asked. And I replied that I didn’t know. Because I don’t know. I’d guess probably not, but more importantly, whenever my attention strays towards the methods of other writers I bring it back to my own, because that way lies only comparison, which truly is the thief of joy. I love my method, and I hope that other authors love their methods too.

The truth is that without all this preparation, I wouldn’t be able to write the book. If I am to tap into my own experiences of complicated father-daughter-relationship, betrayal, gender inequalities, scandal, conflict, heart-break, near death-experiences, alienation through emigration/immigration, depression etc. I need the stage to be set first, or rather, the world to have been built, painted, decorated and furnished. Only then will I be able to navigate within it and populate Ruth’s lived experiences with my own truths, which, if I’m equal to the task, will come across as authentic to the reader.

It’s a painstakingly slow, but ever so rewarding process. I’m a detective delving ever deeper into a forgotten story, finding pieces of a puzzle that I’m the first one ever to put together. Ruth’s story becomes more remarkable with every detail I unearth. Or as Professor Francis M Carroll wrote in one of our earlier e-mail exchanges when he agreed to write a letter of recommendation for me:

Of course, all I knew of Ruth was from the State Department paper, so her very interesting and well connected life remained unknown to me. Your outline in the grant proposal reveals the incredible and complex career of this remarkable young woman. The phrase, “You can’t make this up” comes to mind.

I only hope, come September when I’ll start writing, that the Method will have freed me enough to be able to do Ruth’s story justice.

Meanwhile you’ll find below some links to different articles on Method Writing.

Method Writing: What Novelists Can Learn from Actors About Self-Expression

What is Method Writing?

Could ‘method writing’ be the future for the novelist

Photo by Vitor Monthay on Unsplash

My Substack read of the week was And Ghosts … #2 Oliver Onions by Marie Waller because I had never heard of Oliver Onions and now I must read him:

And Ghosts ... #2 Oliver Onions

In other writing news:

• My agent submitted a short short story collection (only six stories long) to a publisher who had a call-out for such things. Now we wait!

• Edited and submitted short story number #13 to Fiction Desk.

• Got 1200 words into short story #15, and didn’t want to stop, but this week has been busy with life admin that could be ignored no longer.

• Did ten hours worth of research compiling and am halfway through lever arch file #2.

• Remember the picture book I’d just submitted to publishers in my last newsletter? Well, since then I’ve had:

  • Three Four rejections - one more came in just as I was about to hit publish.

  • One offer of hybrid publishing which would make the cost price per book £85.

• And remember the grant I was awarded to do an author visit at the Swedish School in London, which took two years with much chasing to get approved? Well, now I’ve chased the payment of it three times and I’m being ghosted. My last message was “Do you need anything else from me before you can transfer it?” - Any tips of what else I can do to shake it out of them would be gratefully received.

• Received another rejection for another picture book manuscript, where the message was “This is extremely well crafted, but we’ve shifted our focus away from picture books”, which seems to be the message across the board - unless you’re a celebrity or an already established, well-selling author. But do I ever give up?

• At least not yet, because I also wrote up and edited another Swedish picture book manuscript, which will now go off to a Beta reader with whom I share Swedish manuscripts.

• Received a rejection for a Swedish work-in-progress grant.

• Had a slot on The Publishing Industry Day to talk about My Journey to Publication.

• Joined in a discussion on 2026 - The Year of Reading with Donna Scott of The Slab Press, an independent press, on her brand new YouTube channel The Good Book Life. Feel free to give it some love as it currently only has seven subscribers and, as I keep saying, the independent presses are the lifeblood of the publishing industry.

• Conceived an idea of a series of lives to do here on Substack, which I’m excited by and I’m currently busy gathering guest appearances.

• No news on The Legend of Maderwerth but I’m getting close to chasing the one publisher I still have hopes for, just need to wait the decent six months, or conceive of another reason to open up communications to find out where we are with it.

• Currently reading A Time to Be Born by Dawn Powell.

If you have read this far you’ve already made a difference to This Writing Life of mine. But should you wish to, here are a few other options of how to support me:

Subscribing to this from now on roughly fortnightly missive will remain free for everyone, but I do aim to deliver a well-thought-through observation, hopefully with a positive spin, a lesson learned, knowledge shared. This takes time, which is why, if you enjoy reading and have the means, there’s an option here to upgrade to a paid subscription. As paying subscribers you’ll get access to monthly video diaries in which I tell you what I’ve been working on for the past month (basically what your contribution has funded) and any news to hold myself accountable to you, as well as a monthly historical essay that ties in with Ruth’s Story.

Or if you’re unable to commit to a subscription, a coffee to fuel my writing would be most welcome.

My novel The Shape of Guilt is available to buy with free delivery from Blackwell’s in the UK or from Barnes & Noble in the States, and if you’re a Swedish speaker you can find out more about where to buy my Swedish children’s books here. Or you can leave a review of The Shape of Guilt here. And finally, here’s a tip jar: