“I’m afraid of reaching 40 and feeling regret that I’ve still never finished writing my novel.” I read similar words in a Note this week and hit subscribe to cheer-lead that new writer who is trying their best to finish a novel for the first time.
(Photo by Jackie Morrison: one of my writing set ups!)
I tried my best too in my thirties, my forties, and most definitely in my fifties! Oh, to be thirty again and be worried about not “achieving” everything in life. I don’t mean to minimise the worry, because I too have been there.
As a young mum with my first child, I was the first one of my friendship group to have a baby, and life at that time felt pretty isolating. With Mr.M working long shifts at work, including weekends, I fell into a routine of the baby feeding, changing, washing, sleeping, and trying to keep on top of the household chores in between. Then back to work part-time. Something shifted at some point.
I had been passed a bundle of short novels - I imagine in the eighties that those were Mills and Boon or similar. Easy to read, satisfyingly quick. My brain could only cope with small amounts of “stuff” at the time. I had absorbed the rhythm and pace of those stories and fancied I could do that myself.
I didn’t come at that notion with no background or knowledge of writing. I had trained as a journalist, knew how many words filled an A4 page, was aware of how many type-written pages were required for a 3,000-word magazine short story, and at that time had moved from news stories to writing such things as Letter Of The Week (which netted me a £5 book token and a glorious bouquet of flowers). Oh, those high spots.
I set myself the goal of merely progressing the novel every day when my baby slept. She usually fell asleep after a feed, so I ignored the ironing pile or the hoovering, and sat down at the dining room table which was in the corner of the living room and I typed. It was a feeling of doing something for me. Of keeping my brain ticking over. And I did it. In a matter of a few short months, I had written and edited a whole novel of around 55,000 (Mills and Boon-type novels are traditionally shorter than other imprints).
I painstakingly read over the work from the day before, editing in the evening (with a pencil!) when the baby went to bed, then retyped that chapter without errors the next day, before moving on to the next planned chapter. I did know where I was going with it - I always left myself a pencil note about what to do in the next chapter.
This method worked for me at the time as I lived an existence of routine and organisation. It worked for me until it didn’t.
Later in life, this method halted me. I could never get past the editing. I’d reach perhaps three chapters in, or even a third of the novel in, and I would give up in frustration.
It was the editor on my shoulder who stopped me.
I carried on writing poetry and short stories that were published in womens magazines and I won a few little prizes here and there. Memorably, I won tickets to the opening of the Kelpies in Falkirk with a poem about Clydesdale horses.
I had a folder full of The New Novel Idea. I never got past the opening, or at most 20,000 words.
Then I took a method I’d self-learned from short-story writing and applied it to my novel writing.
I wrote the hook/the idea in a nutshell (one sentence) first: a story about…..
eg for the original story of The Sweetest Thing:
The new seasonal worker at Chocolatier Nord is a shy Italian girl who has given up chocolate for lent
Then I wrote a skeleton outline (sometimes with some blanks to fill later). In short, it was a table that broke the story down into its “beats” - it left me plenty of wriggle room around it, but just enough structure to help me have confidence of where I was going with it.
…then the new patisserie chef makes a new limoncello chocolate confection just for her….
and another beat, and another…..
OK, I can’t give you any more, because the Pocket Novel version will be out in June - although the Lent part of it got left behind in the short story as that was originally published during Easter-tide.
With my short stories, I often blurt out on the page and then go back and rearrange it, finally pulling together some key element to hold it all neatly like a little package. I guess that’s a final part of novel writing, but if you come up with the ideas whilst outlining, so much the better. These little glimmers keep the idea vibrant for me - and that is crucial over the long haul of novel-length writing.
Guess what? The methods that work for you, will change over time (most likely).
What worked in the beginning, may change as you take on more challenging work - or your skills simply improve.
I used to be a complete pantster. I loved the thrill of the journey with the characters, the discovery as I went. But that was also part of the stress for me - having no idea where it was going. This would lead to very long fallow periods where I needed to work things out (or I would find out that I had an error in the timeline/someones age didn’t work, and I would panic and stop as I had no confidence in how to fix it).
Once I got used to the idea of the hook, I wrote differently.
This came out of necessity once I started to query my work with agents and publishers. They very much want YOU dear author to come up with the hook and pitch of your book.
So now, my folders consist of Ideas with Pitches/Hooks - then Outlines.
Why have I found the Outline important?
