02 The process
It's
time to take a peek at that scarey diagram again...
Writing fiction is really not much
different from travel writing. In travel writing you go
off to a place and spend X number of months/years there
and take notes on what you see and who you meet and then
distil all this into a book.
In fiction writing you do exactly
the same. The only difference is that the places and people
don't exist. You create an entire world in your head and
spend X number of months there and then you write about
it.
That's not to say you won't travel
to real places and meet real people in order to help make
your fictional world real. At the end of the writing process,
when you have a completed manuscript, it should feel like
you were actually there. It should be the case that you
can turn to people who read about your world and say to
them, "there's so much more I could tell you.'
We've already looked at how there's
no single starting point to a novel. However, after the
idea takes root and starts to grow, there are three sections
that will begin to take shape. Usually you will end up
with an initial notes document that has the early stages
of these upon it:
Characters
A few basic thoughts about the main characters, names, relationship to each
other, age, gender, nationality etc.
Key scenes/dialogue
Often a particular key scene, event or significant piece of dialogue will come
into being at the very earliest stages.
Timeline/plot
A basic overview of what might happen in the novel should also start to take
shape.
This is our start. By taking it
slowly and walking logically through the process, you will
calmly and comfortably amass a lot of material and suddenly
find a novel falls out the end of it.
RESEARCH
As soon as anything pops into your head, research it. You want to write a scene
set in a market? Walk round a dozen markets. Find out about the rules and
regulations, observe, sketch, photograph. Take in the noise and smells
that hit you. Become an expert in markets.
You'll notice from the diagram
that the research pile of papers looks bigger than the
novel itself. That's how it should be. Your manuscript
is the water balloon, the research is the water. If your
manuscript expands too much without enough research then
it's just hot air. A water bomb with only a little water
in it that is mainly just hot air doesn't make much of
a splash.
Everything in your novel should come
from four sources:
Knowledge
Something you just happen to know -- it might come from a film or documentary
you once saw or just from talking with friends. But, how well do you know
it? If it's hazy then research it.
Experience
Something that happened to you that you can draw on. But you could still research
and find out other people's experiences of the same thing if it's a major
plot element.
Research
Something you know little or nothing about and so you look it up or consult
an expert.
Original concept
Something that no one has written about or ever dreamed up so it's up to you
to chart unknown territory. However, you need to thoroughly check this
out and research anything similar to help guide you. Only something completely
original should come off the top of your head -- everything else should
be researched thoroughly.
Characters
Once you start to grow this list beyond the most basic "stars' of the
book then it's best to strip this list out as a separate document. For each
character write as much info as possible.
You should also have a lot of back
history written that won't necessarily go into the novel
but ensures you know them inside out. Write a small biography
of them, write about their personality and characteristics,
their likes and dislikes. Are there any key phrases that
they say a lot?
Locations
This is where your scenes will happen. Whatever type of location you choose
for each scene, research it thoroughly. Visit as many examples of these
types of locations as you can. Even if it's an environment that you are
familiar with, revisit it time and time again and switch on all your senses,
absorb even the most trivial of details. Keep a list of your fictional
locations with details of what happens there. Each location might have
it's own timeline of events that happen there. From your locations list,
start to draw up maps and diagrams. Don't just set a scene in a generic "office.'
Is it an old office? A new office? Tidy? Cluttered? Noisy? Quiet? What's
on the walls? Draw a diagram of the seating layout and the doors windows
etc. This will stop you writing illogical scenes further down the line.
It will also cause you to think about your characters interacting in this
environment and help prevent your scenes growing stale.
Novel/Chronological timeline
This is the sequence of events in order. Even if your plot is going to flow
through in natural chronological order there should still be 2 timelines.
Your chronological timeline will include all the events from your book
in time order plus some additional events that occur during your plot that
you may not write about but need to be considered. The Novel timeline will
be a list of events in the order the novel will present them to the reader,
so it might well jump about in time. At some point, when this list is complete,
you can start separating out and/or grouping these events until a very
rough guide to the chapters begins to take shape.
DID I MENTION RESEARCH?
Keep it going...
