It took me seven years: two years of just researching and not writing, and then five years of writing.
How long did it take you to write this book? And a quick follow-up: How many drafts did your Chunky Monkeys writing group read? The Grid was really crucial in getting me from the messy first draft to a finished book. But then when I started revising, I began to see the need for more structure, and soon had created what I fondly call The Grid: a giant Excel spreadsheet that outlines the novel chapter by chapter and details the plot and the emotional arc of each character. The entire first draft was written by feel, totally out of sequence, with me just following what I wanted to write about. With The Age of Light, I began as a pantser and ended as an outliner. The twelve-year-old boy inside of me can’t see the word pantser without giggling, but let me try to grow up and provide you with an answer. Most of our readers are writers-and we want to know: Whitney, are you an outliner or a pantser? We at Dead Darlings were thrilled when she agreed to this interview, so let’s get to the good stuff: But read it too because it reveals that even the most polished lives have deep cracks threatening to split everyone around them into pieces–and that’s why we read: to be exposed to what we may be too afraid to confront off the page. Read this book because it is a beautiful, heartbreaking story. If only #MeToo had come earlier, would Lee Miller’s life have taken a different turn? With this powerful undercurrent, Scharer has struck a prescient chord forcing her readers to think about the themes of abuse, sexual power and ambition. More than anything, Lee wants to become the woman behind the camera rather than the one trapped under its lens but no amount of work or success seems to free her.
Scharer sprinkles in just enough detail for us to understand that the abuse Lee suffered as a child makes her desperate to escape the male gaze as an adult. The more I read, the more I understood the truth below all the glamour was that Lee was crumbling inside. What moved me to love this book was the underlying tension of Lee’s traumatic past that sat boiling below her every decision and had her self-destructing at almost every turn. I devoured it all–including the explosive love scenes–but these broad strokes were not what really grabbed me. Scharer expertly portrays her life in broad glamorous strokes complete with Gatsby-style parties and towering luminaries such as Cocteau. Critics are hailing the novel as bold, intimate and unforgettable–and I get it. Set in 1930s Paris, the book is about the love story between Vogue model turned photographer Lee Miller and the artist Man Ray. Whitney Scharer, a veteran Grubbie extraordinaire, is just out with her debut The Age of Light (Little Brown, 2019) and already it is flying off the shelves.
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