How do you do it?

How did it work for you?

Getting very frustrated with myself. Written a few shorts which have been well enough received - published or placed or broadcast. Started a novel and got very nice feedback on it and an agent ringing up once a month which I do realise was a rare luxury, all of which sounds like I'm blowing a big fat trumpet for myself, but I can't finish the book, even though I know the story... I just can't see my way structurally through a longer piece. Not lack of application, or ideas exactly, it's just every time I sit down they seem to evaporate and splinter, and I write reams but never get closer to a cohesive story. I know what I want to say but seem unable to say it. It either comes out as tight little nuggets of plot or long winded pontification by characters. Neither of these 'orrible traits happen when I write short fiction.

With shorts I get this sprint-on feeling where what should happen is usually crystal clear and if it isn't I can just chisel away until something has emerged, but with the novel i just don't know how. Been hammering away at this same old book for a few years (agent has, quite understandably, gone silent) with a break while kids were small. Should I start something else? Feel like if I don't struggle to the end of this one I'll run into the same problems with the next. I'd love to hear from people who have completed novels, on how they approached it and how they adjusted to the long haul if they were used to writing short fiction. I feel like I'm missing something obvious and when I find it i'll be able to work away for all those hours and get somewhere, instead of pedalling a stationary bike.

Thanks
Cherys

Can you split up your novel and treat it like a series of interlinked short stories?

I think of mine as a series of scenes, write those and then try to link them using as little prose as possible (because those are the boring bits, but necessary for continuity - I would cut them out completely if I could).

Sorry, not sure what else to suggest.

- NaomiM

Cherys, it may be that you've reached a bit of an impasse with this one, and need to try something else that doesn't come with so much baggage. The problems may also be inherent in the idea of the book: my experience (and I'm the opposite to you, in that I wrote novels before I wrote short fiction) is that ideas are naturally the right sort for short or long, but not both. I do think, though, that some of your struggles are natural to the beginner novelist: you may just be more aware of them because you're an experienced short-fiction writer.

You may need to do more planning than you're used to, because it's next-to-impossible to 'see' a whole novel at once, so you can't rely on your sense of the whole to guide your chisel for the individual chips. Not that you have to stick to the plan, of course, but it does mean there's a bit less chance of things wandering off. If it means things are a bit wooden to start with, it doesn't matter. You can always improve that later. And when you plan you may have to be more cold-blooded about it than comes naturally: where do your characters start, what do they want, how do they try to get it, what gets in the way? That's your first chapter. Then from the new position, what do they want... and so on. Or you may know where you want them to end, and work out what the stages on that journey must be. Either way, if, as Naomi says, you see it as a series of crises, and cut away everything but the minimum of the lead in and lead out, it may come more naturally to a short-story writer. It's certainly how I see it.

Emma

Thanks Naomi and Emma for your excellent advice. In my heart I feel you're right Emma, this one is now jaded and I want to get on with something else, but it's also a long way down the line. Might give it a final shove as a series of shorts linked with as few words as possible, as you suggest Naomi.
Can I ask how you set about your first novels, and how far you planned and structured them before writing? Also Emma I keep seeing you refer to a book of yours by its initials (is it TMOL?) Would love to know what that stands for so I can get hold of it.
Thanks,
Cherys

I plan my novels quite a bit in terms of structure because I know where I want them to end, and they usually seem to have several strands to them, and it matters what happens before or after what. I plan it in chapters right from the beginning Then I fit in all the things that need to go in, and rub out and juggle and re-write on the plan till it makes sense. But often it'll only be a few words per strand per chapter, and when I actually write it all sorts of things change.

My novel's called The Mathematics of Love, and it's available from all good bookshops, as they say. I like to think (though I might be wrong) that it's on the shelves of most bookshops except the smallest, and it's also Amazon etc., or you can get it from from my publisher if you follow the link in the WW Book Shop.

