Just Another Week in Suburbia: Methodology and the Other Characters
I don’t start writing anything until I have a rough idea of the story I want to tell. As I write, ideas will occur to me that might or need to happen later. I dot point these. In the case of Just Another Week in Suburbia, which was set over seven days, I also drew up a table with columns for each day, and would dot-point where applicable. (Things still changed.) Often, I’ll realise that something needs to be foreshadowed earlier or revised. I’ll make a list of these revisions, and attend them at the beginning of each writing session. That helps me get straight back into the writing since…
No Doubt
As a writer, there’s lots of stuff you’ll doubt. On that list will be doubts … if your story works if the structure is sound if the plot/content is coherent if the characters are compelling if the prose is engaging if anybody will like it if everybody (who likes it) is humouring you if you’re any good. There’s other stuff. But that’s a shortlist. You try to control as much of it as you can. You do this through revision, by getting opinions from alpha readers, and – most of all – by being honest with yourself. Doubt’s a good thing, though. Well, in some ways at least. It forces…