writing a novel

How Do You Write?

Last week, I got an assignment from Kayak: Canada’s History Magazine for Kids to write a story for their September issue. I’ve been given a topic and a deadline: May 25th. It’s not a lot of time, and I need to get the outline or a draft to the editor by 18th. Now I’ve written a few of these stories before, and I’ve noticed that I follow a similar pattern with all of them.

I’m the kind of person who starts by stewing about a project, then I do the research, stew some more, and do a lot of staring out of windows. Eventually, the characters start talking, or sentences starts running through my brain like strips of ticker tape. But I still don’t start writing. The story is still in snippets at that point–just bits like jigsaw puzzle pieces lying on a table.

Now I don’t know about you, but when I work on a puzzle, I always make the border first. It turns out that I can’t write my story until it has a frame either. I need to know the beginning, middle and end of it before I can move on to the first paragraph. Thankfully, when it’s finally time to get to the keyboard, out the story pours. Oh it’s full of holes, of course, and there are lots of places where I type xxx rather than stop typing and look something up, but I get the bones down in one go. The first draft is always far over the required word count, but I love the editing process, so I don’t worry too much about that part.

What is worrisome is that sometimes the staring-out-of-windows part can take a very long time. So long, in fact, that the due date can be way too close for comfort and I start to get a little panicky. I wrote a 7000-word Sherlock Holmes story for JLS Storybook Project and was very worried about hitting my target date on that one; however, so far, I’ve never missed a deadline. Though I have had some scary moments!

I’ve just begun the stewing, researching, stewing, staring-out-of-windows stage for a novel. And once again I’m working on building the frame—but I’m taking my time. I’ve often just started writing a novel without building the framework as thoroughly as I should have at the beginning. I’m going to try a different approach with this one. Feels good so far.

How do you write? Do you just jump in and let things evolve as you go along, or do you plan, or do you do a bit of both?

How do you plot a novel?

Like many writers, I read about writing and how other writers plot their stories. Some have basic outlines, others create very detailed ones, some never plan at all.

I seem to fall somewhere in the middle of it all. I begin a project with a scene that just has to be written. A character arrives in my imagination who is going somewhere and I follow. We race along for a chapter or two and then I have to stop and start creating a roadmap for the rest of our journey.

I like this character; I’m ready to have fun with (let’s say) her for the long haul, but she needs to get into serious trouble for us to have a lasting relationship. And that’s what my planning consists of—finding trouble for my character to get into, then out of, and then into some more. Then we hang out for a few more chapters. As my character reacts to whatever problems I’ve set up, I learn more about what happened to her before we met. That history can have a serious effect on the plans I’ve made–for better or for worse– and then the road may change direction and lead to different complications than the ones I first thought of.

But that’s okay, too. In fact, it’s definitely okay, because now the roadmap is being drawn because of the new things I’m learning about my character. The story grows as I learn and the more I learn, the more I know about what I can put in my character’s way that will be hard, that will hurt, that will challenge, frighten and test and that will help the reader care and be more willing to stay with us for the rest of the journey.

Every time I stop and re-evaluate, I plan a few more chapters or scenes ahead, and then (thankfully) at some point in the process, I realize how the story is going to end. I can see how all the loose ends are going to be tied up and I can make a list of the chapters I need to get there.  In fact, if I can see it clearly enough, I even write the ending at this point. I like knowing how it’s all going to end, but it does make me hugely impatient to get there. I know when I go back to edit, that these chapters will need special work because I wrote them in a hurry and they will be way too lean on the details that make a story real.

So that’s me. That’s how write a novel. What do you do?

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