1^st July 2007 

Novel Layers

I’m writing my novel again.

Using that most pragmatic of techniques, allocating a couple of hours minimum a day and making sure I stick to it. Cutting myself some slack, any two hours will do, so now it’s just a matter of finding them.

Within these allotted periods, I think of myself sitting down to occupy the world in which the characters live. In reality, I’m preoccupied by my Outline. The outline sets out the events of each chapter (those written and those to be written). Due to the episodic nature of my writing, I need this to constantly reacquaint myself with the storyline.

Sometimes, I sit there for over an hour, just looking at the outline and trying to get a hold on what I’ll write next or what I may have to rewrite.  I think in terms of layering the chapters.

There’s the founding layer, this simply places characters, relationships and events on the page in an ‘a’ follows ‘b’ kind of style. Most chapters start off this way.

Next there’s the depth layer, this provides more detail to emphasize characters, relationships, events.

Finally, there’s a layer of world view, this places everything into a context – this is actually the world in which everything in the book exists.

It sounds methodical but of course I end up with different chapters at different stages of layering.  And, as always, there’s a process of working back and forth across scenes to ensure coherence - something else for which the outline comes in handy.

I guess the idea of layering chapters represents a development for me as a writer; a realisation that character, event and dialogue do not maketh the kind of novel I want to write. Or, that the kind of writing I want to produce relies as much on the scene as the circumstance.

I think this first occurred to me after setting a few chapters out, in what has become a stripped down founding-layer style.  Just enough to convey enough.  Though I soon found I wasn’t really writing about the things I wanted to convey at all.

I was writing about the surface of those things. The how people act, not the why people act.  I wanted to write about the why because this would reflect my belief that we’re products of our environment. This led to the  re-think  and the  re-write;   two modes that are very familiar to me.

As once again, I set about writing my novel.


© editor@unheardwords.com, 2007

Comments, Answers, Feedback? WriteIn or email editor@unheardwords.com (editor@unheardwords.com)


  Back to Top            or            Return To Home