I am hoping to pick the brains of some of the more experienced novel-writers. I have a lot of bits and pieces of work lying around from years of vague planning, but I have only recently settled down to try to draw it all together. Obviously most of the snippets are ideas or passages from some of the more important parts of the plot. I have problems with the discipline of actually sitting down and writing the "in between" bits, as it is too much fun to expand and develop some of these long-standing ideas, particularly since some of them were never envisaged as being part of this particular story, but seem to have naturally become relevant and have taken the plot in some unexpected directions.

My question is this: is it realistic to keep working on the parts of the story that are attracting me at any given time, and leave gaps, or rough framework to come back to at a later stage, or does disaster lie this way? I always know what is going in the "gaps" and in fact some of them are parts that I have put quite a bit of time into, but abandoned after becoming distracted by another event.

My novel currently consists of a fairly complete opening chapter or prologue (although this will be reworked at some stage), a skim-written second chapter (the first part of the "action"), a half-finished third chapter, an unwritten chapter, a fairly complete fourth chapter and another five or six relatively short (probably 1/4 of ultimate scene length) snippets, most of which are key points in the story. This amounts to around 25,000 words.

Any advice?

Anne, I am not yet published and thus you should listen most to the experienced guys who will come along in a minute.

However, my own experience is that I tried to write my first serious novel attempt in the way you suggest, and it didn't really work for me. If you write all the exciting bits first then there's less motivation to write the intervening bits, which of course are also essential. If you write it as it will be read, more or less (I mean, not necessarily exactly - for instance, if you have 3 story threads you might write each separately and then interleave them for the final thing) then you, as the writer, will be feeling that pregnant pause as you write the 'shade' scenes in between the 'light' scenes (as in light and shade, ebb and flow, high excitement and calm in between). You will feel the pregnant pause as you write and will thus be motivated to keep on to the next exciting scene. You will be in the correct 'moment' as you write, without having to struggle with continuity of mood issues.

After trying your method for ages with my first novel attempt, I abandoned it at 30,000 words because I had taken too long over it and it had grown stale.

My second serious novel attempt was/is based on the fast first draft principle, when you write it more or less in order and very fast. This is working far better for me and I'm now at 65k and aiming for 85k. (When I say I've written it fast, I did have a hiatus in the middle, but I have written fast in two large chunks).

But, as with the plotting v winging it debate, it's probably down to what works for you as an individual.

Good luck!

Deb

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As for those scenes which ping into life in your brain and you long to get on paper - no harm in writing some notes or snippets of dialogue, but maybe save the proper writing of them for the correct place in the novel. I just think it works better... but everyone is different.

I prefer to write ad-hoc and gap fill later. Some scenes I just can't face writing unless I'm in the right mood and if I waited on them the mss would never get written. Instead I just put a note in about what it's supposed to contain and move on.

Debac's outlined some of the reasons why it can be a rash strategy. On the other hand I know writers who do write whatever they want to, then darn it all together at the end. So I'd never say that it's not a perfectly sensible way to go about it (though it's the total opposite of my own process, which is never, ever to deal with things - whether it's the first draft or the final sweep-up - except in chronological order)

To be honest, what makes me wonder if it's the wisest strategy isn't the basic process of writing scenes from wherever in the book, it's this:

but abandoned after becoming distracted by another event.

It suggests to me that you could end up in a whirl of bits and pieces, all at different stages of coherence and polish. That, I think, is very difficult to pull together, because you're always in a muddle. I'd suggest that by all means write parts of the book out of order, but, whatever you're doing, do it thoroughly and coherently and take it to a natural conclusion, before you allow yourself to be seduced away. These are some reasons why:

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2008/07/fiddling-hangovers-and-the-paris-review.html

And this:

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2008/11/the-other-novel.html

is about never finishing things. It's in the context of a whole novel, but it also applies within a single novel: just read 'scene' or 'chapter' where it says 'novel'

Emma

Thanks for the replies. I think I already knew the answer but was in denial! Discipline is the problem for me - I am a great procrastinator - and I think indulging this trait is not a good idea.

