Beginning a Story

[Paul Whybrow]

I'm just beginning the fifth novel in my Cornish Detective series, which I'm thrilled about. Most of 2017 was spent writing new short stories and poems for competitions, but I've also done loads of research for the new story.

Being more of a 'pantser' than a 'planner', I don't know exactly what will happen in a tale that will include art forgery, identity theft, long-concealed murder, deep sea divers, ghosts and legends, though I'll listen to my characters to find a way. I feel like Vladamir Nabokov, who said:

“The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamouring to become visible.”

I've noticed that I've started to think of the past few years in terms of which novel I wrote then, rather than anything else that happened in my life. 2017-2018 will be the year of The Dead Need Nobody, so during Christmas and New Year I'll be immersed in murder, malice and mayhem...what's new?

Recently, I read a collection of short stories called Stories: Volume 2, compiled by Al Sarrantonio and Neil Gaiman who also wrote an introduction. Gaiman was asked, by a fan on his blog, what four words he would choose as a mural for the wall of a children's library, and he said they would be 'And What Happened Next?'—which is just what an author wants their readers to think.

It's also the attitude a writer should have while they write: I'm writing another novel to see what happens next. I feel like I'm off on a new adventure.

How do you feel when you begin writing a new story?

Does it feel like a mountain that you've chosen to climb?

Is it a jungle that you're entering, and you're afraid you'll get lost?

Or are you faced with a vast desert that's devoid of landmarks?

 

[Carol Rose]

How do you feel when you begin writing a new story?

Excited. A bit anxious that I'll be able to tell the story already finished in my mind. Also hopeful my readers will like it as much as I do. And sometimes I'm hoping I will like it.

Does it feel like a mountain that you've chosen to climb?

No, not really. The story is already finished in my head when I sit down to type. I just need to get it from my brain cells onto the page.

Is it a jungle that you're entering, and you're afraid you'll get lost?

I meander at times since I'm not really a plotter. It's at those times I go back and re-read it from the start, one more time, and that usually gets me right back on track.

Or are you faced with a vast desert that's devoid of landmarks?

One of the best things about writing romance is that I do have landmarks. They're formulaic because readers expect them to be. It's the middle that I get to make all my own.

Hope this helps.

 

[Barbara]

I'm just beginning the fifth novel in my Cornish Detective series, which I'm thrilled about. Most of 2017 was spent writing new short stories and poems for competitions, but I've also done loads of research for the new story.

Being more of a 'pantser' than a 'planner', I don't know exactly what will happen in a tale that will include art forgery, identity theft, long-concealed murder, deep sea divers, ghosts and legends, though I'll listen to my characters to find a way. I feel like Vladamir Nabokov, who said:

“The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamouring to become visible.”

I've noticed that I've started to think of the past few years in terms of which novel I wrote then, rather than anything else that happened in my life. 2017-2018 will be the year of The Dead Need Nobody, so during Christmas and New Year I'll be immersed in murder, malice and mayhem...what's new?

Recently, I read a collection of short stories called Stories: Volume 2, compiled by Al Sarrantonio and Neil Gaiman who also wrote an introduction. Gaiman was asked, by a fan on his blog, what four words he would choose as a mural for the wall of a children's library, and he said they would be 'And What Happened Next?'—which is just what an author wants their readers to think.

It's also the attitude a writer should have while they write: I'm writing another novel to see what happens next. I feel like I'm off on a new adventure.

How do you feel when you begin writing a new story?

Does it feel like a mountain that you've chosen to climb?

Is it a jungle that you're entering, and you're afraid you'll get lost?

Or are you faced with a vast desert that's devoid of landmarks?

I've just started a new one too. Already, I have realised it is going to be a toughy, and all I have is a title and a concept. And yes, it does feel like a mountain I've chosen to climb! It really is a jungle I'm entering. Tigers and everything. Indeed, I am afraid I'll get lost (and eaten alive)! And I do feel I'm faced with a vast desert devoid of landmarks!

But I've discovered a little book called 'How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake method'. Considering winter is ahead I might just give this method a go. All I have to do now is stop procrastinating and get on with it! And never mind about falling off the cliffs in the mountains, being eaten by the tigers in the jungle, or being buried under the sands of the Sahara ... One day it will be a novel. And the journey there is exciting.

Good luck on your new venture, Paul. I'm sure you'll nail it.

 

[MaryA]

@Paul Whybrow, art forgery is one of those topics that always draws me in. Ditto deep sea divers, a fascination that goes back to books on Jacques Cousteau I read when I was small.Grainy images of divers with early aqua-lungs in The Silent World. It still gives me goosebumps when I read about divers going deep into underwater caves.

That Nabokov quotation is so alluring. Your new book sounds like a winner!

For me there's always that mix of trepidation and anticipation, no matter how well I've researched and planned.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

It feels like being a spider, trying to spin a thread from out of my own substance.

 

[Patricia D]

It's an adventure with elements of mountain and desert and jungle because I don't know where it's headed. I try to be more of a planner, but... The intended plot for my WIP has just become part 1, a jumping off point to the real story. Who woudda thunk it?

 

[Matnov]

I tend to have a vision of an opening chapter, with a main character having a semblance of an outline and a quirk or two starting to surface, which will bug the life out of me until I sit down and write it out. And Norman my Muse will take a look at it, fill his pipe, light it up, drink some tea, give his head a good scratch before having a mooch around the library. Then, once the pot has been drunk dry, the smoke stopped rising from the bowl and the books all given a good dusting and rearranging, either start to offer up suggestions for what comes next or else give me that sorry shake of the head which means he is not willing to play, at least not yet.

No point in forcing Norman to try and do something he is not fully behind. But if he is in favour...

After that, then it just progresses really. Currently hit an impasse but that is more a case of Norman telling me that this can only be part 1 given that all the characters have finally made it to a single destination and that what comes next is perhaps best left until I have another, non-writing related, area of my life on a more even keel (professional rather than personal). Works for me and with 100,000 plus words under our belts, I know that the novel has to be finished but that patience is the key at the moment.

 

[MaryA]

A muse named Norman, @Matnov! #envy #musestealing

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Several chapters into my fifth novel, after tons of research into deep sea diving, art forgers and the sometimes shady world of art galleries and art auctions, I finally feel like I've taken off again—a bit like an albatross leaving terra firma for a flight into the unknown—I just needed a long run up to get going!

 

[Robinne Weiss]

A bit like @Carol Rose, I'll have landmarks set out for myself--those mountain peaks I can see in the distance. Then I plunge into the valleys between, thrashing through the bush to find my way to the next peak. Never know what might happen in those valleys, or what strange creatures you might meet...it's always an adventure.

 

[Eifion Wyn Williams]

I have an idea of what I have to achieve in the first chapter and it must have a beginning, a middle and an end, just like the book, so once I've considered this for a few minutes, I start writing without any apprehension really, just excited at where it's going to lead me, as I just never know!

 

[Howard]

Stories build within me like a swelling tide, until I have no choice but to sit down and breach the sea wall. By the time I actually start writing in earnest, I will have already stewed on every aspect of the book for months, so it is nothing short of immense relief to see it begin to form, finally, on the page.