Redrafting

I’d originally thought when writing the first draft that it had to be right. That the words had to be beautifully crafted, and that I could spend hours getting each sentence just right; that the re-drafting would be a case of sorting out spelling mistakes and throwing in a couple of new ideas here and there. Well, it’s not like that in the slightest. For me – and perhaps this is partly due to working on a laptop – the first draft ended up being little more than a story, not yet a novel.

It’s a bit like restoring a car, I think. You start by building a chassis, and that’s the structure for the car; you put the engine in, and that’s what makes it run; you basically get it going before you even think about making it look pretty. Writing this novel has been a lot like that. I’ve built the chassis and the engine now, and it’s time to get those bits which work into a (hopefully pretty) shape. It’s time to turn it from something which goes to something people actually want to go in.

The first step was to get the manuscript printed, which was done with the incredibly kind assistance of Oliver Stanton at Russell Associates. I’ll be honest: a book manuscript looks damn cool. I feel like a real writer when I hold it.

Next up was reading it: I’d never read through the whole thing, so in three sittings I worked my way through – with the setup you can see above. A pencil, a pad, lots of music and caffiene. This read-through was to make note of patterns, major plot holes and inconsistencies and to see that it hung together; it still wasn’t about the language used or doing any kind of serious re-write work. While I did make some notes on the manuscript, most at this stage were made on my pad, which makes it easier to cross-reference pages which might be at opposite ends of the manuscript.

And now I begin stage two: the process of actually re-writing the manuscript. Several chapters need complete re-writes, thanks to plots I introduced later on in the first draft. Others need less work, but can still be a lot nicer – while I feel that the manuscript as it stands does hang together reasonably well, it’s not the style or impact I really want to get from it. This stage is basically about taking that structure and making it entertaining, making the language sparkle and giving it some originality.

I think it’s probably going to take a long time.

I’m going to link to the books in this post on Amazon: I’m afraid they’re affiliate links. You pay no extra; I’d recommend these books regardless of the affiliate linking; and I have to pay for hosting. But if you’d rather buy them from elsewhere, I’d heartily recommend your local independent bookshop.

On Writing – Stephen King

Whether you read Stephen King’s novels or not, this is an excellent book on the process of writing. Part biography, part instructional manual, former English teacher King takes you through the basics of the novel writing process – and has enough anecdotes to help you feel like you’re not the only one who gets writer’s block/can’t find the time/gets run over by a car. He also tells you a few things to avoid – getting run over being one of them, and an addiction to alcohol being the other. Not all the advice is quite so big-picture, though: there are a lot of the basic principles of story structure, grammar and the process of writing explained. It’s very good.

Buy On Writing

Why I Write & Books V. Cigarettes – George Orwell

These are lovely little books from the Penguin Great Ideas range (it’s well worth collecting the set). Beautiful covers, handy pocket sizes, and these two collections of essays contain some of the most useful bits of writing an aspiring novelist could read; “Books V Cigarettes” justifies all those book purchases and makes you feel virtuous (unless you smoke as well); “Politics and the English Language” is vital reading for anyone who writes (and I think should be made compulsory reading for all my clients!); and “Why I Write” makes you feel a little less alone. It’s a bit political in places – well, it is George Orwell – but some great writing and made the rest of Orwell a little more accessible to me. After these I devoured his full books.

Buy Penguin Great Ideas : Why I Write
Buy Books v. Cigarettes (Penguin Great Ideas)

The Hero with a Thousand Faces – Joseph Campbell

If you’re writing genre fiction – in particular sci-fi (and you love Star Wars) this is absolutely vital reading. Even if you’re writing something “literary” it’s pretty useful, explaining plot structure from ancient Greek and Roman stories to the modern day – and how they all share common elements. I think you can interpret just about any story to fit these elements, rather than them all conciously containing the archetypes described, but it does make for interesting reading – and a perfect match for stories like Star Wars. Having just a little knowledge of this approach can help you when you’re re-reading your story to ensure that the plot hangs together as expected.

