I've just recently started writing a novel to keep me warm through the winter and to know more about the differences between novel writing and SS writing, and I'm finding it fascinating. I'm not pressured with it, because I don't know that I'd necessarily send it out anywhere, that's the bit of the whole writing thing that I loathe the most. The things I'm finding at the moment are that I forget small details and have to go back through chapters and look. The chapters are sketched out and I do have the characters firmly in my mind. So I've done a kind of plan.
I did get involved in that experience novelists talk about where their characters take off by themselves, that was really good. I'm also being disciplined in not going back over things in this first draft. The thing that's helping me most is that function on a PC where you can find a word or phrase through the whole text and change it. Do other novelists use this?
And when you get stuck do you go onto the next chapter or part, or stick with it?
Anyway big learning curve over here.
Becca.

That’s great news, Becca. I hope you come to enjoy novel writing as much as I do. For me, one of the best aspects is the size of the thing. You can write long scenes, lots of sub-plots, endless dialogue, without worrying about the word-count.

I tend not to write in a straight line. In fact The Winter House is the first novel where I have come close to doing that, because I’m writing it as I go and have to upload chapters in the right sequence. Even so, the last chapter I uploaded has scenes I wrote weeks ago and the preceding chapters have been working towards them. Sometimes it’s good to have a goal to aim for. If I have a big scene or a snippet of dialogue in my head I write it down and leave it at the end of the page until I come to a place it can fit in.

If I get stuck I move on. Here’s a tip – pick a work you would never use in your writing - or make one up. If I’m stuck I type in the word ‘blah’ and move on. Then later, I search on ‘blah’ to fill in the gaps.

Good luck

Dee
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Hi Dee,
In the thing I'm writing I did know the whole story and sketched it out in chapters, but things have happened along the way, that's one of the delightful bits, and I've had to incorporate them and their eventual resolution.
I do something similar to blah, I do XX. especially if I can't remember something. This novel can't contain the words day or people and every so often I have to go back on the 'find' function and change it to DDD or PPP for removal later. I'm amazed at how often 'day' crops up against my wishes, because it's the way we divide time I guess. Night is not allowed either, but I'm having less trouble with that.
Becca.

Becca, I'm always using the search and replace facility to change words and, often, names, as I constantly re-christen characters. Alas, it's not so easy with grammatical errors: I've spent most of today going through a manuscript page by painful page excising colons and semi-colons, which I seem to have vomited out at five minute intervals across a whole novel... Another two days of the same, beckon. As for getting stuck, you and Dee seem to favour the blah technique. I always opt for comfort food. A frappuccino or a few squares of dark chocolate enjoyed alone and away from the screen soon give me the lift needed for ploughing on:-) Shyama

mmmmmmm... chocolate...

Actually, Shyama, I prefer salted almonds and red wine. They really get the creative wotnots flowing… sometimes I come across sections I have no memory of writing… and often they’re good. I just hope my liver holds up…

Dee
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If you can drink alcohol and still write, you're blessed, Dee. A couple of glasses of wine and I can sing, dance and instruct every politician on this planet on where he or she is going wrong, but my fingers are all out of sync on a keyboard :-)

Not sure whether I’m blessed or alcoholic - and my spellchecker implodes regularly.

I’m not advocating a creative lifestyle dependent on alcohol but I often find that my inner censor falls over after a few drinkies.

If I come to it cold, I’ll write a paragraph, read it and delete it on the grounds that it’s crap. After I’ve relaxed with a couple of glasses my delete button stops working. Next day when I re-read, it’s often not as bad as I thought. Sometimes it's good.

I’m not altogether comfortable about saying this… but I’m willing to suffer for my muse…

Dee
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Becca,

Great news! Novel writing challenges one in so many different ways. Sometimes I feel like a puppet-master, moving my characters, putting words into their mouths and planning their every move.

Then there are times when I come up against a situation where I almost say 'You got yourself into this, so get yourself out' and my characters seem to respond in one way or another.

