NYT Bestseller Mary Alice Monroe Starts With Animals, Not An Idea

TUCSON, AZ — “New York Times” bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe has an uncommon approach to writing books, she told attendees at her Tucson Mostly Books event Tuesday: She begins her writing process with a species rather than an idea. The author of 24 novels including Simon and Schuster’s “The Beach House” fiction series, Monroe makes it her personal mission to weave environmental food-for-thought into her carefully crafted stories.

While focusing on authenticity in her women- and animal-centric stories, she also modeled her most recent novel, “The Summer Guests,” after her own experience evacuating animals and gathering with an eclectic blend of people at a safe farm in N. Carolina before Hurricane Irma struck. And then there’s that Hallmark Hall of Fame movie based on one of her books.

She also has plenty of advice for others who want to write novels.

Intuition: Key In Choosing That Pivotal Species

An animal species is at the heart of each of Monroe’s novels, which aim to get readers thinking more about the environment. When she wrote “The Beach House” in 2002, the first novel in a soon-to-be-six-novel series, Monroe made a decision to raise environmental awareness from then on in all her books.

“I’m hoping to write books that people will come to because they love my writing, they love my stories, they love my people. But now they come to expect that, ‘Gee, I’m going to learn a little something too,’” Monroe said. “I call it a painless education. My readers love it because … after 20 years of climate change advancing, people are increasingly curious but at the same time they don’t want to be overwhelmed.”

One of the key ways she accomplishes that awareness is by choosing each book’s animal species before she has any idea what the book will actually be about – by listening heavily to her intuition.

“My intuition is what drives me to choose a species. I can write about any number of species; there are so many to write about that are in peril,” Monroe said. “But when I get a response that’s physical, that’s a tingling and my heart beats faster like a hum, I know something is speaking to me at another level.”

It’s not 100 percent intuition though. After feeling the vibe, she also talks to those working at the animal organization to verify that solid research backs up her intuition.

Intuition led her to feature sea turtles and other marine animals in “The Beach House” series, horses in “The Summer Guests” novel and dolphins in her “Lowcountry Summer” series.

Monroe says readers can count on authenticity in her books’ animal coverage. And she’s not talking about Internet research. Rather, she spends several months doing volunteer work with the chosen species and their caregivers before she ever begins writing. “I bring my readers into my story world and it’s authentic. I can’t imagine writing a book any other way,” Monroe said.

Her advance research isn’t just limited to working with animal species; she also spent time with Katie Jackson, whom she describes as a “foremost” para-dressage horse rider, when preparing to write “The Summer Guests,” which includes a former horse-riding character with a prosthetic leg. “[Katie] was my advisor for all things about prosthetic legs. I think that character elevated the novel. Because as I learned about her courage, the readers will learn about Gerta,” Monroe said.

Monroe also works with her psychiatrist husband to learn what the most important emotional issues are today facing women in particular. “I work just as hard on the psychological profiles as I do on the animal study,” Monroe said. One theme readers will see repeatedly delved into in Monroe’s books is that of the ups and downs of mother-daughter relationships, particularly in “The Summer Guests” where two mother-daughter pairs are main characters in the ensemble cast of characters.

‘The Summer Guests’ Was Based On Monroe’s Hurricane Irma Experience

Monroe’s “The Summer Guests” stand-alone novel is the closest thing to a (fictional) autobiography she has ever written, based on her actual Hurricane Irma 2017 evacuation experience. Similar to “The Summer Guests,” Monroe drove away from her S. Carolina home in her car loaded with only a few belongings, her 3 dogs, 5 canaries and a goldfish, headed to safer ground at a friend’s large N. Carolina inland farm.

There, Monroe met up with her husband, who drove separately, and like in “The Summer Guests,” an eclectic group of individuals who mostly had one thing in common: being horse sport competitors or horse owners. There are some “cast” differences between the book and real life, such as the real-life Venezuelan couple who was represented in Monroe’s novel as a former American model starting her own cosmetics company and an Olympic-medal-winning Venezuelan equestrian. In real-life, there was also a Miami couple at Monroe’s friend’s farm during the evacuation comprising a makeup-artist wife and a husband who brought their horses.

Monroe said one of her primary motivations in writing “The Summer Guests” was to pose the evacuation question to readers: “What are you going to take with you? What do you treasure?”

