Balancing Motherhood, Yoga and Writing

At my writing course last night we discussed how to plan for longer fiction, mainly novels: tools which will be helpful when I eventually get back into writing my novel! Here are some of the ideas that I found useful:

Keep record cards of:

• details of characters: e.g. their likes, dislikes, appearances, fears, worst enemy etc
• what happens in each scene of the book, so that you could can keep track as you write, and avoid re-writing the same scene by mistake (believe it or not, this happens to a lot of writers, and I’m sure I’ve done it too).
• each subplot of the book
  
• details of the locations of the book: the setting should be as lifelike as possible, and a map of the place you write about can be useful.

Write a one-page synopsis to send to future agents -

Aim to write the synopsis near the beginning of your writing process, and include the ending. I wondered about what to do when you don’t know how it will end!

Vary the pace of the book

• Generally start with a hook into the story, not building too slowly.
• Try to end chapters on an unresolved question or suspenseful moment. You can even switch to a different subplot on the next chapter.
• Vary the mood - don’t be dark or light throughout the book.
• Vary chapter length

A little while ago, when I was working on re-drafting my novel, I read a book called ‘The Weekend Novelist Redrafts the Novel ‘ by Robert J. Ray. Unfortunately I only got as far as the second chapter before realising that what I had was hardly a first draft - more of a jumble, so I had to really start from scratch organising it all. 

I also realised that my settings and characters were unconvincing, which is why the list of ‘questions to ask your character’ that we received on the course yesterday, sparked off some interesting thoughts. At the moment, though, I’m focussing on my linked short story collection, the first story of which I have written a page so far.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS