3 Things I Learned While Writing My Novel
Author Jennifer Moorman discusses baking through the writing process, creating a town readers want to live in, and other things she learned while writing her novel.
The idea for my novel The Baker’s Man came to me after rereading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I was struck again by how significantly your life would change, for better or worse, by creating a living being. At the same time I was finding I had a love for baking. Because of this new skill, I wondered what would happen if a baker made a man out of dough, and the recipe for The Baker’s Man came to life.
When I started the novel, I knew I wanted the characters, the small Southern town, and the storyline to feel as realistic as possible while also enriching the narrative with a feeling of wonder and magic. With these intentions in mind, here are a few things I discovered while writing my novel.
1. Baking successes and fails are true to life.
Portraying a baker in a genuine way meant I needed to understand baking. So I set out to bake everything Anna, the heroine and small-town Southern baker, created (with the exception of the Dough Boy, of course!). If Anna baked Oreo brownies that infused a patron with so much happiness that he danced, I made them too. If the daily muffins at Bea’s Bakery were Morning Glory Muffins, I baked a batch.
Over the course of writing the novel, I tested hundreds of recipes and then politely begged friends, family, and coworkers to be taste testers. Did every recipe turn out? No way! There was a dark chocolate tart that failed not once, but three times. My chocolate bombe was a complete disaster, and a cheesecake covered in mirror glaze never set up and instead leaked all over the refrigerator like a waterfall of bright crimson goo. I may or may not have cried a few times in discouragement, but dozens and dozens of recipes turned out brilliantly!
These trial-and-error moments helped elevate my novel. They offered me ways to authentically describe smells and sounds that Anna experienced. For example, she might compare feeling deflated as being like a rainy day meringue, because that’s what happens to meringue when there’s too much moisture in the air; it deflates or collapses. Baking through the novel allowed me to craft dialogue that is accurate in a baking world, and best of all, it gave me the knowledge to add my own magical spin to life inside Mystic Water’s beloved bakery.
2. The small Southern town asserts itself as a character.
I grew up in a small Southern town in Georgia, so I took all my favorite aspects of my hometown and gathered them together with memories of other towns I’ve visited in real life or in stories. To use a baking analogy: I tossed all of these ingredients into a bowl, mixed until just combined, and baked to perfection, creating the town of Mystic Water.
While writing a cast of characters that we can all relate to—the heroine, the best friend, the love interest, the ex, the parents—what I hadn’t expected was how fervently the community would present itself. Even though there is a magical element in the book, the story is about friendship, love, family, and even heartache. There is also a powerful sense of kinship, and the characters’ lives became fully entwined with the town. That’s when I realized Mystic Water was just as much of a character as Anna (and just as cherished too).
3. Mystic Water is a favorite travel destination for readers.
Mystic Water has all the cozy charm of a small Southern town with its quirky lovable townsfolk. If you can close your eyes and imagine a Hallmark movie set, then you’ll get an idea of what it’s like living in Mystic Water. What I discovered about the town is that everything I love about it, the readers do too. From hundreds of readers, I’ve heard variations of “I want to live there.” So do I!
I created Mystic Water to feel like a place readers would want to take a road trip to with their best friends, where they could picture themselves walking downtown eating ice cream, where they could fall in love. I wanted readers to feel the magic of the breeze. Mystic Water is a place of dreams and charm and love, and it’s one of my very favorite places to visit. I tell readers that anytime they’re ready to take a trip to Mystic Water, so am I.
Born and raised in southern Georgia, where honeysuckle grows wild and the whippoorwills sing, Jennifer Moorman is the bestselling author of the magical realism Mystic Water series. Jennifer started writing in elementary school, crafting epic tales of adventure and love and magic. She wrote stories in Mead notebooks, on printer paper, on napkins, on the soles of her shoes. Her blog is full of dishes inspired by fiction, and she hosts baking classes showcasing these recipes. Jennifer considers herself a traveler, a baker, and a dreamer. She can always be won over with chocolate, unicorns, or rainbows. She believes in love—everlasting and forever. Connect with Jennifer at jennifermoorman.com, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and BookBub.
