A Problem For Planners From the 17th Century

I've been reading, and enjoying very much, Ruth Scurr's biography of John Aubrey which is written in the form of a diary.  Aubrey was born in 1626 and spent much of his life collecting information - folklore, surveys of buildings and monuments falling into disrepair, natural history: pretty much anything that took his fancy.

One of his ideas was to make a Book of Lives of his contemporaries, a collection of short biographies which would include personal anecdotes as well as simply listing achievements.

March 1680: "I have made an index for my Book of Lives: it includes fifty-five persons (I have done ten of them already, including four pages on Sir Walter Raleigh). It will be a pretty thing when it is finished.  I am so glad my researches for Mr Wood and my promise to write the life of Mr Hobbes have led me to collect these other lives.  I do it playingly.  This morning, I got up by 10 and wrote two lives....If I could get up by 7 a.m., I could finish my Book of Lives in a month."

Oh, how many hours of my life have I spent planning writing a book!  Just like Aubrey I've written out a list of chapters or ideas.  I've worked out a schedule of writing - if I write 1000 words a day, I'll be finished within 3 months, if I write 2000 I'll be done in less than 2.  When I first started writing, I even worked out a schedule based on 5000 a day - perfectly possible if I got up at 7am, or 4am or write through the night.  It's like NaNoWriMo - 1667 words a day for a month?  Easy! And it is easy, in October.

Also like Aubrey, I've gloated over the prospect of the finished book.  I've seen the cover, I've seen all those typeset pages, perfect bound.  I've written the reviews (glowing, naturally) and given interviews.  I may even have given gracious acceptance speeches after winning awards.

January 1681: "How much work I would get done if I did not sit up with Mr Wylde until one or two in the morning, or if there was someone to get me up in the mornings with a good scourge!  I think I could finish my lives in a week, if I were to stop wasting time.  Sir James Long has invited me to stay again....Next week I will buckle to finish my Lives.  I am sure I could do it in a week."

Aubrey never finished his Book of Lives.*

And that's the problem with making plans for writing.   They're deeply satisfying to make, but at some point you've got to write the dratted thing.

*Luckily for posterity, Aubrey made sure that his writing and collections of manuscripts were deposited in various university and museum libraries. His contemporaries criticised him for his attention to details "too minute" or trivial, but he said - rightly - "a hundred years hence that minuteness will be grateful".  Without his work, much of the detail of the past would have been lost.

John Aubrey: My Own Life by Ruth Scurr

Planning or Sailing into the Mist?

I had the idea for my A-Z of Writing at the end of November.  Great, I thought, frantically scribbling down an alphabet on the back of an envelope.  If I do an A-Z, that will keep me supplied with ideas for blog posts all the way through Christmas and into the New Year.  I won't have to think, or be imaginative, or creative at all. I will concentrate on shopping and Christmas instead. That was my plan.

What actually happened was that I changed my mind about my blog posts all the time.  T was going to be about Talent not Totalitarianism, U was going to be about Universality not Unicorns, Y was going to be about Youth not Yippedee-doo-dah.  Perhaps the A-Z would have been better for sticking to the initial list I scribbled down in 5 minutes, but I think not.  They were a bit obvious and boring.  Well, they seemed obvious and boring to me, which didn't bode well given I was the one who was going to write them.

I'm the same with planning what I'm going to writer my novels.  I can plan with the best of them - in fact, I can think of nothing nicer than spending several days faffing around with index cards - but when it comes to actually writing material to flesh out my plan I zoom off piste pretty quickly.  The only time I've tried to stick to The Plan I got so bored I gave up.  

For me, the planning comes best AFTER I've written a first draft, not BEFORE.  I use the index cards to whip that stodgy wodge of material into a decent shape.  This may involve lots of new writing, but that seems to work as I've already got a reasonable framework down on the page.  

Some people need the plan first to anchor them and provide security.  I believe Ken Follett does such detailed synopses of his books that it really is only a matter of fleshing them out a little.  Each to their own.  

