Category: Craft Of Storytelling

You think there is a book in you. 

It might be a memoir, or it might just be a novel. You are not sure. 

Some scenes keep playing in your head again and again. You have even met the protagonist.

She comes into your dreams and talks to you. She has shared some secrets with you—just some. You know there are more secrets, but when you ask, she remains quiet. Then she disappears. You push her to the back of your mind and get on with your life. Then one day, when you have forgotten all about her, she is sitting on the corner of your bed, in tears, accusing you of abandoning her.

She wants you to write her story. You have no idea how to. You tell her that, but she won’t leave you alone.

Drip by drip, she feeds you her story but not enough to make sense. You faithfully record what she is telling you. You even try to fill in the missing bits with your imagination, but they are not authentic. You need to hear it from her.

What can you do? Should you write her story as best as possible, or should you tell her to leave you alone and let her story die?

This is the decision only you can make. No one else can make it for you.

Writing a novel is hard.

If you decide to write that story, and you have never written one before, let me tell you something you don’t perhaps know. Instantly you rise to the category of a select few. Writing a novel is hard. Very hard. That is the reason only a handful of us dare do it.

There are books and books written on how to write a novel by experienced authors. The gods of the writing world — Stephen King, William Zinsser, Anne Lamott, Dean Koontz, Annie Dillard, James Scott Bell, and Margaret Atwood — have shared their wisdom. 

I am a mere mortal who is still struggling with her first novel for more than five years. What can I tell you about writing a novel?

Perhaps not much, other than — writing a novel is like carrying a baby, it gets heavier and heavier with time, and one day you have to deliver it. 

Sometimes you have a miscarriage, sometimes a stillbirth, but never it is that you can keep the baby inside you.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” — Maya Angelou

If you are one of those who are carrying a novel in you, if you are the one who really wants to write it, there are a few things I have learned that I would love to share with you.

1. Your first-born is yours to keep

Like any first-born, he is going to be your dearest, and rightly so. It was the most difficult pregnancy and most painful delivery. Yet, it is not a baby you can show to the world. He is yours and yours alone. The sooner we understand this fact, the sooner we come to terms with his role in our lives and ours in his.

Our role is to bring him out in the world, and he is to prepare us to give birth to more.

The first draft is just you telling yourself the story. — Terry Pratchett

Don’t tell yourself it is not worth it, or it will take too long, or you don’t have the skills, or even if you write one, no one would want to publish it, and even if it gets published, you won’t make much money from it unless it wins the Man Booker prize and if it doesn’t, what is the point of writing one.

Just write it for yourself.

2. Infertility is the thing of the past

Remember those days when you were told that you couldn’t have a baby because your eggs couldn’t descend, or there was some problem with your fallopian tubes or sperm count was less … things like that. Those are all things of the past. Now there is artificial insemination, test-tube babies, surrogate mothers…

The limitation that you can’t write a novel doesn’t exist anymore.

James Scott Bell, a lawyer and thriller writer, wrote Plot and Structure that he wasted ten years of a prime writing life because he was fed a big lie. He gave up the dream of becoming a writer in his twenties because he was told writing couldn’t be taught, that the writers were born, that you either have it, or you don’t.

Then at age thirty-four, he read an interview with a lawyer who’d had a novel published. In the interview, the lawyer said something which hit James like a stack of bricks. He said he’d had an accident and was almost killed. In the hospital, given a second chance at life, he decided the one thing he wanted was to be a writer. And he would write and write, even if he never got published because that was what he wanted.

James wanted to write too. So he went out and bought his first book on fiction writing. He taught himself writing and became a writer of more than 25 novels and countless other books.

Infertility is a thing of the past. There are so many options available now. Explore and use. Don’t lead the life of despair.

People say, ‘What advice do you have for people who want to be writers?’ I say, they don’t really need advice, they know they want to be writers, and they’re gonna do it. Those people who know that they really want to do this and are cut out for it, they know it. — R.L. Stine

3. Conception is delightful

More than twenty years ago, I read an interview of Barbara Cartland (she was more than ninety years old at that time) where she said she was still writing a novel a year, only that she was now dictating it rather than typing it. There was a picture of her with the article, where she was lying on a four-poster bed with a pink canopy in a gilded bedroom. She was wearing a pink dress, a white fur scarf, diamonds, and full makeup, and I said to myself, Wow!

I will never forget that picture of her. That was then I conceived the idea of writing novels.

The beauties of conception are always superior to those of expression — Walter J Phillips

I was seduced not because Barbara Cartland was living the fantasy life she was writing about in her novels, but that she was writing one each year, in her nineties and from her bed. How many professions are there where you can have that kind of productivity at that age?

Writing a novel is a worthy goal for any writer. Like Anne Lamott says, “Writing can give you what having a baby can give you; it can get you to start paying attention, can help you soften, can wake you up.”

For the past few days have been reviewing my half-written novel. Chapter 1 needs tightening, chapters 2 and 3 are perfect, but I am not sure about 4 and 5 where POV changes from protagonist to another character. Should I keep it that way or get rid of them altogether. But they move the story forward. I like chapters 6, 7, and 8. My protagonist finds her inner strength here. 