I have actually sat down this afternoon (after finally convincing a certain small person to stop climbing out of his cot and make some attempt at sleep) and made myself fill in the first batch of gaps, even in rough draft form. As soon as I got into it, I found myself enjoying it and it actually came along quite easily.

The real benefit I am finding when I do manage to impose some chronology on the process, is that a lot of the bits and pieces fall naturally into place, where I was previously worrying over where to put them.

I wouldn't say I am a reformed character - I still have one scene in particular which I am desperate to get at. Putting it to one side is currently making my teeth itch but at least I have something to look forward too later!

Something else that I found helpful today - I tend to both plan and write to music - I generally have a playlist of a few songs that are compatible with the very general tone of whatever scene I am writing. I have added a few less emotive, "gap-filling" songs to my soundtrack so I don't get distracted by a particular song coming on and tugging me in a different direction. That probably makes me sound throughly weird......

Hi,

I'm not a novelist bit I have worked as a literary consultant and helped other writers achieve publication with mainstream publishers. My experience is that the novelists who cannot or will not sit down and tell the story in a linear fashion at some point are the ones who don't achieve publication. The reason is simple: if you don't work out the narrative, the story is less fluent. You can kid yourself the story is alive but if you can't join up the gaps in some way it isn't working. And it won't work until you do., however laterally or experimentally, it still needs cohesion. You're up against people who have worked out what happens next. They're in a stronger position to sell a book. It's more readable. It needs less work.

I think that's a little prescriptive, Cherys. Can't find it right now, but I recently read advice from one bestselling author about writing the interesting bits when you feel the urge because when you're excited about it, it's easier to do it than when you're approaching it 'cold'. Yes, it needs cohesion, but that can be sorted in the editing stage.

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...and it helps to skip the parts where the writer is introducing the character/s to themselves, and just plunge straight in, where the characters are fully engaged in the plot.

I think each writer needs to find their own way of working. Yes, ask advice of the more experienced, the published, the editors, but don’t try to force yourself into mould that doesn’t fit you.

I find that, if I'm itching to write a particular scene while trying to work on something else, I end up either not producing anything or writing drivel that I inevitably delete. Don’t be distracted; go off and write a quick draft of it, then go back to the fillers.

Actually this talk of fillers makes me slightly uneasy – these bits between main scenes are deeply important and are what keeps the reader inside your story until the next big bang, so give them the attention they deserve.

Of course, all this is coming from someone who has failed utterly to get a novel published, so it’s probably all bollocks

Dee


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In place of the mystery squares, insert punctuation of choice...

It's not prescriptive at all, Naomi. It's empirical evidence. Those who could not or would not write a draft in order of story, but continued to write patchwork, piecemeal didn't get published. I include myself in that bunch. My first novel was 'written' that way and it didn't work. The same is true of every would-be novelist I've worked with who wrote piecemeal. I'm just explaining what I've observed.

Actually this talk of fillers makes me slightly uneasy these bits between main scenes are deeply important and are what keeps the reader inside your story until the next big bang, so give them the attention they deserve.

I think this is an important point: if you really think of them as "fillers" then you're not understanding what they're for.

Fiction is all about forging a chain of cause and effect, causation and result, from the beginning to the end. The reader needs to be convinced by how one thing leads to another, and for me (maybe I'm just thick) I do that best if I have to write my way from one scene to the next: write those connecting links as a reader would read them. (An alternative metaphor is building the bridge: see here: http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2009/01/building-the-bridge.html )

I do know what the big scenes will be, but by writing my way towards them, the connection grows organically out of the last big scene and onto the next. Of course, this is first draft, so things may change. But if I do need to change things later (and I've just done a huge cut-and-shut of the first third of the WIP), I take it as a compliment to how I built the beast in the first place, if it's actually quite hard to un-chain the big scenes and re-make the necklace.

