You’re juggling plot,subplots, characters, themes, settings and points of view. They don’t need a fifteen-page backstory but they do need fleshing out. It’s a great way of approaching your characters, particularly those easy-to-miss secondary characters (yes, I’m guilty of that too). I loved that line so much I stuck it to my computer. While writing Breaking Dead, I stumbled across this advice: every character is the protagonist in their own life. A word of warning: be prepared to rip up your outline.The best twists are those the writer doesn’t see coming. If I get stuck, I work on the offstage part –what my characters are doing behind the scenes – and I can (normally) write myself out of a corner. When I have a rough plot, I bash out an outline that covers events occurring both onstage and off. Get some fresh air, go for a run, do the weekly shop. The story comes more easily if I’m doing something else. I wish I’d known that before I agonised over that starter paragraph but hindsight is golden, right? It was miles easier to find a way into the story once I’d written the book and the characters and plot were part of me. After a chat with my publisher, we decided the book needed a different beginning. I did this by mistake with Breaking Dead. I turned to a writer friend in despair.She quoted Margaret Atwood: ‘If I waited for perfection, I’d never write a word.’ Atwood is right (about that and so much more!) Get it down, bare bones.Put all the fancy stuff in later. Skills you need to leave at the door when you’re going at your first draft. My role as a magazine editor is to tweak, sculpt and rewrite.
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