Emma

Hi Cherys. I write childrens fantasy fiction, so the structure is pretty straightforward: introduce the characters, set the scene, send them off on a series of quests, big denounemt with the baddie/treasure at the end. I write it as a series of 'scenes' (some are action, some anecdotal, some quiet reflection), in no particular order, then compose a time frame so I can slot it all together.

Adult fiction (I'm trying my hand at a thriller) I'm finding a whole lot harder, and need to plan it out a lot more carefully. I'm finding it easier to write it in 'real-time' chronological order, and it's told from my main character's point of view, so basically as and when my MC discovers something then 'I' discover it too. If that makes any sense.

Good luck with yours.

- NaomiM


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Actually, that doesn't make sense. What I mean by 'planning', is a lot more research to get the locations, etc, right; there are a lot more facts in contemporary fiction. Unlike fantasy where you can just make stuff up.

Again, thanks for replying.

Emma thanks for your book title, will chase it up on Amazon.

When you say you plan a strand but then as you write it all changes, I'm intrigued. That's where I come unstuck the most. In short fiction I plan and then write, and if it doesn't work I replan and rewrite, but all in one go. I'm intrigued and a bit bemused by how you can handle the shift of events when new ideas take over. Isn't the knock-on effect disastrous to all else you planned?

Guess my biggest stumbling block is how do you let it all unravel with that great sense of losing control and letting it take you somewhere fresh, but simultaneously keep a grip on it, so it doesn't become a baggy mess?

And how do you know when you're deviating from the plan fruitfully or just twittering away with the fairies? I'm interested generally in this but also specifically because I've a next book in mind which started from a single strong idea. As the book develops that original idea is being squeezed out. Do I shelve it or keep trying to fit the story round it? Will it lose emphasis without the energy shot of the first idea?

Again, thanks for replying.

Emma thanks for your book title, will chase it up on Amazon.

When you say you plan a strand but then as you write it all changes, I'm intrigued. That's where I come unstuck the most. In short fiction I plan and then write, and if it doesn't work I replan and rewrite, but all in one go. I'm intrigued and a bit bemused by how you can handle the shift of events when new ideas take over. Isn't the knock-on effect disastrous to all else you planned?

Guess my biggest stumbling block is how do you let it all unravel with that great sense of losing control and letting it take you somewhere fresh, but simultaneously keep a grip on it, so it doesn't become a baggy mess?

And how do you know when you're deviating from the plan fruitfully or just twittering away with the fairies? I'm interested generally in this but also specifically because I've a next book in mind which started from a single strong idea. As the book develops that original idea is being squeezed out. Do I shelve it or keep trying to fit the story round it? Will it lose emphasis without the energy shot of the first idea?

I plan in pencil, literally and figuratively, so that I can rub out and replan what's ahead as I go, if the first draft goes wandering off. And if it means what I've already written has to change I just make a note, rather than going back and re-doing it now, because that way madness lies, for me, at any rate. It's after the first draft that I go back and sort that out, as part of the first big revision. And no, you don't always know if what you're doing is a blind alley or a whole new road, but I don't think you will know till you've pursued it a bit. If I have a really bright-but-weird idea I might make a note and then ignore it until revision-time. But nothing you write is ever wasted, even if it does turn out to be a blind alley and you cut the lot: I have a file called 'dump' into which I put everything I cut, so that it's not lost. I very rarely do use it again, but it makes it easier to murder my darlings to think I could resurrect them.

Lots of things do just fall away, in that I kind of forget about them in the writing, and that's okay - other things came about naturally instead. What I do do (roughly, it's all more muddly in the event than I'm sounding here!) is look over all my notes and ideas when I've finished the first draft, and see what themes and ideas I've lost track of and need bringing out more, and maybe cull bits that were the beginnings of things that turn out not to have a place after all. And any themes that I hadn't specially planned for but have emerged and are interesting get the same kind of treatment of polishing up and bringing out: often at that stage I'll see whole new possibilities, and might tweak the plot to develop a newly-discovered theme of that sort.