There are places where I think, did I write this or someone else wrote them, and my heart pumps with pride.

I am up to chapter 11 now, and I love it. I can’t wait to hold this baby in my arms because it is mine and mine alone.

Photo by Rhiannon Black on Unsplash

I was going through my old journals and discovered that my best writing was when I was writing ‘in the moment.’ I was more aware of the my surroundings, was using the senses to feel and was expressing what was going through my mind at the moment. As a result, my writing was much more engaging.

“The water of the lake is reflecting the blue of the sky. A boat with orange mast is creating ripples on the surface which are travelling all the way to the shore. I am sitting in the back seat of my car which is my sanctuary for the week. I have taken a week off from work to rejuvenate after a very busy winter months both at home and at work. Parked at a secluded spot, I am soaking the sun and taking in the silent beauty of the Black Mountain and Lake Burley Griffin. In front of me is a bare tree with an occasional leave at the branchends. Its trunk is divided into several branches and I have been tracing its curves and bends for some time now. I can draw it in the sketchbook I have brought with me, I should, but I don’t. I feel tired and exhausted. Not physically, but mentally. Emotional roller-coaster ride has taken its toll. Everything demands my time. Work, home, my own hobbies. Drawing a tree will take time, even if it doesn’t have any leaves. And time is something I don’t have. Even though I have five days off work, I have so much to fit in them. A raven comes and sit on a branch making the picture complete. I reach for the pencil.”

‘Writing in the moment’ is like practicing mindfulness. It is a way of being intensely aware of what you’re sensing and feeling, without interpretation or judgment. You can start with simple words like ‘I am…” and off you go. You will not feel stuck because you are writing what you are seeing and feeling at that very moment. Add to it your sense of smell, sound, and touch and your writing will bring your readers into the moment with you.

“I am in heaven, surrounded by rows and rows of old books, music and soft chatter of people in the coffee shop. A friend reminded me of it last week and I decided to spend the day here, writing. Beyond Q is a second-hand bookshop, tucked in a local shopping center. You can easily miss it as it is one flight of stairs down from ground level. As soon as you enter you are hit with the smell of books, the kind which is faintly mixed with dirt. The front counter has a number of tiny-trinkets, you know the painted bookmarks, small boxes, things I like to hold in my hands just to feel their rich texture. I have been here once before, to buy books, but didn’t think of it as a potential place to write. I wonder why. The place has everything – old table and chairs tucked away in corners that can hide you from the view of the lady at the counter and also the new customers, all kind of books for constant inspiration and sweet aroma of coffee. I should come here regularly.”

You can turn a simple excursion into a writing exercise, and when you do that you will enjoy simple things much more and remember them more vividly than you would have.

“It is half-passed two on a balmy Sunday afternoon and we walk from Fiona’s place to the Murrumbidgee river to see the tiny waterfall about 400 meters away. Of all the days, I choose sandals to wear to come to a country property. I borrow a hat from Fiona but there is no way I can borrow her shoes. No one has as small feet as I. The stones and pine-needles at the riverbed looked threatening but there is no way I am going to miss the opportunity to see the waterfall. So off I went.

The grass on the front lawn is soft and cushioning but as soon as we pass the side gate the ground becomes brittle and broken. We slide through the wires of a fence, which is apparently erected to keep the sheep away from the river. It doesn’t seems to be working because we find the riverbed littered with sheep pooh. Walking carefully between the rocks I yell to Fiona who is way ahead of me walking comfortably in her gum shoes, “At some point the river must have been up to here?” “Oh yes, every year, water comes up to here when it rains.” We pass the stones of all shapes and sizes and even colours, soft pink ones with red line and tough grey ones with white liens.

The air started getting heavier, smelling of mist and pine. We hear the waterfall before we see it. Theresa reached there first followed by Moira and for a while we stand still, each one of us poised on a different rock, taking in the little miracle of nature. Gushing muddy Murrumbidgee river falling down just a meter and half, yet so mesmerizing, so beautiful, so loud, drowning every other sound. If you look at running water it always seems like one continuous thing yet it is new water each time. The shape it makes against the rock is always the same. Yet it is new water. It is continuously hammering down, endlessly. If I come here tomorrow, it will still be here, going exactly like this. Even in a month, a year, may be several year.

Each one of us find spot to get comfortable and to write in the moment. The sun is shining through the pine needles which are not able to provide much of a shade, but the dried bulk of them on the floor definitely provides the cushion to sit on. I pick one and break it between my fingers. Dry and brittle, it breaks easily. The river water looked darker and colder when clouds covered the sun, now it looks lighter and little warmer. Little black ants are walking on my bag. Some have even gone inside in search of food. I should have zipped it. They are so fast. A white bird swoops down the river for a drink.

When I finish, I take off my sandals and dip my aching feet in the water. The warm liquid touches the sore bits and takes way the weariness. For a moment I am one with the nature.”

Recently I started using the technique to write about my day in my daily journal. It has made my journal come alive.

I suggest you give it a go. Any time you feel procrastinating or feel stuck, try writing ‘in the moment.’ Just jot down “I am…” or “It is half passed…” and describe where you are and what is going through your mind. And when you are done, share some of your writing here. I would love to hear from you.