Saturday Afternoon: The Spa (with D’Arcy Carden)

This is Book Talk, presented by On The Rocks.

Today, I've got a can of their gorgeous Sparkling Peach Cosmopolitan.

A perfect Saturday for me is a good book and a crisp cocktail, so I'm feeling right at home, and I'm so excited to answer more of your questions.

Let's hear what you've got today.

Hi, I'm Erin Bennett, and I'm a longtime narrator of Elin Hilderbrand's work, including The Five Star Weekend.

Something I've always wondered about the writer's process, your process, Elin, is how d- how do voices come to you? Voices are so important to me.

How do they come to you? Does dialogue come to you the way somebody talks? Do you...

Are you sitting at dinner and you hear conversation and you go, "Ah, that's a character," and they lead you s- to their next, um, through their own adventures through, through the audio?

Hi, Erin Bennett, the great Erin Bennett, narrator of my last 20 books, if not more.

I love you so much.

This is an excellent question.

So the way that I build characters I compare to moving in with a new roommate.

There is no way that a character comes to you whole, and I couldn't possibly develop a character just by hearing somebody speak once.

Basically, the way I create characters is by spending time with them every single day.

So for those of you who've dropped your son or daughter off at college and met the roommate and you think, "He seems pretty nice," and then three months later you have a whole other perspective because your son or daughter has then lived with that person, that's what it's like developing a character.

You have to spend time with them and learn them day by day.

Thank you, my darling Erin, for that excellent question.