Emma

Emma. thanks. I love the clarity of your advice and information, here and on other threads.

Very useful tips - to make a note of what might change but move on; to re-read all notes after Draft 1 to see what themes can be incorporated. This all makes sense and is highly motivating.

Going to start the next instead of dragging the last one round, and try to map it out roughly as you suggest.

Which group do you recommend - novel or novel motivation?

Sorry, barraging you with questions at the moment. Will quieten down when i get writing.

Again, thanks. Your advice so far has been great.

Cherys

Emma. thanks. I love the clarity of your advice and information, here and on other threads.

Very useful tips - to make a note of what might change but move on; to re-read all notes after Draft 1 to see what themes can be incorporated. This all makes sense and is highly motivating.

Going to start the next instead of dragging the last one round, and try to map it out roughly as you suggest.

Which group do you recommend - novel or novel motivation?

Sorry, barraging you with questions at the moment. Will quieten down when i get writing.

Again, thanks. Your advice so far has been great.

Cherys

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Sorry - computer's playing up - keeps saying posts haven't gone through but then sending them twice.

You're welcome.

novel or novel motivation?

Others know more than me, but novel motivation doesn't do critting, really, it's more about cheering each other along. If you want your work critted, you need a novel group.

Emma

Cherys, I'm not sure I'm at all placed to offer a perspective, as (i) I've only written two novels that have made the cut, and quite a few that have failed and (ii) I've never written short stories. But I have written a lot of short non-fiction pieces, and I agree that with something concise it needs to to be meticulously planned. With a novel, I'm a great believer in not planning. Maybe if you've written short pieces and been a tight planner, it's a case of letting go a bit? All I ever have to start off with is some characters, and two or three main strands of initial 'story' - which are really nothing more than situations which throw the characters into tension and conflict. Then I let it stew as I write - I let the characters respond to the conflict, let them interact and thus, hopefully, develop. I make sure there are plenty of threads - keep tossing in asome new conflict to the pot in the form of outside events buffeting them - keep stirring - and then only about two-thirds of the way through do I strat thinking about how to gather it all together and begin to weave it all back in towards some kind of conclusion. I know everyone is different - but I definitely suspect that with a novel you need to giuve the characters their heads at least a little more than in a short piece where they need to be on a close leash! Just a thought - and probably not any help at all.

Equally, your skill as a short story writer is bound to make you very good at giving each chapter or scene internal shape and form, which has to be a godsend for a novelist. It's knowing which skills are directly transferable, and which are the areas where you need to let go a bit of the way you have worked before, maybe?

Sorry if this is terribly vague and incoherent!

Rosy

Not at all Rosy, I'm very grateful for all feedback on this, and if you've written two novels that made the cut, then you know far better than I do, how to handle the breadth of material in a novel.

I don't find the advice conflicting. Seems to be a consensus emerging that you need to have a clear idea where you're headed so you don't get lost, since it's not all containable, as in a short, but that you do need to let go to breathe life in. With shorts I always have no more than one or two focal ideas and then let go utterly when writing because it's easy in a short to keep them in the back of my mind and to know what's off track in an interetsing way and what's getting woolly.

Going to do a lot of thinking and notemaking on the next before launching in, and then once I've a clear idea what could possibly happen will start writing and see if it does. Think I might join novel motivation as I'm not sure of the wisdom of showing work until at least a draft is complete.

Thanks so much everyone. Emma - just ordered TMOL through Amazon and love the story as told by the reviewers. can't wait!

I sometimes find it gets me over the terror of writing tons that might be wasted, which can paralyse one, if I think of the whole first draft as a kind of monster plan, rather than anything like a finished novel: an incredibly detailed skeleton. That way I can concentrate on the bones, and can fairly easily see if the bones are in the right place, with the points for attaching muscles clear. Hair and skin and even muscles can wait, let alone gestures and expressions.

But then I'm an adder, and we're in the minority. Most writers are cutters, I think.

Emma