North Stonington — If this was being written by best-selling literary star Jennifer Egan, who appeared Tuesday night at a signing and discussion in Wheeler Library, the protagonist wouldn't have coalesced yet. As per her formula — so successful in novels like "Look at Me," "The Keep," the Pulitzer Prize-winning "A Visit from the Goon Squad" and last year's massively successful "Manhattan Beach" — setting, time and atmosphere would be the conceptual points from which the story evolves.

"Against a backdrop of greenery through the arched, top floor windows of the library, on a small wooden stage furnished simply with a club chair, a small P.A. system and, on this warm June afternoon, an angled box fan to provide the guest of honor with a close-focus, Seals & Croftsian summer breeze ..."

And then, perhaps, the idea of a successful author might wend its way into her fertile imagination and demand some attention. Well, let's agree such things work for Jennifer Egan.

Dressed in a sleeveless yellow dress, and cheerfully apologetic after construction on I-95 caused her to arrive a half-hour late on her drive from Brooklyn, Egan read and spoke to about 60 attentive fans — a multi-generational crowd of mostly women. Over the course of an hour, Egan explained that fascinating and distinctive creative process, how she came to research and write "Manhattan Beach" — a several-years project — and also read an excerpt from the book's first chapter before pleasantly chatting with readers who'd queued up for autographs. Bank Square Books sponsored the event.

"All of my books begin the same way," Egan said. "I have an idea of time and place and a sense of atmosphere. It's a place I want to visit."

In the case of "Manhattan Beach," Egan had become fascinated by life on the New York City waterfront and the Brooklyn Navy Yard during the early years of World War II. As a fellow at the New York Public Library, she began to research the era and threads began to emerge: the role of women in the shipbuilding industry — in particular the idea of a female diver who'd weld and work on below-surface salvage and repair jobs — as well as the pervasive, Prohibition-spawned criminal networks whose practitioners were integrated into the accepted fabric of everyday life.

From this hazy scenario emerged three indelible characters: Anna Kerrigan, who becomes a Navy Yard diver; her much-loved father who vanished while she was a child; and Dexter Styles, a prominent area gangster with an odd sense of honor and loyalty. With that, Egan was off. After five years and countless drafts, Egan had the completed, 1,400-page manuscript from which the final version of "Manhattan Beach" was subsequently carved.

Egan's research included participating in an oral history project of the Brooklyn Navy Yard; numerous and hourslong conversations with divers; and a poignant meeting with surviving family members of Lucy Kolkin, a WWII Navy Yard worker whose archived letters, describing her job and romance with Al Kolkin, another Navy Yard vet and her future husband, provided much inspiration and period detail.

Not only were Egan's remarks mesmerizing, her continued respect and affection for the era and subject matter were refreshing and palpable — like an energized student emerging from a particularly fascinating seminar rather than an established and international literary presence.

Listening to Egan describe her actual writing process also was impressive and revealing. She writes by hand in cursive — a practice she's not even sure her two sons know how to do in this age of technology — and revises each chapter as much as 50 times before moving to the next.

"I write by hand to get out of the conscious mindset and surprise myself," Egan said. "It's a process of improvisation rather than free-association, and there's also something meditative about handwriting, although —" she laughed with embarrassed delight — "I have terrible handwriting."

Egan is content to let her characters and her writerly subconscious take control. "I have no plot," she said. "I just barrel along, quickly, not looking at it on the page so that whatever thoughts I'm having often just fade away. At the end, well, I like being surprised. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but I move forward through place and time — and I can't wait to see who's going to be there at the end."

r.koster@theday.com