Now we can attempt to put together
the basic skeleton of the manuscript. Take your Novel timeline
and save it as a separate document (You need to keep the
original basic list to refer back to as an overview). Call
this new document draft_01. Hit a load of returns between
all the points to separate out your chapters. Now take
any key scenes and bits of dialogue and paste them in where
they need to go (they can always be moved later). Any new
scenes or dialogue you think up you can write directly
into the manuscript. With Nix Ex Machina, the novel became
so big that the spelling/grammar underlines failed due
to memory issues. For this reason I split the chapters
into separate word documents, but early on it's good to
have the whole thing in one place so you can leap around
the plot.
It's tempting now to think that
you're away -- that you can just keep the research up,
keep adding characters and expand the text in your manuscript
according to the timeline points until you have a finished
first draft.
You could do that. But in order
to add a bit more depth to it, there are four more documents
we need to start building up as we write the novel:
Character psychoses
How do the events affect our characters. Who they start off as at the beginning
will probably have changed by the end. For each character, map a timeline
of their emotions and motivations, how these change and what effect other
characters have on them and how they in turn affect others.
Location themes
So you've invented a dusty warehouse where some gangsters hang out... create
a list of metaphors that help lift the location above the mundane and give
it that edge of realism. These metaphorical themes will help you write
consistently about the places. Example: An old office where there are a
lot of empty desks. It is a ghost ship, not much moves but shadows seem
to twitch through doorways, people talk here in whispers and the light
here is dim, even on a sunny day. The predominant colours are black and
grey with the odd hint of metal blue or faded brown. This place feels like
a museum that you have broken into out of hours. You never feel comfortable
here. The air is heavy and you breathe dust. Your footsteps echo down the
corridors. There is always noise here, but it always seems to be in another
room or on another floor, muffled in the distance like you are hearing
voices from the past. See? With that metaphorical description of the office,
each time you come to write a scene there a powerful image is in your head
that will steer the atmosphere, rather than just writing another scene
in "the empty old office.'
Baggage
This refers to those small issues that arise as you write the novel that you
never bargained for but need to be dealt with. If some emotional event
happens in one chapter than there will be a natural follow-through process
needed to make sure this event causes the ripples it would in later parts
of the book. Put very simply, there's no point writing about someone's
partner dying and then starting the next chapter "John woke up feeling
happy with a good feeling inside." Keep a track of what baggage each
character is carrying. We'll cover this in greater depth in the section
'The self-writing novel.'
Running themes
This is similar to the character psychoses and the location themes but covers
recurring plot themes that are not character or place dependent. These
are metaphorical themes that run throughout your novel and add another
artistic layer to your text.
They fall into two categories:
Natural themes
These are themes that you notice have occurred in your novel naturally as you
have written it.
Engineered themes
These are themes that you consciously decide to insert into your novel.
We will look at example of these
in depth at a later stage.
First draft
Once you follow this process through, you will end up with your first draft.
There might be a lot of depth missing and the twists and turns won't be
quite in place as they should be, but that's fine. This will be a slightly
shallower version of your final novel.
The idea with complex twists is
that you build this up in layers, adding more with each
draft. That way it is easier to keep track of all the logic
and not get lost. By the end, the twists will be so intricate
and clever that people will wonder how you worked all this
out in advance... you didn't, but they won't realise that.
Your first draft now goes off to
a circle of trusted people who check for spelling errors
and any holes in your logic. These should be people who
are very good friends. You don't want people who will turn
round and just say "it was nice.' You need people
who care enough to give you blunt feedback that will help
you craft the novel to be as good as it can be.
Here's a list of issues I usually
ask people to look out for:
Spelling, grammar, punctuation
corrections.
Goes without saying.
Waffle/gibber
If there's a paragraph that is pure waffle, just say so
Unclear/confusing
Can't quite picture what I'm getting at? Let me know.
Illogical
If you feel something just would not happen (yes, apart from the entire premise
of the plot) then say so.
Out of character
If someone does and says something that you feel they wouldn't do, say so
Over-laboured joke.
Flag up any flogging a dead horse scenarios
Just plain offensive
If you feel anything is offensive and should be reconsidered, let me know.
Expound.
If something is interesting and I haven't put enough info and you wanted to
know more
Unnecessary description
Opposite of the above
Tension killer
If I build up a load of suspense and then kill it with an ill timed crass joke
then point it out. Even if you think I have done it for comic effect, consider
whether or not you think it works
Needless Repetition
Basically, this is that basic of errors whereby I have basically overused some
basic word that basically becomes a bit repetitive... that's it, basically.