I know that I need to have at least something down on the page before I start planning, but the further I have written into the novel, the more detailed my plan becomes.  The plan and the story grow organically together.  But that's my method: it may not be yours. 

Part of the process of becoming a writer is to work out what works best for you.  Maybe you're a planner, maybe you prefer sailing into the mist.  Be open minded, try both, and learn from the experience.  Keep learning.  That's all you can do.  

I Heart Index Cards

Apparently if you go to film school one of the techniques they teach you is to plan your film on index cards scene by scene before you write a word of dialogue. For a novel you could use them at the planning stage, but I like to use them after I've written the first draft.

Take a card and write out what happens in each scene in note form, for example, Joe tells Abigail about the party on Saturday night. Abigail is upset and storms out. Then add any other important information about the scene such as Description of pub, first mention of Miranda's name, set up Abigail's important job interview. Find a large space such as the floor or a table (I usually do this on top of my bed, cat willing) and spread the cards out. Now you can 'see' your novel in all its glory.

Things to look for...Are the major scenes evenly distributed? Is there variety between mainly action and mainly reaction scenes ie it's not clumped into lots of action followed by lots of reflection? Are the main plot strands kept going? It's very hard to get a feel for your novel when it's several hundred pages of typescript; this method lets you look at it as a whole at one time. When using index cards for Nice Girls Do I realised that I'd 'lost' Will for a bit and quickly inserted a scene to keep him fresh in Anna's - and the reader's - mind.

The other thing I use index cards for timing. Using a diary I make sure that major events such as public holidays actually turn up when they should do. This can be very useful - I'd got stuck on a bit of A Single to Rome until I realised that the May bank holiday provided a convenient opportunity and worked the timing around it.

I've tried using different coloured cards for different characters or plot strands but it got too complicated for me and now I generally use cheap old white, with coloured ones for scenes that I need to add. I like using index cards so much that I'll do a set several times in the course of writing a novel, and then work from a fresh pile of stacked cards. I think they're wonderful - try them today!

Index Cards Strike Again

I've been writing shedloads of the new novel. It's all coming along very well, but I'm starting to wonder about the structure.

At the moment I have a linear pattern. Essentially my main character starts in an okay state, things go very well, then very badly. That's the first section. The second section is all about her recovery process. The third and final section is when it all comes together and stuff gets resolved, and hopefully she ends up in a better place then where she started (I haven't written the ending yet).

Section 1 is emotional, Section 2 has more laughs. I'm not sure that the two are going to sit very well together, that an innocent unsuspecting reader won't feel there's a sudden gear change. What I'm toying with is having Section 1 run alongside Section 2, swapping from past to present.

Hooray for index cards! I've written out two sets of index cards out with one scene per card and laid them out on the bed (you could use a floor or a large table, I like to work in bed). On the left side of the bedspread is the linear form - Section 1 followed by Section 2. On the right hand side of the bedspread is the past/present form - Section 1 alternating with Section 2.

I can see immediately that each version has pros and cons. For example, the alternating form on the right would mean I could ditch some rather boring linking scenes from Section 1. In fact, I could ditch a mini-subplot that I'm not convinced works. This would be good. On the other hand, there's a BIG moment at the end of Section 1 and a BIG moment at the end of Section 2. Now they're plonked bang smack next to each other. This is bad.

Going back to the left hand side of the bedspread, I can see that the BIG moments are spread out. This is good. However, there is still that major disconnect between the sections that led me to try the alternative form in the first place. This is bad.

It will take a lot of staring at the cards before I make a decision, but think about how much easier it is for me because I can see the novel in both forms easily in front of me. There's no doubt about it; index cards are a very useful addition to any writer's toolbox.

Planning a Novel

Everybody seems to be talking about novel planning at the moment - perhaps it's Spring coming and we're all hopping about grabbing twigs to build our novels. Currently I feel it's more like clutching at straws, but this is what I do...

Round 1. Start with an idea of a background or two. It's got to be either something I already know about, or can access research material easily, or fancy doing some research on.

Round 2. Think of a few good plot points to use as markers. Woman starts affair, woman ends affair, woman blackmailed by lover.

