discover your novel

A novel is a significant undertaking. Having forged a successful, albeit limited, writer’s portfolio of short stories and features in the past, the prospect of carrying an idea for more than 3000 words is intimidating for me.

And yet, presumably a novel is achievable at any skill level. I can write a language, so it stands to reason that physically there is nothing stopping me pumping out writing 60,000 words.  The same simple premise underlies the yearly Novel in November challenge put out by NanoWrimo.

With physical constraints out of the picture, the challenge instead seems more about how to manage the process to achieve an acceptable outcome. After all, every engineer has a project manager, and writing a novel has long been compared to constructing a house or bridge. I can write 60000 words, but what approach and what skills are going to help ensure the 60,000 words don’t fall apart the minute I start probing it with questions of plot and character. For that matter, what approach is going to help me overcome the urge to give up, as the miserable foundations you lay rarely give any indication of the final product.

So to help see me through the writing of my first novel, I have been chatting to some of my past creative writing tutors for advice. Not advice on ‘how do I be a better writer?’,  but what are some worthwhile approaches to a project of such size and scope. What got you through the first draft and how did you keep the novel, and, yourself together? Essentially asking the question: How did you do it?

To start off, last week I had coffee with my one of my favourite lecturers, Liz Byrski, someone who has long been an inspiration to me for her skill as a writer and untapped enthusiasm for sharing her advice on the art and craft of writing. Liz has written 14 fiction and non-fiction novels and has worked more than 40 years in the British and Australian media, so I was keen to get a feeling for her approach to novel writing in particular (of which she was written three).

Over the din of a particularly packed Applecross cafe, I told her of what I perceived to be the greatest weakness of my writing: “I’m no good at filling the gaps.”

By “filling the gaps” I meant that I had always written my stories based on what I called ‘clever ideas’; a blind paraplegic castaway eats his own legs, the death of a shopping centre, an astronaught in a coma, etc. Problem is, these ‘clever ideas’ rarely saw out more than 3,000 odd words. Because of this approach (which by the way, has worked really well for short pieces) I hadn’t developed much of a taste for lengthy exposition, or even for that matter, character development. Instead I constructed my story on a number scenes that worked towards the realisation of one central clever idea.

It is clear to me, especially after recently battling this weakness with my thesis, that this approach did not fit so well with longer works of fiction. A 3000 word idea takes up about 10 pages of a 200 page novel – so what in gods name was the other 190 pages going to cover?

To start with, Liz quickly pointed out that I should stop thinking there is such a thing as worthwhile ‘filler’ in a novel.

“When I begin a novel,” Liz began. “I start with a character I’m interested in, and I put no assumptions on what the character will do in the next scene, or for that matter, the very next moment.”

At this point, Liz explained, she was in the creation stage of writing. “It doesn’t help me at the creation stage to think of typcial creative writing questions such as What style should this be written in? What is the most appropriate point of view? or Should this be past or present tense? This is what drafting is for. If I stopped to think about whether I’m using a consistent narrative voice, I would never get past the first draft.”

Drafting is a key concept in writing a novel, and hence a writer must relinquish some control and instead trust that putting words down for a first draft doesn’t commit them to stone. You must tell yourself: No one is going to read this first draft, and hence it is the only chance you have to explore and fail, and keep explorting. If you don’t allow yourself to fail in the first draft, and fail consistently, you will never create anything unique. Imagine a woodworker building a chair for the very first time, a totally new design. What good would it do the craftsman to play it safe?

In a recent NanoWrimo pep talk, Booker winning novelist Peter Carey offered some sobering advice on drafting for would be authors:

“If you ever read one of my books I hope you’ll think it looks so easy. In fact, I wrote those chapters 20 times over, and over, and over, and that if you want to write at a good level, you’ll have to do that too.”

Liz suggested that in first draft mode the only rule is to keep going and explore the story.

“If you have an ending in mind, great. Put it to one side and forget about it. At the start of a story you can’t know if that ending will fit, as you don’t have the characters and situations to fill it yet. If, after writing 60,000 odd words, your original ending still fits, then use it. But don’t be surprised if your characters refuse to accept the ending you dreamt up.”

This makes sense to me. Part of my issue (and I think many writers share this) is that I have a very predetermined idea of what my story is about and how it should turn out. However, my problem is not about characters taking over my story and not doing what I tell them to do, its more that my writing often fails to realise the vision in my head. Plot twists don’t feel as sharp, characters turn out to be cliches. The end result is that I struggle to accept my work in progress, I feel very early on that it is not living up to my expectations.

Expectations are the reason that there are many more ‘wanna-be writers’ than writers. I believe that novels live and die by the author’s ability to put aside expectations and complete a first draft. A terrible first draft for sure, but one that can then be edited, re-styled, re-written even, able now meet the informed expectations of an author who knows the whole story, and not just the clever idea.

What do you think?

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