Finding the perfect plot is something which writers agonise about, but asking yourself a few simple questions will soon help you to tease out the germ of a good idea.
Girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl wins boy back and they live happily ever after. Think of this corny old outline as the foundation of your narrative. The plot is the sequence of events through which you describe your story taking place. The way to derive a plot from your original idea is to keep asking yourself questions.
Girl Meets Boy. What is the girl like? What is the boy like? How do they meet? Have either of them had partners before and if so was it a positive or negative experience? What are their first impressions of each other? Is one of them more keen than the other? Where do they meet? Does the meeting go well, or is it a disaster?
Girl Loses Boy. What exactly has she lost? How far has their relationship developed? Does it have a solid foundation or has it been precarious from the start? How does she lose him? Does the loss come as a surprise or was it predictable from the outset? Is another person involved? What effect does the loss have upon her? What does she decide to do about it?
Girl Wins Boy Back. How does she achieve this? What odds are stacked against her to make it a challenge? Does winning him back occur in a single moment of realisation or does she conduct a sustained campaign? How has he changed? Why has he changed? What makes him want her back?
They Live Happily Ever After. Or do they? Are the auspices positive or negative? Is it a question of "be careful what you really want..." What is happy?
When you have answered all these fundamental questions you will have the basic elements of a plot. You then need to think about structure – how you fit all these elements together, but that's a story for another day...
Showing posts with label How to Write a Novel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label How to Write a Novel. Show all posts
Wednesday, 13 March 2013
Monday, 4 February 2013
Top Tips for Starting a Novel
I am – I think – on the threshold of starting my Next Major Work. If you detect a note of caution, it's because I'm not absolutely certain that I'm ready to begin, even though I started making notes about possible ideas last May, so I've already had a good forty weeks' gestation and should be ready to give birth.
Which brings me to my first tip: don't start writing your story or novel too soon. This is because you need to be so pent up, so desperate to write it, that you generate enough momentum to keep you going over a period which could last years. Giving yourself plenty of time to prepare will also mean that your ideas and characters are well developed and will therefore spring vividly from the page.
My second tip is that you should have a reasonable sense of where you're going. I'm always amazed at the number of people who set off on the long creative trek to write a book without having some kind of a route map to guide them. Don't be afraid that having a plan will cramp or inhibit your inspiration – you can modify your work right up until the last minute if you want to and it's a good idea to build in enough flexibility to allow you to respond to the brilliant idea that hits you halfway through. But if you don't give your imagination material to work with – the basis and structure for a story – you may find that you're making impossible demands on it and don't be surprised if it, and your project, run out of steam. If you were building a house you'd employ an architect, who would be there to help you if you wanted to change the position of the kitchen halfway through the build. It's the same with writing fiction. Having a solid structure will support the alterations you want to make, as well as giving you the confidence to be bold and implement them.
My third tip is that you should keep mum: don't reveal what you're writing about to anybody because it will dilute the story you want to tell. The first narration should occur on the page. I wouldn't be too precious about having your idea stolen because, like fingerprints, no two stories are the same and you can't copyright ideas, only words. By keeping quiet about what you are up to, the only expectations you have to deal with are your own and you may find those difficult enough in any case.
My final tip – enjoy what you are doing. Relish every phrase you write. Fall in love with your characters as you get to know them better. Let yourself be giddy with the excitement of it all. Writing is the easy part – the big challenge of how to get your work into the public domain comes later.
Which brings me to my first tip: don't start writing your story or novel too soon. This is because you need to be so pent up, so desperate to write it, that you generate enough momentum to keep you going over a period which could last years. Giving yourself plenty of time to prepare will also mean that your ideas and characters are well developed and will therefore spring vividly from the page.
My second tip is that you should have a reasonable sense of where you're going. I'm always amazed at the number of people who set off on the long creative trek to write a book without having some kind of a route map to guide them. Don't be afraid that having a plan will cramp or inhibit your inspiration – you can modify your work right up until the last minute if you want to and it's a good idea to build in enough flexibility to allow you to respond to the brilliant idea that hits you halfway through. But if you don't give your imagination material to work with – the basis and structure for a story – you may find that you're making impossible demands on it and don't be surprised if it, and your project, run out of steam. If you were building a house you'd employ an architect, who would be there to help you if you wanted to change the position of the kitchen halfway through the build. It's the same with writing fiction. Having a solid structure will support the alterations you want to make, as well as giving you the confidence to be bold and implement them.
My third tip is that you should keep mum: don't reveal what you're writing about to anybody because it will dilute the story you want to tell. The first narration should occur on the page. I wouldn't be too precious about having your idea stolen because, like fingerprints, no two stories are the same and you can't copyright ideas, only words. By keeping quiet about what you are up to, the only expectations you have to deal with are your own and you may find those difficult enough in any case.
My final tip – enjoy what you are doing. Relish every phrase you write. Fall in love with your characters as you get to know them better. Let yourself be giddy with the excitement of it all. Writing is the easy part – the big challenge of how to get your work into the public domain comes later.
