The process of creating a novel: Introduction
I was talking to a friend about the process of creating The Curse of Mannerley Manor (which will be published and available to purchase very soon, honest!) and I found that, whilst I remembered the basic steps (and the editing, re-editing, re-re-editing and still finding things to fix when I was in the process of publishing!), a lot of the details had escaped me. So, I am going to follow my own progress a little more closely this time, especially because my ambitions for this particular story are nothing short of epic.
To date, I have drawn up a couple of different outlines that I then attempted to merge. I think they do work together but I haven't gone through the final hybrid properly, nor talked it through with someone else. That step of talking it through, saying the words out loud, is an important sanity check, by the way. What makes perfect sense in your head sometimes looks rather less logical when it's exposed to the light of day!
I have quite a number of characters, although I haven't yet named any of them! That is definitely something I need to address sooner rather than later, as there is nothing worse than throwing a name at a character that just doesn't fit them.
I also have an actual theme this time - the way relationships adjust (or don't!) as the people within them change.
For the purposes of Nanowrimo, the story will cover five chapters but the plan is to expand each of those into a book. Yes, I am in the process of creating my own epic saga!
I have decided to do it this way partly to test that question of logic, again. I have this big, sweeping idea in my head - but how will it play out on paper? Or even screen... Is there enough to the idea to even make five whole books? And another reason is that if it clearly isn't working I haven't created the first book and left the story incomplete. I also think I'll be able to judge the balance of the story across the different parts better.
So, there we are. My Nanowrimo journey for 2019 has begun!