In which I begin remedial work on an abandoned novel
Rummaging in a cupboard this afternoon in search of more books to send to the charity shops, I found a pile of papers that turned out to be the draft of part of a novel.
Hard to resist, so I spent longer than I should have reading sections of the book. There is a beating heart there. Or, rather, there is the beating start there and what is obviously lacking is the middle hump and a clear path to an end that is already written. I may be able to do something with it.
But should I?
I read far away and long ago that if you quit on a book you should never go back because there were probably good reasons for quitting. If you let it go for years — and this thing I am reading now is from many years ago — it’s supposedly even worse to return to it. This may very well be true for normal earthlings. But in my case the reasons for quitting most likely came from inside me rather in any fault in the work done to that point.
Look on the bright side; this is like picking up another writer’s work. That doesn’t sound so bad. If the first draft is the hardest (wasn’t that a Cat Stevens song?), then the worst is over. All I need to do it take the best pieces of this stranger’s work and pretend it’s all mine. Self-plagiarism. This is like stumbling across unclaimed treasure.
There are over 300 double spaced pages of writing here. That’s a fair amount. I have always pantsed my way into books because I thought that’s what real writers did. Planning was for amateurs. Of course, an amateur was exactly what I was, I had no idea what I was doing, and so every time I got to the middle of a book I just stopped because I didn’t know where to go next. I would put the book away and start again, hoping that next time I would have mysteriously imbibed enough to carry me through.
I now know that every writer has a process they need to learn for themselves. Some are pantsers and some are planners. Some mix and match. It is not the method that counts but the starting and, more importantly, getting to the end. Day by day. Page by page.
The great thing about reading stuff put aside long ago is that it is all new. Or is that just me and my failing memory? It’s hard to believe sometimes that I wrote what I’m reading. That tends to be the good bits; the bad bits hit me like a none too subtle reminder of my faults and weaknesses. But this is early draft stuff. It was in a drawer (or a cupboard) and hasn’t had the love it needs to develop fully.
But there is potential.
I may be getting carried away here. Let’s rein it in a bit. What it’s like is finding that much of the work has been done already on a project I was worried about starting. Does that sound a little more sober?
So that’s the plan moving forward. Or, at least, a suggestion of a plan. I still need to read what I have all the way through and see what I can do about turning 300 pages or so of raw material into a novel that is readable. Plot, anyone? Interesting characters? Inciting incidents?
But help is at hand. Slotted beside the dictionaries on my desk I find a copy of The Story Grid by Shawn Coyne. I bought this when it came out, thinking it might be useful, but have never opened it. As if by some strange coincidence — or a message sent by the universe — a description of the book on the back cover tells me that “The Story Grid is a tool to resuscitate a pile of prose stuck in an attic drawer.” Now that is just plain spooky.
I’m feeling excited now. I recognise this feeling; this is what it feels like to get drawn back into the mess of creation. Returning to something. Something that fear and doubt made me cast aside. There is a resurgence of hope or belief or something. When I deny myself the act of writing fiction, I refuse to live. And I know I make the right choice because that’s when the heart pumps and the breath quickens and grows shallow. There’s even a sparkle at the edge of my vision. It feels a little like being close to fainting. Perversely, this is the sort of high addicts seek and yet, at the same time, the raw emotion they seek to flee. [I’m talking from personal experience here; other reasons for addiction are available.]
I trust that Shawn Coyne will be a friendly and helpful guide through the process ahead. Fear not, I don’t intend to post daily updates from the front line of re-engineering my prose masterpiece. That would be taking self-indulgence one step too far, I think. I may, however, let you know when I hit occasional milestones. First draft, publication, Booker Prize, Nobel. That sort of thing. We’re talking littrachure here, after all.
I would be interested to hear if anyone has worked through The Story Grid — especially in putting together a previously abandoned book — and how they found the process.
