Rebecca Skloot Has Too Much Information

The author of The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks discusses the challenges of multi-threaded narratives, the joys of reporting in a Hazmat suit, and why writing a book is like a Homeland episode.

Profession: Author, The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

Favorite tools: Index cards, Scrivener, audio recorders, DayOne, Trint.

Writing space: Somewhere near nature.

Default writing music: foreign-language electronica lounge songs.

We have both spent a ridiculous amount of time tinkering with the writing and research tools we use, so let’s start with that: what are you using these days?

I feel like you and I have both been on this slightly maniacal quest to find the perfect software setup… Every once in a while over the years I’ve seen you post something about some software that I’m also using, and I think: he and I have the same problem! (laughs) I use Scrivener for the same reasons you do, which is I have to be able to see the building blocks of my stories as cards I can move around. But I also use actual index cards — paper stuck to the wall index cards — for thinking about structure. I did that for The Immortal Life; I had…