Your tips for a stronger novel

Since I’m in the early stages of working on the current novel, I’ve been thinking/blogging about early stage issues. One thing I do that results in a stronger novel in the end is allowing myself to start with a messy, muddled, uneven, nonsensical exploratory draft (http://janni.livejournal.com/390502.html). Allowing myself to explore and poke about and see what’s there before pulling it all together into a coherent story, essentially.

Janni–

That’s an interesting process. I guess you’d call that still the pre-writing phase?

Darcy

I love to use highlighters to ’see’ what I’ve done – So I print out the first 50 pages on 3 holed paper and put them in a binder – then I highlight:

pink for dialogue
blue for tags and straight narration/internal thoughts
green for description of setting
orange for emotion
[I've done something similar with my PB manuscripts]

Then I’ll look and see what color dominates [ it's usually pink - my mss tend to be dialogue heavy - especially the PB's :o) ] and I’ll go through the rest of the novel highlighting only that aspect.

I also do that for verbs — using a different draft that I’ve printed out- I go through the entire novel and highlight the verbs — usually, while I’m doing that I think of stronger verbs to use & I’ll cross out the weaker verbs as I go.

I’ve found that even though it’s time consuming– it’s a hands-on, sort of microscopic look at the novel.

Microscopic, Colorful Look at a Novel–

Sounds time consuming, but very worthwhile!
Thanks for sharing!

Darcy

No, the exploratory draft definitely still feels like part of the writing … it’s just a first order approximation, and the later drafts/approximations get closer and closer, until I have a novel. (Or short story, or whatever I happen to be writing.)

Storyboard your story – I don’t mean with drawings like in animation. Use cards about 6 x 4 inches and write the beats in each scene. Lay them out on the floor and run through the entire plot in storyboard mode. It’s a great exercise in structure. You can move elements of a scene around, or move scenes around, or remove scenes completely. It gives you a really good visual overview of structure and plot of your book. You will quickly see what’s working and what isn’t.

I’ve done what Clive suggested, but with a spreadsheet rather than index cards. That way you can easily rewrite/revise your beats and scenes, and move them from one place to another with a couple clicks of the mouse. Furthermore, you can easily fit the whole thing on one sheet if you keep the point size small, and print out the outline and take it with you wherever you go. You also won’t have to worry about the cat or the kids frolicking through your beautiful scene layout and forcing you to frantically reconstruct the order before you forget it…

The spreadsheet idea is good. I have a screenwriting tool, First Draft, which has a facility to storyboard in a very clear and visual way. Still, I like to experience ‘physically’ moving/deleting as required.

I don’t have a cat, so that’s not a problem. I do have kids though. What I’ve done is build an incredibly complex booby-trap. If the kids go near my desk the booby-trap is triggered and the mechanism springs into action – at the end of which is a giant stone ball (rather similar to the one in the Indiana Jones movie). So that takes care of that!

I do both! I plan on cards, so I can see the story from afar and not worry too much about details. Then I write a detailed synopsis, then a much more detailed first draft, which is almost stream of consciousness, being as creative as possible with the structure I’ve got, and knowing where I’ve got to take everything.