A Novel Approach

      by Marilyn Brannen  

      There are as many ways to write a novel as there are novels.  But let’s just deal with a skeleton approach.  Here are the bones: idea, treatment, first draft, rewrite.  Now, let’s put some meat on them bones!

      The best kind of book to write is the book you’d want to read.  Use the sentence starter--"I would love to read a book about…”-- and tap into your imagination with some free-writing.  You should plan to spend at least 30 minutes, non-stop, on your initial writing.  Make sure that you won’t be interrupted and remember not to lift your pen from the page.  Free-writing is putting whatever you are thinking down on the page; there is no reading, no editing, no logic (or rethinking).  What ends up on the page are first thoughts that may be off the wall, but are loaded with energy.

      When you read your free-write, you may want to highlight sentences or phrases that are particularly “energetic” or evocative.  However, you may need to do several free-writes before you find these gems (not immediately—give yourself a break).  This is a method of opening your mind to new ideas without censoring yourself.  You are looking for the seed of your novel—something that you can really get excited about.  When you find it, it’s time to narrow the topic of your free-write.

       Start with the idea that really popped out of your writing, and use this for the next free-write.  Really let yourself go.  Your goal now should be to write about your topic.  You can clean it up later.  This may well be the first chapter of your book.  And this will lead you to the next step: to figure out what happens next.  This will be the treatment for your novel.

        A treatment is usually used in creating a screenplay, but it works very well as an outline for a novel.  It is a way to keep yourself on track.  You can add to it or take away from it as you write.  You can create a treatment in outline form or in paragraph form.  You want to focus on what happens when and who is involved.  Be as specific as you like.  One author will write a 70-page treatment, while another will get by on 12-pager.

        Your treatment can include character and setting descriptions and major and minor plot developments.  You should write a treatment that covers your novel from beginning to end.  At this point, you will be able to see where you might need to do some research before you get into the actual writing.  You may find that, half-way through the writing of your book, you need to revise your treatment.   But because you have your whole book condensed into a treatment, you can more easily see what needs to be corrected. 

       Writing with some structure to follow will help to keep your novel on track (how do you think I wrote this article?).  If you get stuck, you can always go back to free-writing.  In fact, this is a good way to give your characters a chance to let you know what’s going on in their heads.  Just give them free reign, without interrupting.  It is up to you at this point to decide how many pages you will write a day, when and how long you will write, what deadline you want to meet, etc.  Do whatever you need to reach “The End.”

        Once you get to “The End,” you’ll need to take a break from your book.  You won’t have as much success on your rewrite unless you give yourself some distance.  You need to leave it for long enough that you’re not still living with your characters, in their houses, and with their issues.  You need the distance so that you can really see what you’ve done.

        Before you send your novel anywhere, you need to do some editing and rewriting.  This is not to say that an editor won’t make any changes later on, but you want to have first crack at it.  Check yourself: Does your plot make sense?  Are you switching the point of view too often?  Are you bouncing in and out of people’s heads? Are your characters believable?  Do you care what happens to them?  Does the dialogue sound realistic?  Do you leave out dialogue that serves no purpose (“Hi, how are  you?” “Fine, and you?”).  Should you take anything out or put something in?  You may not have the book you thought you were going to write, but you should now have a book that is ready to be looked at by an editor.

        This approach to writing a novel is just a way for you to get started.  When you write your novel, you will ultimately use the approach that best suits you.  But it is nice to have a blue print that you can ignore.