Wednesday 29 June 2011

The Novella Progresses...

I've been keeping to my planned writing sessions for the novella and it has certainly made me think hard about my characters and who they are deep down.

Dragging the depths of my brain hasn't found anything too disturbing, it's just jiggled a few ideas around and made me review my previous thoughts on certain characters, elements that were there but hadn't been so obvious before now made more sense.

So, happy with the character sheets I moved onto my chapter outlines.

I had my synopsis, but it was a basic synopsis and the story had developed more since it was originally written.

So I started with Chapter1: written in bold. Well I knew what happened in this chapter, what I was aiming to show and why, it was already written and had been sat untouched for a couple of years.

But I'd not been happy with my previous attempt at writing Chapter 2, so had abandoned it.

Even though I knew the story I was going to write, I just couldn't decide how to start chapter 2, so panic!!!

Reminding myself I didn't need to write chapter two now, just the outline I took a deep breath and started typing. Very quickly I was outlining the next chapter and suddenly the first four were done.

Once I started I was surprised how easily it all came out.

Three pages in total and the story outlined in 15 chapters.

(I type with a couple of fingers, so my chapter outlines of just under a thousand words took two hours.)

I certainly feel more confident about this project, but I suspect it won't fit the pocket novel formula by the time is is done.

But the end is a long way off yet...

5 comments:

Diane Fordham said...

I wish you well with this project Carol. I think that 'confidence' you mention is the key to its success.

Rosemary Gemmell said...

well done on getting those chapters down, Carol. All the best with the remainder!

Carolb said...

Thank you both Diane and Rosemary.
I think I have finally got to the stage where I can see everything clearly and now the next stage of the hard work begins.

Angela Barton said...

That's wonderful Carol.

Hopefully you'll be entering it into the Mary Street Competition. I think I may have found an excellent judge. Will know more tomorrow.

Ange

Carolb said...

Well Ange if these first three chapters aren't ready in time I'm hoping to have an alternative entry ready.