Over the years, I have listened to many authors speaking on their process. It’s always interesting to hear how “the professionals” do it. I remember one author (whose name I have genuinely forgotten) who told a group of aspiring writers that during the editing process, he rewrote his completed manuscripts at least 10 times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I thought I had misheard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But no – he wrote, and rewrote, his whole manuscript for each novel at least 10 times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the time, I hadn’t published any novels, and I was keen to hear other people’s methodologies. But ten complete rewrites sounded completely bonkers to me. Surely, there was a better, more time-efficient, way?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Indeed there was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
I use a number of tools to help me plan my novels, and these tools ensure that I need to do a maximum of 3 full-manuscript edits. Not rewrites<\/strong>. Edits. My first drafts don’t need developmental or story edits. The stories come out pretty clean, but the manuscripts usually need some tidying up to tell those stories better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before I start, I must make one thing clear – this is my process. It may not work for you, or you may think it’s too predictable. But for me, two things make it essential:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1) It works well for a plot-driven story, such as my cozy crime series<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2) I cannot hold the full plot of my novels in my head. I just can’t. I need to break things down – from a single sentence describing the story, adding more detail and building out the story, eventually down to having a few sentences describing individual scenes. I can then write the scene as I picture it in my head, with various backstories and red herrings floating around that scene image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n START<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I begin with an idea. Writing books in a series makes things a little more straightforward – you know your setting \/ location, and you know your main characters. So, for NaNo2023, my idea is: “What if someone died in a nature reserve?” My setting is a small Suffolk seaside village, which happens to have a nature reserve with a bit of a dark history to it. Allegedly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Immediately, I have questions. Who is this person? How did they die? Why did they die?<\/p>\n\n\n\n My mind starts churning over these questions, and as I settle on an answer, I try to fill in bits of the story which surround them. When I think I’ve got something which might work up into a complete novel, I begin using my first writing tool – The Snowflake Method. You can find about it, and the man who invented it, at:<\/p>\n\n\n\n