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Original poster

I want to write a book but I don't have a plot

56 replies

BumperliciousNeedsToSleep · 01/05/2008 22:01

I really feel like I want to write, I'd like to try a chick lit novel.

But I don't have a plot, not even sure that I can write, but hey, I'm not going to let that stop me (many others don't!).

I guess I'm just looking for some advice and inspiration.

OP posts:
ahundredtimes · 01/05/2008 22:02

Think up a plot?

Blandmum · 01/05/2008 22:02

LOL 100x...very droll

BreevandercampLGJ · 01/05/2008 22:05

MB

Was it you who who reccomended Can some Mother help me ??

It arrived today, I am looking forward to reading it.

Blandmum · 01/05/2008 22:06

Yes, it was. Tis fabola. they even had an early edition of Cod

policywonk · 01/05/2008 22:07

It hasn't hindered many of our most revered modern novelists. Don't let it bother you.

ahundredtimes · 01/05/2008 22:07

Ooh Bumper, i was pulling your leg.

Of course you should give it a go if you want to. You never know. Get a broad storyline perhaps, as vague as you like, but it will help you I expect.

choccypig · 01/05/2008 22:11

There was a very interesting review in Saturday's Guardian, arguing that great literature doesn't need a plot, what it needs is style, and form etc. It seemed to argue that the whole "need to turn the pages to find out what happens next " is rather low-brow.

Maybe they have a point, but you do need to have something to say...

However, why don't we make up a story for you? Everyone do a sentence.

I'll start with:

The girl gazed at her reflection in the pool.

southeastastra · 01/05/2008 22:12

lol try a sitcom and sell it to channel 4

Original poster
BumperliciousNeedsToSleep · 01/05/2008 22:13

I know, I know, it sounds stupid... I'm just feeling creatively unstimulated at the moment. I've never been a creative type, mostly academic, but I would love to be able to do something like this.

I just thought I would post for inspiration, I know there are a lot of writers on here.

OP posts:
missorinoco · 01/05/2008 22:14

write about a mother who spends so much time on an internet forum she forgets to spend time with RL people inc her family and friends. realises in the nick of time what is happening, comes off the net, stops the cyber flirting, recaptures the heart of her husband, loses 3 stone and lives happily ever after, discovering she is pregnant again by the end of the book.

i read too many of these things!

Original poster
BumperliciousNeedsToSleep · 01/05/2008 22:18

I was thinking about something to do with having a baby seeing as that is salient to me, but the yummy/slummy mummy fiction is being done to a death at the moment.

My other idea was about a female spy, but that is as far as I got with that idea.

OP posts:
Swedes · 01/05/2008 22:21

I don't think chic lit needs a plot, just lots of shoes and good underwear.

southeastastra · 01/05/2008 22:21

lol bump a female spy that maybe has super powers or a gadget handbag

Original poster
BumperliciousNeedsToSleep · 01/05/2008 22:28

Like a lipstick that becomes a fogging device, a necklace micro camera and a mobile phone password decoder?

OP posts:
southeastastra · 01/05/2008 22:34

no that sounds crap doesn't it.

you could probably make something called 'M15 mom' and the americans would buy it

Original poster
BumperliciousNeedsToSleep · 02/05/2008 08:16

Oh I don't know SEA, I think I'm starting to get into this storyline...

OP posts:
2Eliza2 · 02/05/2008 08:22

What you need are compelling characters. If you start with these, the plot may 'find' itself. My novel that's coming out in Sept. generated itself when I had a very strong image in my mind of a young girl running through snowy forests to escape the Red Army.

Who exactly was she?
Where was she trying to get to?
What had happened to her family?

These and other questions helped me make her story.

A book I use a lot for fleshing out my books is Maass's WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL: WORKBOOK. It helped enormously with PLAYING WITH THE MOON and I'm using it again now for my third novel. He makes you break your characters' motives down and add in complexity, complication, etc.

Good luck!

zippitippitoes · 02/05/2008 08:29

eliza can you write then in that sort of way just adding more and more stuff

it sounds quite a complicated way of doing things is that how writers work rather than starting at the beginning and working through each chapter so more like a jigsaw than progression from a to b

UnquietDad · 02/05/2008 17:15

Bear in mind that being a writer is usually something that you are rather than something you just decide to "do" one day.

It may look easy but it isn't.

Even if you can string words together, that's nowhere near enough of a guarantee of finishing a book and having it professionally published. Even chick-lit, which looks especially easy.

Most writers do it as a vocation and have been writing for years and years before they have their first work published. It can take 2 years to write a book - more, even - and people often write several books before they get anywhere near publishable standard.

Compare it with learning to play the violin if you've never done it before. If you're good, you might pass the exams in time with a lot of practice, but don't expect to join the LSO just yet.

Sorry if this sounds a little hectoring. It's just that it's my job, and I see a lot of people who think they can write a book and don't have a clue.

Original poster
BumperliciousNeedsToSleep · 02/05/2008 19:10

Point taken UQD. But I'd like to think I am a writer inside, my creativity has just been repressed by years of academia

Gotta give these things a shot anyway.

What sort of writing do you do?

OP posts:
UnquietDad · 02/05/2008 20:00

Novels and non-fiction.

2Eliza2 · 03/05/2008 09:52

There's really no one way that authors produce novels, as far as I can tell! Some of my friends write very detailed chapter outlines. I write a brief plan but need to give myself a lot of wriggle-room because my books are character-led. This means that if a character suddenly starts to develop in a way I wasn't planning I like to be able to see where they might lead me. For me, writing a book is like being given a box of jigsaw puzzle bits. Some of the bits might not even belong to the picture on the front of the box and my job is to decide which do belong and which don't, and which are missing and need locating, and then, how they all link together.

For instance, in my book, RESTITUTION, that's coming out in Sept., it was originally the teenage daughter (a Prussian Junker girl) who was the main focus. She still is, but her middle-aged mother, a former film star from the Golden Age of German cinema, suddenly became much more interesting for me. Women who've lived a bit have more hinterland to explore. So in subsequent drafts (and there were many) I developed the character of the mother and she became the driver of a central plot point I hadn't thought of before. I decided that a series of unresolved love triangles originating in Vienna in the twenties were what was really behind the story. This never occurred to me when I was writing the first draft(s).

I'm sure UnquietDad is probably much more disciplined. Most other writers are!

hatjam · 03/05/2008 20:11

hey 2eliza2 - that sounds really interesting. i'll look out for it.

maybe bumper if you just start pursuing random thoughts and noting things down, an idea will float to the surface?

expatinscotland · 03/05/2008 20:16

how about trying out writing in other ways besides writing a book to see if it's something you enjoy?

for example, some technical writing or essay writing for others, ghostwriting, helping foreign students edit their work, etc.

all of these really help broaden your horizons and give lots of opportunities for research and exploration.

you get paid, too!

gracepaley · 03/05/2008 20:26

Nah, just start writing. The plot might come as you write. Am also writer.

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