From Idea to Story: Part Four

PUTTING IT TOGETHER

Over the past three weeks we have looked at the essentials that go into writing a novel. If you have all those elements figured out, you can start to put those pieces together. In other words, writing. But first, let me suggest some important points:

Dos and Don’ts

DO

Set a writing schedule and try to keep to it. What you are doing is training your mind to be ready to write at a specific day and time. Writing is never easy, but this helps.Try to write every day, or at least most days. It is harder to develop good habits if your schedule is erratic. Not that it’s impossible, but it is harder.Start thinking of yourself as a professional. If you see writing as a hobby, you won’t give it the time and respect it needs.Set daily goals. For instance, you can set a minimum number of words to write each day,. It’s up to you how many words feels comfortable, but try not to make it too few. Yes, you can write a novel 250 words at a time, but it’s very hard to keep up the pacing of the story, plus taking four days to write 1750 words a week is very slow progress. That said, if it’s all you can manage, then just be diligent in keeping to your schedule.If the number of words doesn’t work for you, you might prefer to go by the clock. Working for an hour each day, or whatever you can manage, will still get the job done, as long as you are disciplined and don’t go internet-wandering during that time. Keep a log of your word count. Few things motivate me as much as seeing those numbers climb up. You can keep a few pages in your journal for that purpose, or there are apps that you can use. MS Word keeps a running tally of your wordcount. Or, if you’re a spreadsheet geek like me, you can use that to track your progress.Reward yourself for your achievements. For instance, if you have worked every day for a week (or a month, or whatever) give yourself a small treat. You’ve earned it.If counting words doesn’t work for you, go by the clock instead. Perhaps working for an hour each day will feel like a better fit. In that case, count the number of hours and reward yourself for each milestone — every 50 hours or so.

DON’T

Start skipping days. You’ll break the writing habit and it will be very difficult to find your stride again.Once you start your novel, DON’T, for any reason, stop and start over. The road to publication is littered with incomplete manuscripts. Think of novel-writing as a marathon. You have to keep going. Don’t worry if it’s rubbish, all first drafts are. That’s why G-d invented rewrites. But if you stop you’ll sacrifice your rhythm, your mojo, and your chance of success.While you’re writing your first draft, don’t worry too much about the rules. Just get the story down. The time to focus on the rules — at least in my opinion — is once you’re ready for the rewrite. The only goal right now is to get that first draft finished.

WRITING THE FIRST DRAFT

You will probably already know the terms ‘plotter’ and ‘pantser’. In case not, here’s what they mean:

The Plotter

A ‘plotter’ is someone who knows every detail of the story before they ever begin writing. As the name suggests, they have the plot carefully laid out. They know what happens when, and what happens to every character. By temperament, the plotter is methodical, careful, and organised.

Advantages

If this is your preferred approach, you have a very specific plan for how the story will work out. You are unlikely to go off on tangents or false trails, because you are on sure footing with the plot.You won’t waste time or energy on false trails because you have the story clearly fixed in your mind.

Disadvantages

It can make the story feel flat and void of surprises.For some, it can make the actual writing feel a bit dull.

The ‘Pantser’

A ‘pantser’ is a person who essentially makes the story up as they go along. Writing by the seat of their pants, if you like. They might have a general idea of how the story will go, but mostly it’s a surprise. The pantser tends to be impulsive, spontaneous, and easily bored.

Advantages

This approach allows for spontaneity, and can be much more fun to write if you have that sort of personality. There’s nothing like the thrill you get when a character suddenly takes over and completely surprises you.For the pantser, this feels more like ‘pure’ writing, rather than the more methodical plotting approach.

Disadvantages

You can waste a lot of time, paper, and energy by wandering down unexplored alleyways. It can be frustrating when the story turns into a muddle and lose all sense of where you’re going.If you’re not careful, the rewriting stage can be overwhelming. Trying to sort out a muddle and decide what to cut and what to keep can prove taxing to the novice writer.

The Hybrid

Now, I’m going to introduce a new concept: the ‘hybrid’. After years of trying to plot, and of getting lost in my own spontaneity, I came up with this approach that incorporates the best of both options. Here’s how it works:

I usually know the big picture of the novel I am planning to write. I will research the elements that I know will be essential. For instance, my first novel, A Biased Judgement, is in the form of Sherlock Holmes’ diaries and takes place in 1897. I began by looking at the various historical events that took place that year, as well as the Holmes’ stories that happened then, too. I then constructed a spreadsheet to track events and, following that, created a loose chronology.

As I put the chronology together — yes, there was a spreadsheet involved, but you can use good old pen and paper if you like — the story started to fall into place. One of the key things I noted was that in spring of that year, Watson reported that Holmes was unwell and,

“In March of that year Dr. Moore Agar, of Harley Street, whose dramatic introduction to Holmes I may some day recount, gave positive injunctions that the famous private agent lay aside all his cases and surrender himself to complete rest if he wished to avert an absolute breakdown.”

The Devil’s Foot / Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I found this intriguing and the event that led to Holmes’ illness — an assault and stabbing that he was fortunate to survive — became my opening.

Once I had that starting point, I just got on with the writing. However, instead of stopping every time I rethought a scene, I made a note in my trusty spreadsheet. Likewise, with things that I needed to research, instead of stopping writing to try to get a specific piece of information, I made a note of it and kept going.

The spreadsheet, in case you’re wondering, included information about characters, the chronology, a list of research items to check, a list of resources including books, websites, etc., and notes on the plot that either needed to change, delete, or scenes that needed to be added or modified either later in the story, or earlier.

The reason I didn’t go back to add new scenes as soon as I thought of them was because, 1) All of my notes that related to changes, research, and so forth, were indexed by page number. A new scene would have thrown all of that data off. I found that out the hard way, alas. Also, I also discovered that sometimes I would change my mind about a scene being necessary. By waiting to add it later, I could be sure that I really needed it.

By the same token, I also didn’t delete pages. I saved everything, even the rubbish (there was a lot of rubbish!) so I could keep going with my writing and not get distracted.

All of this is the first draft. I may make big changes to the story in subsequent drafts, but as someone once said, you can’t edit a blank page.

Next week we will look at how to edit later drafts of the story, and what to do when you finish your novel.

You may have noticed that I haven’t covered the novel’s structure yet. That’s such a big and important topic that I will address that on its own in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I hope you are finding my suggestions helpful. If there is a topic you’d like me to cover in more detail, let me know in the comments.

See you next week.

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