For anyone else who wants to start/progress/finish writing a book in 2011

[artifarti]

As the title says really!

Me: After several years of dithering with short stories, I committed myself to Nanowrimo last month and managed to bash out a 50,000 first draft of an idea I've had for ages. There is some excrutiating crap in there but also the bare bones of a plot and some interesting characters. So I'd really like to spend 2011 trying to develop it into something better.

But I need some company so that we can mutually kick each other's arses when the temptation to watch Holby City is proving too great. Anyone else?

I've started the second draft, ninah but it needs way more than editing! The first draft lacked depth and so I now have a subplot with an interesting character and am also contemplating flashbacks. There's a lot of work to do and I felt quite disheartened today but will keep ploughing on...

I'm also having to research the basics of opera and taxidermy so not making life easy for myself!

Keep at it!! You all know that you can do it.

A friendly author has looked over the long ms, she said there's nothing wrong with it so far Grammar's fine, plot's fine, I'm 'showing not telling', I'm now bashing my head against the wall.

Still ploughing away at first draft - but just find it so hard to find any spare time now. If anyone wants to swap a bit of their work for some light-hearted crit let me know. I haven't shown anything to anyone yet and would be interested to a)hear what people think and b)see what other people's writing at this stage is like. Although I live in total fear of being laughed off the thread.

Ploughing through...plugging away....I'll never make a writer will I?

of course you will, you spotted it!

Oh, hello, can I join in? I've got an idea for a story which I started writing 5 years or so ago when I was about 17, but it won't go away, and I'd quite like to get back to it. I have little bits which I wrote when I first thought it through at age 17/18 and a lot of background on characters - the two main characters are very clear to me, I feel I "know" them if that makes sense? I have the major events which happen in the story and even some scenes around these events, but not much happening in between, and I'm not quite sure on the order of them. TBH I haven't written anything on it in years, while I was with XP I just never felt creative at all.

Occasionally over the past year (since I've been single) I have gone back to it and looked longingly at it, opened a blank word document and.. nothing. I have edited one of the pieces recently but that's all I have done. I even have a playlist for the story

The other thing is that because of the playlist I'm really tempted to change it from a novel to a TV script, but I don't know that it would work as well. (It's just some scenes would be very emotive with the music I want to put on them. I guess I wouldn't get a say in this anyway though!)

So really, I'd love to get back into it, any tips? I'm going to try doing the thing atswim suggested about the plot lines.

Actually I've just done that plot line thing - except I got lots of scraps of paper and listed all the events, major and minor, and am currently moving them around in big line on the floor. Going to do a proper chart or type it up or something when I'm finished. Thanks atswim, it's been really helpful, and I realised I have a lot more plot than I thought :)

Thank you!

I was going to say - you should put three post it notes on the side of your computer:

1. This is the first draft.

This is for when you are writing and know it's rubbish - you're telling the story, but the writing is crap.

2. Go darker.

I was told this by an author - her agent had told her that when you're wondering whether something's dark enough, his advice was always to go darker still.

3. Just write the bloody thing.

This was told me by the same author - her agent wrote it on a post it note and gave it to her to put on her computer. It worked for her and it worked for me.

Good luck!

Go darker is good, I'll use that.

I recommend sticking a post it note on the side of the screen with the characters names on it. Why? So far in one book I've had a Jack/James/Albert/Arthur/Alfred/Edith/Edith/Edna

I think I've finished the rewrite, think.

stranded - I'll swap a first chapter or somesuch with you if you like. I'm having a spectacularly bad week and would love something to take my mind off it. I can PM you my email address if that's easiest and we can take it from there.

Hi arti - yes, great. I am not sure it will be my first chapter as I don't like it very much but I could send you a synopsis of what happens in the 1st chapter and then my 2nd or whatever. PM with your email address and I will email you back mine. I probably won't get round to sending you anything until Monday or later in the week - I get three child-free mornings a week, Mon, Thurs and Fri and try and work like superwoman in those hours.

Belle - I love the names of your characters, sounds like you are a scriptwriter for EastEnders! Well done with the re-write, now what?

Bertie - welcome and that's a really good idea doing the plotting. I might do it myself even though I have almost finished the (crap) first draft!

I need someone to read the rewrite.

Hello-hello-hello - Can I join? I KNOW that my novel won't be finished this year, I've set the limit to "Before death". Which is more or less realistic?
I've always written bits and bobs, had a few articles published online and one in a crappy magazine (but still!) and my dream is to have a book published. Forget about fame and fortune, I just want to see my name on a book (hopefully with 'Penguin' or 'Bloomsbury' or 'HarperCollins' in even smaller print)...but ahem, I digress.

English is my second language but I cannot write in my first, too complicated. This thread has now inspired me to go back to a whodunnit that I've started a few years ago.