Buy The Hero with a Thousand Faces

The Elements of Style – Strunk & White

This might be a little contentious, but bear with me. This is a book on grammar and style; I’d say it’s vital reading for any copy writer, especially any web writer, but novelists might not like it. I, personally, love it: Strunk gets as wound up about grammar as I do but does so with a lot more humour. I have a beautifully bound hard-cover copy with illustrations, but the link below will take you to a nice practical paperback.

You might wonder what use this is to a novelist; after all, you love your long flowery sentences and grammar is just restrictive, right? Well, maybe; but in order to break the rules properly it’s best to understand them first. Regardless, if you have a love for words and language, this book is just great.

Buy The Elements of Style

The Freelance Writer’s Handbook

OK, so it’s not the most immediate choice for writers working on a novel, but it’s an incredibly useful book on making money from your writing. There is a section on writing novels in here – the main lesson being don’t forget your audience – but the sections on ghost writing and general freelancing are helpful too.

Buy The Freelance Writer’s Handbook: How to Make Money and Enjoy Your Life

A couple of weeks ago I finished the first draft; clocking in at around 89,000 words it’s the longest single piece of writing I’ve ever created. I decided not to blog the process of writing it for fear of breaking the flow, but now begins the editing, which feels at the moment like it’s going to be a far less linear process, so I’m going to start putting some notes up here about what I’m doing and why. Hopefully some of what I write will be of interest; I’m going to write about what worked for me, and if you’re writing a novel it won’t necessarily work for you. I’d strongly recommend going on a creative writing course of some sort if you’ve not done much creative writing before. If you’d rather not (and it’s certainly not vital) I’ll do a post with a list of some books you might want to think about reading at some point in the future too.

My thoughts on writing the novel will come in two flavours: a non-chronological, rather rambling list of things I remember from the process of writing it and, hopefully, some more coherent thoughts on the re-drafting process. They’ll all be categorised as “creative writing”, and when I’ve done my planned re-build of this blog you’ll be able to access them all in one place. So – on with the first post. Today: routine.

All about my writing routine

The designer where I work regularly tells me that routine aids creativity, and I’m starting to believe him. Just as it’s important as a freelancer to get up at regular times and put in place a separation between home and work life, I found it important to get away from the distractions of home, to set aside periods of time to write, and to do this regularly. I found that the first month or two was quite easy; after this the realisation that progress can be slow is very disheartening, and without a routine in place it’s easy to be distracted. By putting aside certain times of certain days to write, and by setting targets, it’s easier to manage these distractions.

I started by setting Sunday afternoons aside; I found, however, that this didn’t quite work. On Sundays I have commitments in the evening, and invariably just as I was getting into the flow I’d need to stop writing. I could also end up hungover on a Sunday and start writing very late, and with a bad head. By changing my writing day to Saturday, I could write well into the evening without worry – and as long as I managed to do my cleaning, Sunday was often free to get a few more words down. What did I learn? If you believe in the project, make sacrifices. I gave up my Saturdays, most of my Sundays, most of my time off, in fact; I’m sure friendships have been damaged. But I had to write this novel for the sake of my mental health. I’d never forgive myself if I hadn’t. You don’t just pop out a novel in a month. I was naive when I started in thinking it would take 6 months; 9 months later I know I’m only about half way there with the writing, and then there’s the struggle to get published to come after that, and there’s still no guarantee of success. Worth it? Yes, I think so. But ask again in 9 months.

Break things

One of the best things to happen to me during the drafting was my car breaking down. It meant the only way I had to get around was the bus, and given how irregular they are around here (in timing, not in shape or anything: they all do look like buses, at least) I often ended up with an hour or two to spare. I had thought that this wouldn’t be long enough; I’d been of the opinion that 1,000 words in one go was the lower limit of a useful creative period. But that’s not how I work. It turned out that if I was in the mood to write, an hour would be plenty to keep things moving, so I took advantage of that and ended up writing – at my peak – for at least an hour four days a week. The main learning? Whatever works for you – you just have to try it. Some people will get up an hour or two early and bash out 1,000; I’m a night person, so I’d rather go to bed a couple of hours later and work then.

Next time…

Next time I’ll tell you about a few of the books which have helped in the writing so far – and a few books which are essential reading for any writer, whether a novellist or copywriter.