Keeping track of the story
A published novel has anywhere between 70,000 and 120,000 words in it, and we as writers have to stick to it long enough to produce those words. It generally takes me between four and six months to produce the first draft of a novel. But even over this relatively short timescale when I get to the end. I've forgotten what I said at the beginning.
It's essential to keep track of your story, or you'll end up making that classic mistake of changing your character's eye colour from brown to blue half way through the book.
My system for keeping track is portable. It has to be, because I write my first drafts in cafés. I carry with me three A5 size plastic wallets with data relating to my present novel in them. This is my writing kit.
The first wallet contains my chapter plan, all twenty-odd pages of it. This is where the real hard work gets done, inventing the story and its twists and turns. This is completed before I start writing the narrative.
The second wallet contains details of my fictional world and its characters. I create a character table in Word, and record each character's first names, last names, occupation/purpose for being in the story, a brief physical description, and a note of any key relationships or actions they perform. I also draw a map of my world and mark places on it as I create them.
The third wallet contains the draft of the chapter I'm currently working on and my blank notebook to add the day's words while I'm out.
I've used this system for several years now and it works for me. Give it a try if you're struggling to remember what you did in chapter two, or where that fictional town is situated.
It's essential to keep track of your story, or you'll end up making that classic mistake of changing your character's eye colour from brown to blue half way through the book.
My system for keeping track is portable. It has to be, because I write my first drafts in cafés. I carry with me three A5 size plastic wallets with data relating to my present novel in them. This is my writing kit.
The first wallet contains my chapter plan, all twenty-odd pages of it. This is where the real hard work gets done, inventing the story and its twists and turns. This is completed before I start writing the narrative.
The second wallet contains details of my fictional world and its characters. I create a character table in Word, and record each character's first names, last names, occupation/purpose for being in the story, a brief physical description, and a note of any key relationships or actions they perform. I also draw a map of my world and mark places on it as I create them.
The third wallet contains the draft of the chapter I'm currently working on and my blank notebook to add the day's words while I'm out.
I've used this system for several years now and it works for me. Give it a try if you're struggling to remember what you did in chapter two, or where that fictional town is situated.
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