How to Start a Novel when You Haven’t a Clue

Over the last few weeks we have looked at the various elements that the writer uses as part of his or her process. Today, I want to start a guide for the perplexed. How to write a novel (or a long story or even a piece of non-fiction) if you don’t have the slightest idea what you’re doing.

Forget all the rules and all the advice you’ve been given so far and just start with what you know. Even if you don’t know who your characters are, what they want, or where the story ought to go. Famed author John Fowles had an idea for the book that became The French Lieutenant’s Woman. All he knew was there was a woman standing alone on a pier. Fowles, splendid writer that he was, waited until he knew more about the mystery woman before he began writing. Wise people might do likewise, but if that’s not your speed, you might try it this way:

Write the bit you have in mind. Let’s say it’s a car crash. That’s really all you know. You might imagine the time of day and the general location where it happens, but that’s about it. Just write what you know. You may find, as you go, that other details emerge. A young woman is bleeding. Who is she? Will she survive? That’s up to you.

Where do you go next? You have options, my friend. Here are some:

Just keep going. Write the story as if you were reading a book. Don’t worry about the details or the structure, you can figure it out later. Right now, just get it down. As you write, you may realise that you’ll need to go back before the accident to add some important information. Just leave a note to yourself so you can get back to that later. Don’t break your flow if the story continues to trickle out of your brain.

Go back a bit. It doesn’t have to be the beginning, perhaps it’s just the scene before. You have an angry man yelling at his family, complaining that they are going to be late. Late for what? It doesn’t matter. Just write whatever you have in mind.

Create a spider diagram. Again, just fill in the bits that you have figured out. Who are these people? Will they survive? Do they hit another car? If so, what happens to those people? A spider diagram will help you to see further afield than that one incident. The real story may not really begin until years after that accident.

List your questions. You don’t need to know any details; list the questions. The who, what, where, when, how, and why. What leads to the accident and what are the consequences of it? Fill in the answers as they come to you.

Create a timeline. Once you have some idea of the various events that happen in the story — keeping in mind the importance of cause and effect: I was injured in a car accent and my memory has been impacted, so that makes it hard for me to form relationships, for instance. Your timeline should be a series of “because this happened, then that resulted, which caused this to happen…” etc.

Be prepared to do the real work later. It’s not unusual to find there are problems with your timeline, or perhaps your characters don’t behave as you anticipated. You will need to do a lot of work in putting all the bits and pieces together, but, hey! you’re writing a book! It should be hard, or everyone would do it.

Don’t stop writing once you’ve started. If you wait until you have answers to all your questions you may never get back to the story again. Don’t worry about making sense right from the start. You can write a variety of scenes that don’t seem to fit together, but it will work eventually.

Hush. You may be tempted to tell others about your story, but don’t. Keep your mouth shut, and pour all your ideas, thoughts, and worries into the novel. Let your friends read it when it’s published.

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