Writer’s Block: M.S. Berry

All Lit Up: What inspired the idea for your latest book?

M.S. Berry: The idea for The Tenant came out of a trip I took to Freiburg, Germany with my family in 1997. My husband was working at the time, at an international non-profit environmental firm in Toronto. One of the bosses was based in Freiburg and he offered us his house for some of the summer, so we jumped at it. We packed up our one-and-a-half-year-old daughter and agreed to meet my parents there for three weeks. When we arrived, my parents took the attic apartment and we took the house. My mother came down to our area on the first day and said, “there’s someone else living here!” It turned out that the apartment had also been given to a lovely young Italian student for the summer. She was in Freiburg taking a summer language course in German. My parents spent the weeks we were there sharing their place with this previously unknown tenant. It worked out well for us–the young woman had a boyfriend from Italy who would visit occasionally, and he worked at a Prosecco factory so he would bring us bottles!–but I always toyed with the thought of “what if…?” 

My novel also deals with being a writer. I’m always intrigued by people who desperately want to “be a writer.” They question how to do this, as if it’s magic. A lot of people forget that, really, you have to sit down and write. It doesn’t just happen. The struggle to be creative depends primarily on your talent, but also on your patience and ability to sit alone for hours and, of course, the actual writing (and editing). 

All Lit Up: Tell us about your new book. What can readers expect?

M.S. Berry: The Tenant is my first official thriller. My other books always had thriller qualities but were shelved and sold as literary books. This one is being marketed as a thriller and so I wrote with that in mind. I upped the ante; I propelled the plot forward, made everything as fast-paced as possible. I dealt with psychological oddness and scariness; I messed with the unknown. I feel it’s still a Michelle Berry book, but it’s as if I’ve amped up the sound, as if it’s at a higher pitch. That’s what makes it an M.S. Berry book. The Tenant is about a famous thriller writer who is suffering writer’s block and heads off to Germany for a year with her husband and young child. She is determined to write and takes interest in a news story circulating throughout Europe of a serial killer who uses an unknown poison to kill his victims. As this is happening an older English woman spending a year in Germany is accidentally rented the apartment within the house the writer’s family is living in. The ending is unexpected and compelling (I hope).

All Lit Up: Where do you find inspiration for your characters?

M.S. Berry: I look around for inspiration. I’m inspired by everyone and everything. A woman in the grocery store, a couple walking down the street, friends, relatives, actors, the internet. It would be harder, I think, to not be inspired by anything than to be inspired by everything. My characters are tiny mixes of lots of people moving around me. I create my own friends and enemies whom I move around and watch grow up in my mind.

All Lit Up: What does a typical writing day look like for you?

M.S. Berry: I used to be set in the way I ran my days. Now I just go with the flow. I’m a stickler for routine when it comes to food (lunch) or coffee or sitting at my desk in the morning, but my afternoons often morph away from what I intended. I try to row for 20 minutes every day. I stand and walk as much as possible; I read as much as I can when my brain and typing fingers are stuck. I usually finish up around 3pm, which I think comes from when school normally lets out–so many years of having to stop writing when my kids came home. I tend to start fiddling with dinner around 4:30pm. I take the dog for a walk whenever I can in the day. In other words, I have a routine for some things, but it’s not always the same routine and it doesn’t always result in writing. And things change when I have a student or an assignment I’m working on or when I’m not working on a new book or am travelling or having visitors or coffee dates.

All Lit Up: How do you approach developing your characters or world-building?

M.S. Berry: I develop characters or build worlds the same way I approach organizing my days, I guess. I go with the flow. My characters and my world-building are dependent on me being able to turn on the TV of my brain and hear and see and smell and follow the people and worlds I’m creating. I really do have a lucky career. I get to invent situations and people; I get to watch the TV in my head. I can do this when I have the energy, the focus, the ability to concentrate–some days it’s hard, other days it’s easy.

All Lit Up: How has your perspective on writing changed over time?

M.S. Berry: Like the way my days are organized, my perspective on writing has changed too. I used to get excited by the published book in my hand more than by the writing of it. Now I get more excited by the editing. I love having my novel done, written, and then playing with it like a puzzle. Clicking the pieces into place. I get more nervous now about putting it all together at the beginning and less stressed about making sure it all works. I’m also more afraid to write than I used to be. I worry about saying the wrong thing or coming across the wrong way. I’m less ignorant and naive now and know that my work could be taken the wrong way or insult someone. And that makes me scared. I guess my confidence has gone down. Which is weird. You’d think at this point in my career my confidence would go up?

All Lit Up: If you weren’t an author, what do you think you’d be doing?

M.S. Berry: There is nothing I would rather be doing if I couldn’t write. I’m sure of that. I think there is absolutely nothing else I would be good at. There is nothing I would love more than writing. When I was younger, I had many things I would have loved to do–working with animals, medicine, some kind of film work, for example. I used to dream about going to a meeting all dressed up, a businesswoman. Now that makes me shiver. I’ve spent so much of my life honing my craft and working on it, so much time getting to know the industry and my peers, I can’t imagine having to start again with something else. I’ll still be writing when no one wants to publish me, I think. 

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M.S. Berry is Michelle Berry, an award-winning author of seven novels and three collections of short fiction. Her work has been optioned for film and published internationally in the United Kingdom.