The story unfolds

My agent gave me some really useful pointers for my new story, based on the synopsis that I worked so hard on early last year. People often say to me that I ‘churn them out’ or ‘I never stop’. It’s not true, actually (there’s a lot of waiting around in this business), but I do like to crack on once I have a storyline in my head, and having this one hanging around for so long made me wonder if I’d lose interest in it.

But fortunately for me, I haven’t! I’m enjoying the setting for this book, and though I feel I need to do some more research into the lifestyle of my main character within that setting, I’m not going to let it slow me down. It can be done both during and after the first draft is written, and I can tweak or edit afterwards. The key is the momentum, you see — once I’m enjoying writing a story every day, progressing, moving it on, I don’t want to stop.

This morning, for example, I had very little idea of the scene I was going to write next. I sat down with a thought that perhaps I should return to a character I’d introduced earlier but not done much with — and then all of a sudden I had a scene. He turned up, said his piece, and did his job: made a point that will eventually lead to something my main character has to address. He moved the story on. I remember clearly my tutor on the Writing a Novel course saying each scene must move the story on. There shouldn’t be a single scene that’s in there as ‘padding’; each has a purpose. I think I might be getting better at that, as there were definitely some elements of padding in my early books that needed cutting in the editing process. Now I try to streamline my story from the first. No padding, no extraneous characters who appear and disappear, no ‘saggy middle’. That’s what I aim for, anyway.

Anyway the thoughts that my agent sent my way are already helping. Like any creative process, I suppose, it helps to have other eyes on your work, other perspectives and other opinions. One of my book clubs recently read my latest novel, The Wonder Drug, and a couple of points came up that honestly hadn’t occurred to me about the story: people queried the credibility of the actions of one of my characters, for example. It’s never a problem, this sort of thing, and I rather like to be challenged on elements of the plot because it’s not as if I haven’t looked at them from every single possible angle in the writing process. These days I’m pretty sure of myself. Every scene is picked through in minute detail; every paragraph, every sentence, every word even, is examined carefully for credibility, authenticity, and appropriateness. Every element of the plot worked through again and again.

One of the reassuring aspects of writing fiction resonates in that common phrase: “You couldn’t make it up.” People say this when something extraordinary happens. And it’s true, often things that happen in real life are so incredible, in the true sense of the word, that you can barely believe them. So I feel it would be hard to come up with a story, or even an element of a story, that would be beyond credibility in the real world, if you see what I mean. So I accept that some parts of my stories might stretch belief, but I doubt any of them would be beyond the realms of possibility.

This also negates the oft-used advice to write what you know. Another book club read a different book of mine and someone asked if I was writing from personal experience. My answer, as always, was ‘It’s fiction’. If I wrote purely from personal experience, my books would be rather boring, I’d say. Experience — or experiences — help, of course, and writing a novel would be hard if you had no life experience whatsoever, but many authors make up entire worlds and create wonderful, inspiring stories from their imaginations.

So I’m letting my story unfold in my head, as I write. Characters say and do unexpected things and the story evolves. I thrive on this process. Even if there are a few times when I go off-piste, so to speak, it’ll all be solved at the editing stage, and I’ll have enjoyed the freedom of allowing my mind to take me to hidden places.

Leave a comment