I started my present project with just a simple visual idea and a way in which the story would come to its end! The plot and sub-plots came fairly easily and the characters began to become real as their cues got nearer for their entrances. Strangely enough I was able to write a synopsis at a very early stage. For me it is harder work than writing SS and also very time-consuming, particularly with the need for 'thinking time'.

One thing I had to do was to write down the names of the characters for it is so easy to get Tom, Dick and Harry mixed up.

My one big drawback is that I have found it impossible to add the page numbers after I had written page after page. I have Sun Office 5.2. and the advice I received from Sun Microsystems allows me to add a page number, one at a time, but only within the default printing area! So that's no good!

I am afraid that I do go back over things for I don't intend to produce a draft. What I write is IT! Well, that's my aim.

Becca I am sure we shall see your book gracing the shelves of all the booksellers. Good Luck!

Len

Hi Scoops, Dee and Len,
It is interesting and does require almost a different brain set. I've reached a difficult part right now and have no idea yet how to solve it. Do you think I'll become bored at some time, does that ever happen? It seems that novels are long enough for it too. I notice as well sometimes, if I read a novel, that they can sort of sag in the middle. Seems like a lot of dangers to overcome!
Becca.

Hi Becca, obviously novels should not sag in the middle. There can be changes of pace… but it should never sag.

You should not become bored with your story! If it bores you, why should anyone else be interested? Even in the lighter moments there should be enough interest to hold your readers. A novel should have many different layers – but it’s not an extended short story… as I’m finding out to my cost!

Good luck!

Dee
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Gosh! Didn't mean to sound so pompous.

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Hi Dee,
It's not boring me, and I don't imagine it will, but the horror of writing so many words and then deciding at the very end that you'd do it in a different way if you did it again strikes me as another dreadful thing for a novelist to face. I do see that novel writing requires a completely different kind of courage to that of an SS writer. And stamina!
Becca.

Becca, I delivered the seventh rewrite of my current novel earlier this week. During its various incarnations I have changed it from third person to first, which required an extensive reworking of character and plot, and started twice from scratch. I'm at the stage where I never want to look at the book again (indeed, I have refused to), but I can't start another until I know this is sold and therefore behind me... You're right: it's a real slog, especially if you get to the end and then realise, or are advised, that it would work better with a different style/structure/voice/storyline, but bloody hell doesn't the adrenaline flow when it works?!! I hope you've got past the block: I always see them as a god given opportunity for indolence...:-) Shyama

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ps: Take comfort from Margaret Attwood who says she works at the same novel for four years, writing and rewriting till she's as close to the characters and the narrative as it's humanly possible to be... I worked out the other day that, given each draft is checked and revised at least twice before delivery, and the length has varied between 90,000 and 100,000 words per incarnation, I've read/changed between two and three million of my own words in the last two years. I wonder if anyone else on this site has thought about output in those terms, and if any WW writers think they may hold the site record?:-)

Scoops,
incredible stamina then! I wonder sometimes what happens to novelists who have been offered money in advance by publishers, it must be horrible to think you have to produce something in a given time.
I do envisage carrying on writing the thing I'm working on for a long time and in the meanwhile I'm busily behind myself reading Foucault and Satre in bucketfuls as they're relevant. And the thing I'm trying to do is far far beyond the absurd which I think could make it easier than writing something more recognisable. New ground maybe.
Becca.

Shyama, you set me thinking. I agree that six or seven drafts is pretty average so I did a quick count. I started writing in June 2001 and since then have written around 475,000 words. Working on your basis of reading each draft twice, that comes to 6,650,000 of my own words read in three and a half years, and that’s not counting the short stories. It’s a scary thought!

Becca, I have a friend who has a six-book deal with her publisher. She says it’s very nerve-wracking when the deadline approaches but I also think it helps to concentrate the mind. I’ve set myself a target to finish this draft of TWH by Christmas… so I’d better get on with it!

Dee
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Dee, good luck with it!
Becca.