My Writing Diary: Breaking It Down

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Breaking It Down
I'm 30,000 words into the first draft of my new novel, which is due with my publishers in August. The first book took me two years to write. How am I supposed to deliver a second draft in five months and hold down a full-time job at the same time?

To stave off the panic facing the mountain of a whole novel, I break it down. When I sit down at my computer I know exactly what scene I'm there to write. This means doing lots of prep in advance, making sure my story arc is created and that each scene for that is in shorthand - eg. Maggie (my new main character) meets William (ex-husband) in a café. She wants him to come to her biopsy with her, but instead tells him Rita (his new girlfriend) has been to see her. William storms out.

Then, armed with this scene, I sit down and fill it in with my imagination. Very few of the scenes I wrote for The Forced Redundancy Film Club were deleted. They were tweaked, of course, but because I got the structure of the novel down before I started writing, I knew how each scene would bring the story forward from beginning, to middle, to end.

There are so many other considerations - character, tone, pacing etc. – but as long as you have a plot, broken down into scenes, you have a road in front of you.

My other thing is to tell myself that 300 words is enough. If I write only 300 words a day I am still part of the story, it is still working in my subconcious, and I am still inexorably moving towards the end of the first draft - which should be your goal. (I only revise each scene I write once during this part of the process.) Usually I get more than 300 words out, but the simple act of telling myself 300 is enough allows me to sit down without feeling pressure.