Round 3. Start thinking about the answers to the questions the plot points pose - why does she have an affair? who with? does her lover have a partner? why do they want an affair?

Round 4. Start writing.

At some point I'm going to get stuck - it might be 10,000 words in, it might be 50,000 words in. But I know roughly where I'm heading for, and what plot threads I'm carrying.

Round 5. Get out some index cards. Write one for the last scene I've written. Write one for the scene I'm aiming for (which is the next big plot point eg they break up or he comes back).

Round 6. Lay the two cards out on the bed with a big space in-between and stare at them very very hard. What I'm doing, apart from scaring the cat, is trying to work out a logical way to get from one point to another.

Round 7. As I get ideas for linking scenes, I write them out on index cards and cautiously place them between the start and end point. Using index cards means I can shuffle the ideas around more easily or add bits. I might get ideas for extra scenes that come earlier or later, and they can be noted on cards as well.

Round 8. When I'm happy with my linking scenes, I write them up as a list and attach it to the end of my novel for reference.

Round 9. With the index cards by my side I get writing.

Write until stuck, at which point repeat Rounds 5-9.

I'll repeat this process until I get to the end of the novel. As I write more - I'm writing Novel No 6 at the moment - my forward planning gets scrappier and scrappier and the bedroom and office are littered with scrawled index cards. I do wish I was a planner - it would feel as if there was a safety net underneath me - but the two occasions I plotted out the novel from start to finish before I began writing, I completely lost interest and never finished them.

Writing without Chapters

A chapter is a useful tool for the reader. It divides the novel up into easily manageable sections so the reader can spread out the contents over several days or weeks, perhaps a chapter before bedtime.

A chapter is a useful tool for the writer. It divides the novel up into easily manageable sections so the writer can spread the labour of writing the darn thing. It makes it easy to plan a book - say, three scenes per chapter of about 1500 -2000 words each scene, and twenty scenes - and there you are. Novel written.

Except it's not that easy. A chapter is not a useful tool for good story telling. A chapter is not a useful tool for rewriting. A chapter is not a useful tool for rearranging. Okay, I'm going to go headlong against those who like to plan out their novel before they start writing, but in my opinion a chapter is not a useful tool for writing a novel that works.

Writing by chapters inhibits creativity by arranging it into nice chunks. It's the Tick Box approach to writing, no deviations allowed. I've heard writers say that they couldn't possibly move this scene some place else, even though they can see why it's been suggested, because then the chapter would be too short. And rewriting is often out because it upsets chapter balance. And the amazing cliff-hanger which will have the readers turning the pages faster than a Zeotrope machine can't possibly go there because it is ordained that the chapter finishes six pages later on.

Sectioning the novel into chapters is about the last thing I do before it goes off to my editor. They may be between 1000-6000 words, but I'm looking for variety in length and brilliant chapter ends. As the novel gets towards the end, the chapters become shorter to help pick up the pace. Above all, the chapters go where it suits the story-telling and not the other way around.

To Plan or not to Plan

Changing the duvet cover this morning led to the same old argument as to the best method - I'm a 'feed the ends in, hold tight, then shake it down' person, t'other is an 'inside out and flip it over' afficionado. It struck me this is a little like writing a novel. Do you plan extensively, or simply go with the flow?

Each method has staunch supporters. I once read an article about Ken Follett that said each novel started with a full synopsis - full being about 300 pages. Stephen King, on the other hand says that he sets out with an idea and sees where it leads him. For myself, I'm somewhere in the middle. I like to know a few key moments that I can aim for - woman falls in love, woman falls out of love, for example - but the how and why and what are all mysteries to be solved along the way.

I've only once tried fully planning a novel, and the result was that, although I loved all the planning and plotting, I never actually wrote it up. It lurks in all its colour coded wonder at the back of the writing cupboard, having absorbed all my inspiration into its perfect plan. For me, extensive planning was a substitute for actually writing a novel.

But, in the end, it doesn't really matter how you change the duvet cover, so long as the bed gets made.