She feels this is really important to bring up. “It’s about what I think is going to be one of the epic questions of the next decade and that is evacuation,” Monroe said. “I use it as a model for evacuation for all emergencies: fire … flooding and earthquakes … any kind of natural disaster that will cause a person to make a split-second decision to leave,” Monroe said.

But Monroe herself is conspicuously absent from “The Summer Guests,” she said, choosing to not base any of the characters on herself.

“The Summer Guests” ends similarly to 1985's “The Breakfast Club” movie with an unlikely blend of individuals together for five days, each of whom learns something about themselves and their lives and what they truly value.

Andie MacDowell Transformed ‘The Beach House’ Into A Hallmark Movie

The author credits actress Andie MacDowell with transforming Monroe’s novel “The Beach House” into a Hallmark movie in 2018. “Andie MacDowell was the force behind that. She read ‘The Beach House’ and fell in love, and she and her production company bought it and made it a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie,” Monroe said.

Monroe describes Hallmark Hall of Fame movies, versus a typical Hallmark movie, as bigger budget and broader in scope, such as focusing on more than only a man and woman’s relationship. The sea turtles, tempestuous mother-daughter relationship and other family troubles covered in “The Beach House” made it a broader-scope movie, Monroe said. When it was made into a movie, “I was really quite honored,” she said.

Serendipity Is Key — And Other Publishing Advice

Monroe started writing stories at age 8, eventually starting her career in journalism and nonfiction book writing before switching to fiction. “I just feel it’s something I always had a calling to do. But my first novel wasn’t published until I was 40 and that’s ‘The Long Road Home,’” Monroe said. A pregnancy that required bedrest is when she seized the opportunity and began writing ‘The Long Road Home,’ which was sold to a publisher within a year.

“I was very fortunate,” she said.

She did face rejection within that year, though, before the publisher signed on. “I truly know in this crazy business there are wonderful novels that can’t seem to find a publisher. And sometimes I say it’s just being at the right time with the right book with the right publisher. Just serendipity,” Monroe said.

She does typically share some specific tips when she speaks at the occasional writers’ retreat or conference. “It’s my way of giving back,” she said. She is also planning on hosting her own writer’s retreat, which will likely involve a fellow author and a literary agent. She says interested writers should watch her Facebook page.

In the meantime though, Monroe gives these tips for budding fiction writers:

1. “Write your novel, beginning, middle, end. Don’t get hung up at the beginning. You’ll probably change it anyway. You have to know you can finish the novel. But get that first draft finished.
2. “Go to writers’ conferences, go to events like I’m speaking at [that have] an agent [present]. Publishers will not publish a book without an agent these days. You do need an agent. So do find ways to contact an agent.
3. “Don’t be discouraged; it’s a very tough business. If you write, you are a writer. Being published doesn’t make you a writer; that’s part of the process. If you write, you are a writer.”

Finding an agent might sound daunting to some, so Monroe recommends looking at the acknowledgement section of novels in the same genre as yours, as authors often name their agent there. “It doesn’t mean their agent will take you, but you’ll at least get a sense of who those agents are for your queries,” Monroe said.

She also recommends trying to sign on with book agents who are recently beginning their own business “because it’s much more likely an agent who’s just opening up her own business will take a client that’s new than a successful agent at the top tier who won’t consider you,” Monroe said.

Monroe advises new fiction book writers to also find information online about agents, and brush up on their query letter technique. However, the query letter isn’t the be-all, end-all; the book is. “If they fall in love with your book, the book is what sells, no matter how good a query letter, no matter who you know, it’s always the book that sells. So write the best,” Monroe said.

What’s Next Up For Monroe?

Monroe will be among 22 authors speaking at the Long Beach, Calif., SuperBook Weekend Adventure on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the Queen Mary.

The S. Carolina resident author — who says a connection with nature is what the human spirit yearns for to help it rebalance — is looking forward to the May 2019 release of her sixth novel in “The Beach House” series: “On Ocean Boulevard.” This sixth installment following the popular Rutledge family will focus on the issue of plastics in the oceans — and what Monroe calls “the overuse of plastic.”

“The Island” slated for a 2021 release is Monroe’s first novel in her new middle-grade book series focusing on three kids who come from different backgrounds ­— and seem like very unlikely friends — who find themselves on an island without cars, shopping or the Internet. The theme is nature’s ability to unite kids and help them learn how to play outdoors.

For more information on Monroe’s upcoming writer’s retreat, access her Facebook page. To find out more about Monroe's books, access her website.