The aim of last week’s blog was to help new writers
realise that we all possess a wealth of knowledge on how to produce writing
which can be taken from our previous reading, social conditioning and our life
experiences. These can prove valuable sources of inspiration and can be found
anywhere, but it can be overwhelming to sit down and focus when faced with such
a vast plethora of ideas, so how do we set about creating order from this
chaos?
Maybe the first question to ask yourself is do you
want to create order from chaos? Some may find it more beneficial to work
on these ideas straight away -- harnessing the motivation and creative juices
while they are flowing. After all, a lot can be said for converting these ideas
into chapters straight away, as it provides tangible evidence that your ideas
can become a reality, resulting in further motivation to continue. By producing
a few chapters following the nucleus of your idea it may be that you think more
about the depth of your characters or aspects of the plot and how they may develop.
Have you decided how your story or novel ends? Not a problem having the
gung-ho approach and just jumping in without solid direction, you can decide
that as you move forward and may find that when the time comes your characters
will dictate to you how the story ends rather than the other way around. Your
early drafts become a playground within which you can lose yourself for hours
as you tinker with a solution that suits you -- time lines can be adjusted or
played with, drafts of chapters can be broken up to create suspense and so on
and so forth.
So why would we want to stunt this creative flow? We
don’t. In fact, what you’ll find consistent among all of these blogs is that
the act of writing is a very individual thing and that each person may find
their productivity following different methods; each to their own. Just for a
moment though, I would like you to consider an alternative. A ‘write first’
approach may have some drawbacks, the first of which is in the production of a
synopsis, which is the cornerstone of being able to promote your work to a
publisher. We will go into detail on the production of a synopsis in future
weeks but, for now anyway, the question is what would go in it? Adopting a
‘write first’ approach means that the writer would be less likely to concisely
tell the publisher about the novel including the details they want to know
about the full plot and the ending, so at some stage these things need to be
considered. Furthermore, if a character develops in some way (think classic bildungsromans
like Jane
Eyre) then this could be pivotal in selling your story.
However, if we step away from the business side of
writing we can still view a plan or writing structure as having practical
merit. It can help the writer make crucial decisions about how the writing will
be presented, such as journals alternating between characters, what narrative
voice you wish to employ or maybe the locations that you want the action
to take place in. Consistency can often be traced back to a plan as it may
assist the writer in maintaining a focus on some of the fundamental issues
contributing to the text such as dialects, socio-political events relevant to
the time and location of the story, or simply what tense to present it in. A
plan may also have further benefits in that they can capture fantastic ideas,
the value of which may have been diluted if revisited some weeks later. Ever forgotten something?
Revisiting a brief summary of each chapter would prevent this. Finally,
motivation is key to all writers so the production of a plan can be linked to
achieving writing targets whilst also helping to prevent having to ask yourself
about where the story is going next or hitting the wall that is writer’s block.
The very essence of writing is creativity but, rather
than stifle that, what I am suggesting is that a small investment of time in
producing a writing plan may assist you in making authorial decisions at
the beginning of the process as you’ll be able to see the bigger picture
throughout. If it is a practice that you’re not familiar with, and even if it
is, might I propose producing four sentences which capture the essence of your
novel and then one sentence or three bullet points for each chapter thereafter.
This is just a guide and you may decide to capture more information within your
plan to assist you on your journey.
As always, share your ideas and thoughts in response to
this and lets all support each other along the way. Happy writing!
A blog by
Steve Marshall
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