A Novel Idea
We probably all have our own ideas about writers’ tropes. You know, the classic writer hunched over his or her (always manual) typewriter for hours at a time, tearing out hanks of manuscript from the carriage, surrounded by scrunched up bits of paper. The Colin Firth character in Love Actually is a writer who retreats to France to nurse a broken heart and churn out pages of his new crime novel, all on paper. The novelist Lawrence Durrell (brother of Gerald) is portrayed in The Durrells bashing out pages of courier typing, perched atop a coastal sand dune, ostensibly supervising the junior Gerry.
As a writer I marvel at these scenes, because anyone who’s attempted to write a novel will tell you that it takes at least eight complete redrafts to get a manuscript ready (that’s ready to pitch or submit to your publisher, not ready to print – that’s a whole other ballgame). How did writers using longhand or typewriters do this? Did they redraft back in the day? Or did their editors? How did the editing actually work when there was only one original copy – did the editor retype everything, or just apply red pen and send it on its way to the printers? So many questions.
I started writing my first book back in 2017 and spent years toiling over it while having heaps of fun. The main part of the learning curve wasn’t about ideas, but everything else that turns good writing into a great novel. It’s not enough to have a clever plot or interesting characters. The whole box and dice need to be cohesive in the way that all novels are in thousands of small and large moments which readers don’t notice. The story arc (trajectory of the narrative) is different to the character arc. Every character needs to have conflict, which is not stand-up fisticuffs, but either internal or external turmoil - what the story’s about, the reason readers want to keep reading to find out what happens. The structure needs to be arranged to maximise page turning tension.
Charles Dickens authored some excellent stories which still stand up, but if he submitted one of his manuscripts today an editor would cut at least half of it out. Modern readers are heavily influenced by television ‘jump-cuts’ – those dramatic scene endings which yank you straight to a different time and place. If Dickens wasn’t considered classic, he’d be struggling to hold the attention of the time poor Millennials and beyond. The highest performing videos on social media platform TikTok are watched for mere seconds. Our attention spans, along with our patience tolerance for slow internet, have been whittled down to the pencil nub.
When you’re starting out as a writer it’s ridiculously hard, because the first people who give feedback are invariably family or close friends. If they’re critical it’s all too easy to slump into a decline and give up. If they’re complimentary – well, they have to say nice things, they’re family! I had no clue if my work had legs. After two years of pitching to publishers and getting nowhere I was stuck. What to do?
All the advice seemed to be to ‘just write another book.’ Like that’s easy (what’s wrong with this one???) But then Covid hit, and I thought, well what better time to do it if not now. I became obsessed with true crime podcasts while everyone else took to home baking and craft projects, and the Melissa Caddick Ponzi scheme fraud that captivated the nation. Which is where the inspiration for my debut novel published this month, The Good Woman’s Guide to Making Better Choices, began.
So, I wrote another book (see above). But this time I was better at it. I understood structure, and scenes, and character arcs, and dramatic tension, and much more. I got that the story could have funny moments and an interesting setting and intriguing characters but that the whole thing needed to coalesce for a true novel to be born. And I can see now that my first novel just wasn’t good enough.
As a young person I lived in the world of books and stories, relishing the place that they can take you in good times and bad. A friend emailed me shortly after my book’s release and thanked me, saying it was delightful and the first book in over a decade she’s been able to read in a day. I just love that. My book might not be for everyone, but if it puts a smile on people’s faces and gives them joy, especially during dark times, then I can truly die happy.