Question: how much research is really necessary?

mdavza - welcome

About research - I think it depends on what kind of book you are writing. For instance, a lot of people who write novels set in the past research to a huge degree (A.S. Byatt has just been on the radio talking about this - that she researches Victorian doorknobs! And I have heard Sarah Waters say similar). But I read that Stephen King (in his book, On Writing) only concerns himself with telling the story and then does as much research as he thinks he needs in order that the reader is convinced by what they are reading. He gave the example of a novel he wanted to write set in the Pennsylvania Police Dept. He planned to write the novel and then go and spend time with the police in order to 'add colour' and check facts.

Beware of research as procrastination (if you are anything like me)

I was listening to that, too, arti!

I think the difference though with AS Byatt and Sarah Waters and Stephen King, though, is that the two women are writing historical fiction. I think they're right to submerge themselves into research, because often circumstances dictate what will happen in the plot. For Stephen King, he, like most people who watch films and tv, will have some idea of what happens in a police department and can write a draft without visiting one; it's only afterwards that he needs to make sure he was completely accurate.

Agree with atswimtwolengths- degree of research requires depends entirely on your own familiarity of the subject matter.

Historical fiction demands a lot of research because the actual historical facts often drive the story. Plots usually throw fictional characters into events which really happened but which are alien to us. As a result the author usually gives a lot of physical description to create this world, and they need to get it right. Of course you still have artistic license- not everything in "The Other Boleyn Girl" actually happened, but you need to set that license in a frame of fact.

Similarly, if you're writing a book set in (eg) India for a western audience, you need to create India for them in your writing and research is required. You can't just give your impressions of what India is like- you need to actually find out.

However, if you're writing a book set in the UK in 2007 for a Uk audience, then you can probably get away with very little research, especially if you set the book somewhere fictional.

Hello again. I'm sure it was Ford Madox Ford who said he needed to know what the doorknob would look like, or how would he get the character into the room? I am much more slapdash than that - not a particularly visual person (I pinched the notion off Alan Bennett so it can't preclude me from writing, right?).

Anyway, today I got onto this course which I am extremely happy about. I can only imagine they have had very few applications so would be delighted if anyone would join me, the bar can't be very high as my submission was a) terrible and b) included a synopsis written just before I submitted it at about 10pm on New Year's Eve (initial deadline was midnight so really, what did they expect?). In vino veritas, perhaps?

I did also pretend tell them I'd finished the book so at least I have to get my arse in gear by 30th March!

Bloody hell OMaLittle! That's incredibly expensive. Be very careful as it shouts 'scam' to me, especially as you re saying it wasn't the greatest submission. I would turn and run from this as quickly as humanly possible. You can do an open university course in Creative Writing for £160. You need to research courses very, very carefully as there are people out there who are after your money. It's the same with agents and publishers, never hand over money.

Dont worry Belle- The National Academy of Writing is legit. The course is expensive but you could end up with Margaret Atwood as your teacher [goes into "I'm not worthy" prostrations]

Seriously? Bloody hell! I wouldn't pay 4k (faints)

You could do an MA for less than that, Bagged and then you'd be qualified to teach it, too.

It's not Bagged doing it (and inadvertently donning her 'I'm horribly spendthrift, I am' badge), it's me. Have looked into MAs but it's more a time thing, can work at same time as doing this one so net am quids in (though probably paying more for 'less' too). Also this is a very specific course for a completed first draft that needs work prior to publication (can certainly see how I qualified according that criterion; it's the 'clear promise' I'm surprised/delighted by...). Did want to do the UEA MA but can't really see how I can justify moving the family to Norwich for a year and also not earning! Not to mention a slightly higher applicant/place ratio, I suspect...

I would love to do the course....if I lived in London....and had a spare £4,000.....anyway it sounds like you are doing well with your novel, I am close to giving up on mine, have so little time now and all I hear is how hard it is to get published I just keep thinking what's the point?

Thank you! I think in the end just think of it as something you're doing for yourself and publication will be icing on the cake. When it's going well it is its own reward, I think, it's just SO bizarrely difficult to keep up momentum! I am so envious of my friends who manage to have predictable 'writing time' - our lives have been unpredictable for nearly two years (been travelling and living in odd places) and I'm a (reluctant) routine freak: hoping when I get some order it will effectively subcontract the discipline element! I do remember LitChick a while ago posting something really inspiring about how she started up, writing whenever she found the time or space - in soft play etc (how? it's so bloody noisy!) and it helps give me a kick up the arse and stop waiting for my perfect 'set-up'. (Although I must say living at the in-laws' for three months is proving a bit too far from it - still, we're out on Monday!)

It depends on your novel strand. There's plenty of publishers out there, there's a lot of writers aswell but if yours is good then you do have a chance. You're so close now, don't give up. I have a publisher interested in 2 of my books, this is the first one I've sent them to so there is hope.