Tag Archives: Novel in a year

Ths year I’m writing a novel.

Creating characters

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Today is all about characters. I find it useful to write a character profile so I have an idea of who this person is – it helps me determine how they might behave in certain situations and what their motivations are – and this can help build fuller, more rounded, authentic characters.

I have come across character profile forms from 1 to 35 pages long! They get writers to consider basic facts, like a character’s age and gender, on to such things as their appearance, behaviour, familial background, medical records, voice, grooming, etc., etc…the list goes on.

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A small memoir

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Most of the writing I have done on my blog has nothing to do with the novel I’m working on, however, everything I read keeps telling that writers, well, write! So here I go writing again. At some point, I will gather some of these pieces and turn them to my novel, or actually do some novel writing! Again the important thing is to keep writing, keep exploring ideas, keep playing with language and keep practicing. Play around with point of view and genre. Today I am using first person narrative in a piece of autobiographical writing: a small memoir.

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Writing activity: accident

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In deciding to write a novel this year, I have become a much more active writer. I am multi-tasking a number of writerly undertakings: I have been working on a plot for the novel, which prompted me to get back to researching the particular place, historical era and key figures relevant to the story. I have been reading much more, and reading in a more mindful manner, noting down all kinds of useful things during the reading and learning more about writing in the process. I have joined a writer’s group and am learning more about critiquing the work of others, reading my own work in public and accepting constructive criticism. And of course I have been writing more.

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The beginnings of a plot

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The idea of ‘plot’ can refer to various narrative techniques and literary devices: setting, time, point of view, focalisation, characterisation, sequencing, genre, etc. I will come to all of these in the course of ‘the year of writing my novel’, what I am interested in today is creating a bare bones list of ideas that will form the basic plot of my novel.

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Plotting the Course

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I already have three ideas for novels. Two come from short stories I have already written, but feel there is much more in them…they are the spark of novels to come; and the third idea is one I have been milling around for a while now, wondering what to do with it. One is definitely young adult historical fiction, and this is the one I am planning to work on this year.

I think I need to work on plot, but I have no idea how to do this. Continue reading →

Getting writing help

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As you know from my previous post, I intend to write a novel this year. I wonder who of you has the same desire. Feel free join me in this experiment and give your own novel a try.
I have bought Louise Doughty’s A Novel in a Year and plan to work through this week by week. While I will not post the content of her book (for obvious copyright reasons) I will post my writing in response to working through her weekly suggestions. Her book is aimed at helping you get ideas and draft material for a novel. Why did I choose this particular book over other equally helpful writing guides? I guess this one spoke to me, to my style of and ideas about writing, plus I like the idea of working through week-by-week tasks – it breaks down the idea of writing a novel into achievable steps, and I have a strong feeling that this will be both useful and exactly what I need.
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My year of writing

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My focus this year will be to write a novel. I have the opportunity now to work part-time and spend the rest of the time writing. I want to take full advantage of that and throw myself into it whole-heartedly…but how do I start? I have written many short stories, but am not entirely sure I know how to write a novel, though I do have ideas for at least three novels floating around in my head. This year is the time to put at least one of them to the test!
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