That's not to say other writers can't do what I'm not good at: have enough of the whole book in their head that they can pluck out the crucial bits. But writing your first novel is all about discovering how writing a novel works, and it's worth being aware of the inherent disadvantages of a process which seems to suit you. Not because it's the wrong process, but so you can make sure you transcend those disadvantages.

I do see lots of novels where the big scenes don't really lead properly from one to another. Each one might be okay on its own, but even if there aren't gaping holes in the plot, because there isn't a proper development from one to the other, the novel does read as One Damn Thing After Another. I've no idea if such novels are written patch-work fashion, but I always wonder.

I've just been watching When Harry Met Sally, which of course is very episodic in one sense, but the way they craft the stages of the relationship is so incredibly clever, it seems both utterly chancy and completely inevitable.

Emma

The reader needs to be convinced by how one thing leads to another, and for me ... I do that best if I have to write my way from one scene to the next: write those connecting links as a reader would read them ... I do know what the big scenes will be, but by writing my way towards them, the connection grows organically out of the last big scene and onto the next.

That's really well explained, Emma, and is exactly how I feel. I didn't realise that when I was trying to write my first novel, but I do now.

I think writing piecemeal came, for me, from writing short stories, because that's how I developed short stories and I found it worked for them. But a novel is very different, ISTM.

Deb

But a novel is very different, ISTM.

Yes, it is - and I came to writing short fiction after years of writing novels, so the difference was perhaps easier to spot.

Most people discover quite soon that a novel isn't just a longer story, but what takes longer to understand, and then work with, is that they may therefore need quite different processes. In fact, when I stand back and look at how my process has evolved, an awful lot of it is simply about coping with the sheer scale of the beast, from ways to keep track of different threads of the plot, to ways not to lose heart at the 30,000 word mark. You just don't need to worry about that kind of thing with a short.

Emma

I agree with much of what has been said so far. I am, personally, very much one for starting at the beginning and writing in order until, I get to the end, and would worry about a more magpie approach. I'm also with Emma in being anxious about your reference, Anne, to 'in between' bits, when actually I think every single stitch along the way to the finished is integral - or should be - to the whole. Yes, there are variations in texture and pace - peaks and troughs in the narrative - but to me a novel could never be sewn together like patchwork, it has to be knitted up as one integrated whole, with the highlights and lowlights all a part of one continuous pattern...

Of course, we all work differently, but I do think doing it your way might be subject to some hazards. For one thing, I know that when, occasionally, I have either written, or at least made notes upon, scenes which I think need to come in later and put them in a file, 90% of the time, when I come to the place that I thought the scene would fit, it no longer does. Characters have developed, dynamics have subtly shifted, and the interactions I had imagined just not longer feel right, and have had to be ditched. (However, maybe that's because I am a 'pantser'. If I planned my work, maybe the later bits would fit better when I got to them...)

Rosy x

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'with Dee (and Emma)', I mean. Sorry - lots track of who had said what!

Slightly hijacking the thread, Rosy, but as a 'pantser', how do you formulate the climax and end of the novel? I am pantsing, and it seems fine till I get to needing to climax and finish - now I feel I need to plot that. Any advice?

scenes which I think need to come in later and put them in a file, 90% of the time, when I come to the place that I thought the scene would fit, it no longer does.

And it's annoying having to ditch something. Although quite often having written it means you thought out some useful stuff so it's not wasted (quote the woman who ditched 70,000 words - a whole, short novel's-worth - of the WIP because it was the wrong narrator).

But the other and more important risk is that you don't ditch it: that you wrench the new writing about to join it up with this old stuff. And as Rosy says, if people and situations have changed, that's going to be hard to make work well (though if you've any craft, you'll manage to make it work adequately. But adequately isn't really enough.)

It's the main reason that when I want to have another go at an idea/character/situation, I never, ever dig out the old piece and cannibalise. There's this stuff, well-written, saying good things, all very convincing-looking; why not use it? It's just so tempting, but it's asking for trouble.

Emma