Beneath the trees

If you are walking through a beautiful forest, the chances are you won’t be counting the trees. You will feel their cool shade, hear birds disturb the leaves and squirrels rush through the undergrowth, smell the earthy scent, touch the rough bark, watch the sunlight change the patterns on the ground. But you won’t know how many trees you pass beneath.

In a similar way, I'm not sure you can apply a quantitative measure to creative output. Which is why, when I sit down to write, I never set a word target. I know how helpful it is for many writers, but for me it adds pressure and subtracts pleasure.

I believe that writing is a continuous process. And an enormous part of that process is not spent at your desk. After you walk away, progress is still being made in a subliminal way. Your intuitive mind is stimulated by the quality of the words you have written so far and is paying no heed to whether the total achieved was fifty, a hundred or a thousand. Nor does it care how many minutes or hours you sat there typing. It feeds on your creativity, not your numbers.

Likewise, when your watercolour painting is drying before the next wash is applied, or when your dough is proving, the work is still being done.

Similarly, I don’t use the phrase ‘writer’s block’. If sometimes the words are not flowing, it is because the subconscious mind is busy sorting and sifting. The creative output may not be apparent, but it is still happening. You might have to call upon all your reserves of patience until it pours out again, but it will be worth it. You’re anything but blocked. You’re full of ideas. They are being filtered for you.

While you wait, you can always revisit your plan, or set out the bones of an unconnected scene, or if you keep a rolling synopsis alongside your novel, you can check to make sure it's complete and up-to-date.

In the end, what matters most is the quality of the words. I would rather create a decent paragraph which develops the characters even a little, leaving them ready to advance in the next writing session, than write a pre-determined amount to fulfil a target. If I were keeping half an eye on a goal, I wouldn’t be fully immersed in the creative work. Number targets, whether words or hours, are not an incentive for me and fail to help me focus on whether I’m managing to tell the story.

Where to find your characters

How to begin to write a story? A good starting point is to find a setting which captures your imagination. Once this location has completely occupied your mind, your characters will appear. They might already be there. This sounds fanciful, but look at your favourite books and see how many memorable characters are rooted deeply in—and influenced by—their environment.

I’m thinking about the rain-soaked caravan site in Summerwater by Sarah Moss, the bleak late-winter moor in Andrew Michael Hurley’s Starve Acre, the imposing mountains and changing seasons of Idaho by Emily Ruskovich. In all these novels, the actions, mood changes, conflicts and emotions of the characters are linked to the landscape.

Sometimes the setting can reveal the theme and atmosphere of the story too. Here is an example from the opening of One Horse Town, one of the first short stories I wrote years ago:

‘One horse don't mean that nothing ever happens here. The crops are parched and the dust blows in your eyes enough to make you cry just walking. But things do happen. People disappear.

There ain't many places to hide. It's just a flat space with a few tired homes and a splintered school building in the mountain's shadow. The sun can't shine there. It has a cactus garden we tend ourselves and the granmas come and help us with trying to grow corn in a triangle at the end of the yard. That's where a thin stripe of light appears for a short time each day.

If you visited this massive region, if you walked right into the heart of this little inhabited bit of it nestled in the mountain's feet like a dead mouse lying at the paws of a tiger, you would put your head on one side and look at it fond-like. It's not sweet here, though.’

I can’t explain how this setting came to mind. Maybe I had stumbled across a picture of an isolated town in a mountainous area. But once the image was there, the characters followed. You can see from these early paragraphs that the narrator—along with the story she is about to tell—is tethered to her world. And this world is going to play a vital part in the story. The tiger/mouse image suggests violence will be a feature, but the main theme this setting begins to reveal is the sense of being trapped and dominated.

In my novel, Instructions for the Working Day, the setting is a forgotten, crumbling village in isolated marshland. It is still guarded by a watchtower, a Cold War relic. This location provides a menacing atmosphere and constant tension. In stark contrast, the main characters also visit Berlin. Since this brings them into a brighter environment, I had to ensure the unsettling undercurrent of danger followed them there. Fortunately, it wasn't as difficult as I had feared. I discovered that when characters are intrinsically part of their normal surroundings, any new setting adapts to suit them and their story.

So when you want to start writing a short story or a novel, find a setting which speaks to you. Somewhere in there, your characters are waiting.

Let your ship sail

After finishing the final draft of the novel in its entirety, I left it alone for as long as patience would allow (not very long), then spent a few days re-reading and contemplating the opening chapters only.

I wanted to check that the main characters arrived early enough and that their missions were either already in motion, or about to begin. These missions needed to be clear, but not too spelled-out, in order to retain plenty of intrigue.

Although it is tempting to use the first couple of chapters to set the scene, maybe establish the characters in detail, introduce the minor players or delve into backstory, it is important not to tiptoe around the edges of the ‘action’.

A few years ago, during early drafts of my first novel, I made the mistake of skulking: a vital road trip—the core of the story—didn’t actually begin until a third of the way through. My characters spent the first few chapters on a ‘dummy run’ to a much closer destination before returning to get ready for the ‘real thing’. In the misguided belief that I was keeping the reader in excited suspense, I was holding up the action and skirting around the heart of the book, rather than making it beat.

Fear of running aground can make it daunting to set sail. To stay safe, it is tempting to prevaricate by filling in fine details, adding descriptions and introducing strands which won't connect to the main plot until later. To avoid this, it can be helpful to make a plan.

My plan for Instructions for the Working Day took time, but made the writing process more straightforward and enjoyable. By the time I had finished the plan, I understood my characters and why they had a story to tell.

I also knew how each chapter would work, scene by scene, which gave me confidence and, as a result, the ability to concentrate. This meant I could make progress every time I sat down to write. Not only that, but I could look forward to writing and not fear it.

These plans were not straitjackets. As with any plan, a degree of flexibility was required. An outline can collapse once the narrative is underway and the characters are developing by themselves. They might discover a more scenic route which takes you, the writer, to unfamiliar places. If this turns out to be a mistake, you could revert to your original plan. Or you could change course again and discover the new ‘right’ way ahead. But having the plan gives you a reference point, a safe haven. And when you return to it, this time you will have your characters with you. They are now a force to be reckoned with and instrumental in reconsidering the route.

Whether you work from a loose plan, a tight plan, or no plan at all, it is still useful to re-read your novel’s opening and check that you haven’t lingered too long in the harbour. Let your characters set sail.

A final tip: it was helpful to view the two documents—‘Plan’ and ‘Actual Novel’—side by side on my screen. There was something encouraging about the Plan being right there. I struck through each scene after I’d written it, which felt insanely rewarding and gave a sense of progress.

[Ship drawing from tutorial by Circle Line Art School]