People are asking me regularly now, about the book I began writing two years ago. Questions like 'how long does it take to write a novel' and 'however do you start' and 'do you have a process for writing a book?' and, 'how do you know that you're done?'
In his famous and much-loved book on writing (which of course he called On Writing), Stephen King advocates that you; start with an idea and some characters, and seeing where it takes you...
I still follow this plan, but I've found it works better if it's better defined, not so vague as see where it takes you... So I break idea/characters/write on into 7 basic steps. What are they? Read on, dear subscriber...
1. The idea
I've recently written here about how my idea of my children's novel Just
My Luck came into being, using the unlikely-named 'Commonplace Book' But I also like using a mood board, and when I started my latest book The Wrong I Did, which is for 14+ to adult readers, I blogged about the mood board I created here. These pictures, postcards, snatches of little items and cuttings from magazine made me learn a lot about my characters by looking, rather than by writing. It helped me get a feel for the two characters I started with, Caitlin and Lily, sorting out how they met, and why that was important to the story.
2. Decide on a location
Caitlin and Lily grew up in my hometown of Bristol. They met on the day Caitlin's father died from a heart attack; the day her mother went right off the rails. Lily was the pharmacist's daughter and Caitlin thinks she is the wonderful person she has ever met.
But I really wanted to set some of the book in Aberystwyth. It has huge atmosphere as a West Wales seaside town, but it's also full of culture, with a big university. The countryside is wild and atmospheric. Caitlin arrives as a traumatised, but streetwise, 16 year-old. She begins to find her way round, allowing the reader to engage with the starling murmurations, the cliff railway, the seafront, where her 'sort of' boyfriend serves pulled pork sandwiches to the punters, and the National Library of Wales, where her Welsh-speaking foster mother works.
3. Get to know your characters
Steadily, as Caitlin revealed her story to me, I could see that there would be a few important other characters in this story. To start with, I thought about Caitlin's relationship to each other those. The way she hates £££ on sight, because she wanted to go back and live with her mother, of course. The way she remembers (( her social worker at the secure unit she's been detained in since she was fourteen, and the terror his image strikes in her heart. The sudden fear when $$ approaches her in Chapter One, telling he wants to tell her story. She thinks he's been sent from !! who was in charger of her movements all those years ago, when she was a tracker. And the powerful bond she forms with && after finding him half dead next to dumper bin at the back of the Aberystwyth shopping centre.
4. Decide on themes
The best stories speak to us on multiple levels, an opportunity to explore key issues within society. I wanted to explore the newish phenomenon of 'County Lines', which seem impervious to police intervention. They are secret, clandestine. They use children as a front for drug-related activities. This is Caitlin's past, but she's now trying to leave it behind.
5.Outline the story into 3 acts
This formula may be old, and a bit mechanical, but it helps maintain a structure as you write the words of your story. There are many more complex ways for structuring but sometimes the simplest way is the best.
Even so, I wasn't simple about it! I needed an outline of the story as it happens to Caitlin, before I could start looking at the story as it appears to the reader.
1 Caitlin's father dies when she's 11. She tries to help her mother, who is hooked on sleepers and tranquelizers. She approaches a tracker – a drug dealer at school – and is soon sucked into the life of supplying.
2 The second act is told in flashback, like the first. Caitlin is found guilty of murder and supplying heroin and serves two years in a secure unit for young people. But is this actually 'the wrong she did'?
3 She moves to Aber to get away from all these memories, but of course, they follow her here. She realises it's not going to be easy to escape from her previous life. The trackers want her back.
6. Create a chapter summary for the entire book.
Once I had my three acts of young Cailin's life, I needed to plot out what happens in real time. The story starts in Aber. Caitlin has been there for six weeks, and she now knows she pregnant. She won't tell Melissa, though, and plans to go back to see her mum and get a medical abortion. At the same time, she's got to avoid $$, who wants to tell her story in his newspaper. And she's really worried about @@ because he's be rushed into ITU with sepsis. Oh, and as well as working at the care home, she's suppose to start College, even though that's the last thing she has time for right now. I spend a lot of time working out how each chapter will work; where I'll drop in the flashbacks, and when I should ramp up the tension and the action or drop a twist into the story. My roadmap is 25 chapter headings, although I know any of these can change if I think of something better I use the headings as roadsigns to keep on the right route.
7. Get to the end first. Go back to the beginning after.
Some of you will know that this is a Lewis Carol quote. It makes sense. Don’t get lost in writing bits and pieces and trying to shoehorn them in somehow. If you go from start to end then the story will flow much better. Should inspiration strike for a later part, you can write it and use your chapter summary to slot it in, but don’t get distracted by things that aren’t relevant to this book.
