Job Done or is it?

Finishing a novel when you've been working on it for so long, is always a bit of an anti-climax. Nearly every day, I do a bit of editing on what I have written the previous day. This is useful, as it keeps me from straying a bit - I have been known to start a novel in November and to have jumped by some strange miracle to the flowering month of May within a few pages. This is a warning sign to me that I still have to do a bit, well let's say a lot more work on the the setting - including the time of year!
There are writers who are so disciplined that they write out a synopsis of each chapter before they start the actual work of writing the story. I can only salute them. I start off with an idea and a character in my head. After a few weeks, the character will have been joined by other characters and the original idea will have been changed, fleshed out a bit, or completely readjusted. I can never get into the business of writing a plan for the whole novel. I know where and how it is going to end before I start. The journey, however, can twist and turn as characters take on a life of their own and pull me in different ways. That's the fun of writing!
Now that I have finished my final edit of A MAN CALLED GREGOR which I plan to self publish next month, I have just started thinking about a Christmas novel and looked over the beginning of the first chapter which I wrote last month. I'll probably change the plot a bit and possibly one of the characters might have to go as well. I know one thing for sure, it's not going to be the original story I had in my head! I'll have a short break from writing and then it's back to see what my characters are up to. Next week I'll be doing my annual house-sitting in the country, so I'll have loads of peace and quiet and country air to help me concentrate. Wish me luck!

Writing the Plot

One of the hardest parts of writing in my experience is plotting the novel. Of course I have the kernel of the story - what it's all about, so to speak.  But how to take the reader there, how to incorporate interesting byways that my reader will like to follow, that is the main problem.

I am currently mulling over the third novel in my Sergeant Alan Murray Mystery series which I write under my pen name P.B. Barry.  Murray was originally in a once-off story, Death in a Lonely Place. Everyone who read the book liked him so much that I got a lot of calls to write a sequel. 'I feel so safe with him', said one of my readers, which is surely one of the nicest compliments I have ever received because it demonstrated that she was totally immersed in the story. Another reader wanted to know if Murray would ever find out what happened to his wife Sheila who disappeared on Ardnabrone mountain many years before.

So I started mulling over what else could happen among the lonely Kerry mountains and came up with Ending in Death. The riddle of what happened to Sheila is not solved in this story but it has been buzzing around in my head like a bee trapped inside a window. So I am now working on the plot of what will most likely be the final in the Sergeant Alan Murray Mystery series. It is hard work, let me tell you. I love the actual writing, it is the discipline of getting the plot right that I find so difficult.
So I'm spending my time noting down names, places, back stories and sub-plots. Which reminds me, I must get back to work!