Despite Danielle’s success as an author, she tends to be a rather shy person. She doesn’t grant interviews very often and in recent memory, I can only remember her having an on-screen interview once. It was last fall when she was on Good Morning, America and interviewed by Robin Roberts about her latest book release.
Of course when someone publishes numerous novels a year, having to do all those interviews for every single book can be time-consuming and exhausting!
But I was a bit curious into how she manages to publish so many books per year. I know other authors do it, but they are vocal about having help or using ghost writers. James Patterson, for example, publishes nearly a book every month (at minimum). These are almost always co-written by someone else. At this point in his career, I’m not sure how much actual writing Patterson is doing.
On the other hand, Danielle has said many times in the few interviews she has done that she doesn’t get any help in her writing. She proclaims adamantly that she writes all of her novels herself. Which I think is excellent.
But, how does this translate into writing 7 books each year?
Her Writing Style
Danielle’s writing style is actually a longer process than I thought. From what I read, she takes at least two years to finish a novel. She said that the planning stage is the most important and she really needs to have the characters well-developed before she sits down to write the full book. The first year is mainly research, on both the characters and the locations or the main plot’s inciting incident. She says that this helps to make the characters and their situation feel more real to her.
She then works on an outline of the novel and finally it’s time to write. Danielle Steel is famous for saying that when she’s writing a book she will sit in front of her old manual typewriter for hours. Literally hours. Like up to 22 in a day (!) working. Somewhere I read that she subsists on chocolate and almonds during this phase of the process. This of course has made her the target of some criticism. But she swears by it.
She said that she has found a rhythm that allows her to work on up to five books at one time. She is roughly two years ahead of her publishing schedule. That means that the book she announced she finished last week won’t be seen by the public until 2026! Danielle is in her late 70s but it showing no signs of slowing down. It seems like we’ll still have Danielle Steel books for years to come!
Shelves of Steel 