Monday, 25 June 2012
An Alphabet of Better Writing # C
C is for Challenge....
...and, oh boy, is writing a challenge. It's a challenge to find the time, to find the inspiration, to stop procrastinating. It's a challenge to dig down into the creative, tender, sensitive part of yourself that you will need to access in order to write well. And all of this is nothing compared to the challenge involved in sharing what you have written with other people.
Another challenge, which you may not anticipate when your major focus is on getting published, is how you make sure that your work retains its vibrancy and vitality over a long period of time. It can be easy to go off the boil and in order to prevent this from happening you need to repeatedly challenge yourself as a writer. This involves avoiding writing about what comes easily to you -- in this context easy does not equal good. To stay fresh, to renew yourself in a way that is interesting for both you and your readers, you need to consider your weaknesses. Think hard about what is really difficult for you to do, and then try to do it. It's the equivalent of searching the key to a locked door...
and the greater the challenge, the greater the reward.
...and, oh boy, is writing a challenge. It's a challenge to find the time, to find the inspiration, to stop procrastinating. It's a challenge to dig down into the creative, tender, sensitive part of yourself that you will need to access in order to write well. And all of this is nothing compared to the challenge involved in sharing what you have written with other people.
Another challenge, which you may not anticipate when your major focus is on getting published, is how you make sure that your work retains its vibrancy and vitality over a long period of time. It can be easy to go off the boil and in order to prevent this from happening you need to repeatedly challenge yourself as a writer. This involves avoiding writing about what comes easily to you -- in this context easy does not equal good. To stay fresh, to renew yourself in a way that is interesting for both you and your readers, you need to consider your weaknesses. Think hard about what is really difficult for you to do, and then try to do it. It's the equivalent of searching the key to a locked door...
and the greater the challenge, the greater the reward.
Friday, 22 June 2012
An Alphabet of Better Writing # B
B is for Back Story...
In many ways beginnings are easy: you think of a dramatic moment in your story and jump in (even though it can take you a little while to find your narrative feet). The tricky part is managing your back story. This is the information your reader will need about what has happened to your characters before the current action starts. The back story is your intimate knowledge of their lives. It is important that you, as the author, know a good deal about your hero, heroine and their confederates, because you will need all this information to bring them to life. However, this is not the same thing as telling your reader everything about them. You need to know about their early childhood traumas in order to show how it affects their adult behaviour, but you don't always need to spell out everything, otherwise you will end up with a curriculum vitae rather than a novel.
The principle for handling the back story is similar to the principle for handling how you drip feed information in general. Too much is definitely not a good thing. It is crucially important for the writer to get the reader to work with them in imagining the story - this is very much a joint venture. To achieve this, you need to give them enough facts to stimulate their curiosity, so that they start adding two and two together, then suddenly they're off and away, making four, or five, or Heavens to Betsy, even six.
As a rule of thumb, I try to find out as much about my characters as I would want to know about a friend. I'm inquisitive about their families, where they were brought up, how educated they are, what they enjoy , what they fear, any gossip, etc etc. This is all useful to me because it informs how I write about them. I guess I only tell the reader about a quarter of what I know.
Collating this information is one thing, distributing it is another. Try not to dump it in a great indigestible heap at the beginning of your story. Work out the minimum that your reader requires in order to get started and then try sprinkling the rest judiciously as the narrative moves along. Try an aside here, a recollection there, but avoid big clunky flashbacks because they're just that: clunky.
In many ways beginnings are easy: you think of a dramatic moment in your story and jump in (even though it can take you a little while to find your narrative feet). The tricky part is managing your back story. This is the information your reader will need about what has happened to your characters before the current action starts. The back story is your intimate knowledge of their lives. It is important that you, as the author, know a good deal about your hero, heroine and their confederates, because you will need all this information to bring them to life. However, this is not the same thing as telling your reader everything about them. You need to know about their early childhood traumas in order to show how it affects their adult behaviour, but you don't always need to spell out everything, otherwise you will end up with a curriculum vitae rather than a novel.
The principle for handling the back story is similar to the principle for handling how you drip feed information in general. Too much is definitely not a good thing. It is crucially important for the writer to get the reader to work with them in imagining the story - this is very much a joint venture. To achieve this, you need to give them enough facts to stimulate their curiosity, so that they start adding two and two together, then suddenly they're off and away, making four, or five, or Heavens to Betsy, even six.
As a rule of thumb, I try to find out as much about my characters as I would want to know about a friend. I'm inquisitive about their families, where they were brought up, how educated they are, what they enjoy , what they fear, any gossip, etc etc. This is all useful to me because it informs how I write about them. I guess I only tell the reader about a quarter of what I know.
Collating this information is one thing, distributing it is another. Try not to dump it in a great indigestible heap at the beginning of your story. Work out the minimum that your reader requires in order to get started and then try sprinkling the rest judiciously as the narrative moves along. Try an aside here, a recollection there, but avoid big clunky flashbacks because they're just that: clunky.
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