Because it confirms the idea can be carried over the course of 80,000 words. In other words, it won’t run out of steam. I have to know that a novel-length piece of work will meet all the required beats for whatever genre I am writing. Even if I change it as I am writing because, guess what, once you commit to writing it - even better ideas keep coming and coming. Dear writer, there is nothing wrong with changing things up!
And now I rarely stop, I just keep going through the outline. If I encounter a problem. I’m more likely to add a “note” in Word (which I can make disappear!) to say Come Back To This Later/Clarify. Or in the case of my current piece:
Q: Does that train even run out of that station? Check the route.
My most recent pieces have been Pocket Novels - novelette length (I write to around 40,000 then edit to the magazine’s requirements).
The magazine accepts Pocket Novel proposals from writers they know/work with as they are confident the writer knows their audience/style. Writing the short stories first proved to be a good apprenticeship!
(Photo by Jackie Morrison: Pocket Novels are sold in supermarkets and newsagents alongside the magazines!)
Most wonderful of all, I can send a proposal before writing the whole thing!
Oh, how I wish it worked this way with general fiction publishing. I understand from writer friends that it is indeed the way it works for non-fiction proposals and also for writers with a 2 - 3 book contract. After delivery of the first one, they will be asked to send in the Book 2 idea/outline and the opening, to get the go-ahead (or not). This is where debut writers are at a disadvantage. Writers who are already in the stable, are writing what the agent/or the publisher actually wants! Debuts have to break through that!
Hence, why I currently write for the Pocket Novel market and will continue to do so as long as the market is there.
So you send in your idea, then what? If it doesn’t fit, you will be told that - and you won’t waste a whole year of your life writing something that will never be published by them. I love this whole idea. There are other avenues open to me with my Pocket Novel but I will come to that in due course if and when it happens!
Writing this way gives me a new-found confidence. I know my narrator style works for the audience, I understand the language allowed (no sweary words; no spicy stuff), and the story has to be right for that word count (not too complicated and not too short on detail - the Goldilocks in between).
Since writing my first Pocket Novel, out in June, I have three other ideas to be worked with. One is now in Full Outline with the opening written. I will write up the skeleton draft first. No way do I want the pressure of having to deliver and then discovering the idea isn’t “enough” for the required length. And if it is “more” than that length - well, there are other possibilities to explore too.
What is a skeleton draft, a zero draft? Well, I’ll come to that next - it’s where the real fun begins! I’m producing one right now! (well, maybe not in a few days because we are off to London, but yeah…I’m working on the new shiny idea right now!)
But wait, Jackie, does that mean you’ve never written a full-length novel?
Why, thanks for asking!
Yes, indeed I have - one of them (By Invitation Only) was written as a result of being a Finalist at Pitch Perfect, part of Bloody Scotland, Scotland’s biggest crime writing festival. It was an opportunity to pitch to a panel of publishing professionals and between that and online pitching, it landed 7 Full requests and following a chat with an editor, is now in a final edit.
Here’s the pitch that reached the Final!
I left the dark side to write romance and the full-length version of The Sweetest Thing was short-listed in a Simon & Schuster competition (won a meeting with an agent) and long-listed in a Penguin Random House competition (where I won nothing but kudos!) So, yes, I’ve been in the orbit of the Big Five traditional publishing arena but things didn’t quite work out. I’m not heart-broken - I’m confident this abbreviated version is reaching its target audience via Pocket Novel (& whatever might come next!!)
Photo by Jackie Morrison: Part of the Mood Board for The Sweetest Thing made in Canva
Have your methods changed over the course of your writing? Are there things that were useful that you no longer use? What new things are working for you? We are all at different stages! Please do share as those may be the very things that might work for someone else right now.
Having been around for quite a while now, I can categorically say that when it comes to finishing your novel, there is unlikely to be any one particular successful thing, or method, or trick (sorry about that).
There are lots of different, helpful things we can tap into at different points in the journey. Just keep changing it up, so that you keep going. Kind of like circuit training but for your brain. LOL. Maybe you found something here to try out. Kind of like doing Leg Day at the gym. Then when your legs are exhausted you move onto arm training. LOL. Good luck!!
PS (in a whispered tone): just finish it. The joy of finishing it cannot be under-estimated
Thank you for being here. Jackie, in the Little Writing Corner. x x
“There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no-one knows what they are.” - William Somerset Maugham
“The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that, things can only get better.” Stephen King
Interesting Links:
Beats/Planning for your Novel: Save The Cat Writes A Novel & Romancing The Beat
Leg Day At The Gym (or use this phrase as prompt if you like!!!)
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