How to turn your WIP into a novel- or not!
So far this blog has contained a few photos of flowers, some sunsets and sunrises, a couple of early chapters of my work in progress, (optimistically abbreviated as "my WIP") and some drawings for the latter.
So far this blog has contained a few photos of flowers, some sunsets and sunrises, a couple of early chapters of my work in progress, (optimistically abbreviated as "my WIP") and some drawings for the latter.
When writing my WIP, I found I wanted to
illustrate the scenes and discover what my characters looked like.
The drawings started by being drawn crudely via Paint for windows using a mouse. Very hard to do, you should try it.
Then my daughter who is also one of my CP 's (critical partner) a term I learned via Twitter, gave me an Apple iPad. This was nice but then I discovered you have to put things called Apple apps on it. I kept looking for something that was similar to Paint but couldn't find anything. I searched for free Art apps and found that there were loads of these, but then I discovered that when you download them you actually only get three colours and a fat paintbrush, so you have to pay for the full app.
After paying for several Art apps and trying them out, I came to the conclusion that they were all complicated and none of them were as good as Paint. The only advantage was that you could use your finger or a stylus to draw, which was easier than using a mouse. Having visited the Apple Store frequently and spent lots of money on something that Windows gives you for free, I now decided that I had enough apps. Sadly, however, none of the Art apps allow you to write text, so then had I to email the final drawing back to the computer, download it, write text using Paint and email it back to myself.
Eventually, I found a nice children's app which was fantastic until the iPad told me to update everything. I pressed the button and after the update the app was terrible: the felt tips were huge and watery, and the oil paints just smudged. I tried to complain via a review, but apparently Apple does not endorse any of these apps and there's nothing you can do. I learned a lesson here: if you like an app DO NOT UPDATE IT! It will put bugs in it and will never work again.
The WIP started as a "Write a Novel in November" project. The idea is you write thousands of words every day in November and at the end of the month you find that you have written a novel. It sounds easy, doesn't it? I told my daughter I was going to do this, at which point she fell about laughing hysterically and replied:
"What about the novel you started LAST November?"
With this encouragement I decided on a compromise: I would start writing a novel in November, but not write every day, nor upload it anywhere either for a word count, but send it to my CP's and continue it in December, January, February etc however long it took before it turned into a novel.
Then I needed to decide what to write. I had a plan for a chick lit book which I'd started about a female stand up comedian: a light hearted, funny romance. I wrote out my chapter plans and plot and sent it to my CP's who all said it was brilliant and I should write it.
So instead I started writing a fantasy novel about a girl called Ruby whose first chapter I had already posted on my blog as it was just a writing exercise. Nothing was planned and I just had the first line, something like:
"My teacher was really ancient: she was 172 years old and worked at theAcademy
of Magic
The first line came from a lesson where I had to teach my ten year old pupil the difference between old and ancient. I said a civilisation can be ancient but a person can only be old. Then I thought, “Why can't a person be ancient?"
I wrote the story in the first person and I hadn't got a clue what it was about, but it was fun. Lots of characters kept turning up asking to be auditioned for the book. It looked like there was going to be a cast of thousands and it was funny. There were elements of the Hobbit, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, The Witches, Lost Horizon, The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Rebecca, Gone with the Wind, The Time Machine and the Narnia books. Also, Frankenstein, I Robot, What Katy did at School,Malory Towers
CP's who are journalists said they liked it; 10 year old children liked it and were inspired to write their own magic stories; middle aged male friends liked it and said the chapters were too short, and they wanted more, which I took as a compliment. Everyone was asking me to email them the next chapter faster than I could write it.
Then my daughter decided to be critical:
"Mum, it's very good and you are up to chapter 12, but where is the plot?"
She is certainly a critical, critical partner I thought, angrily, but then I repeated: "Where is the plot?" and there wasn't one.
I reread the WIP and noticed that all the characters were hinting about the plot. The plot was definitely there, I just had to find it. Then I thought about all my literary influences, wrote them down and suddenly I had plenty of plot, masses of it. It came pouring out. Now there were enough plots for several books, a trilogy, a whole series in fact. It was going to be epic. There were back stories, books on magic, evil enemies, a quest, historical research, a few love stories, parallel universes, everything! The plots just flowed and flowed. I drew maps for the Academy. I outlined how the Academy worked. I wrote the back stories, the founders, the conflicts, the magic. I researched historically what this ancient teacher had experienced in her 172 years.
All I had to do now, was write it.
But then writing in the first person seemed very limiting, so I started chapter 13 in the third person, and suddenly another evil character and a couple of wizards turned up. It was brilliant. It felt as if the book was just writing itself.
Now I will go back to do the second draft and write it in 3rd person.
I just have one more problem: is it YA, MG or just Fantasy? My protagonists are 16 and 172 years old. For MG don't they have to be younger than 12? But Ruby is definitely 16. She has a boyfriend and has attitude.
One of my journalist CP's, who is an editor, said it also may be too literary for MG. What does that mean?
The bottom line is I enjoy reading it and I love writing it. The drawings are fun and it is a way of escaping from reality. The CP's are reading it and finding it entertaining, and when it's finished I will see about publishing it.
I am writing the type of book I would like to read. Isn't that the best advice you can give anyone?
Jacqueline S Miller
The drawings started by being drawn crudely via Paint for windows using a mouse. Very hard to do, you should try it.
Then my daughter who is also one of my CP 's (critical partner) a term I learned via Twitter, gave me an Apple iPad. This was nice but then I discovered you have to put things called Apple apps on it. I kept looking for something that was similar to Paint but couldn't find anything. I searched for free Art apps and found that there were loads of these, but then I discovered that when you download them you actually only get three colours and a fat paintbrush, so you have to pay for the full app.
After paying for several Art apps and trying them out, I came to the conclusion that they were all complicated and none of them were as good as Paint. The only advantage was that you could use your finger or a stylus to draw, which was easier than using a mouse. Having visited the Apple Store frequently and spent lots of money on something that Windows gives you for free, I now decided that I had enough apps. Sadly, however, none of the Art apps allow you to write text, so then had I to email the final drawing back to the computer, download it, write text using Paint and email it back to myself.
Eventually, I found a nice children's app which was fantastic until the iPad told me to update everything. I pressed the button and after the update the app was terrible: the felt tips were huge and watery, and the oil paints just smudged. I tried to complain via a review, but apparently Apple does not endorse any of these apps and there's nothing you can do. I learned a lesson here: if you like an app DO NOT UPDATE IT! It will put bugs in it and will never work again.
The WIP started as a "Write a Novel in November" project. The idea is you write thousands of words every day in November and at the end of the month you find that you have written a novel. It sounds easy, doesn't it? I told my daughter I was going to do this, at which point she fell about laughing hysterically and replied:
"What about the novel you started LAST November?"
With this encouragement I decided on a compromise: I would start writing a novel in November, but not write every day, nor upload it anywhere either for a word count, but send it to my CP's and continue it in December, January, February etc however long it took before it turned into a novel.
Then I needed to decide what to write. I had a plan for a chick lit book which I'd started about a female stand up comedian: a light hearted, funny romance. I wrote out my chapter plans and plot and sent it to my CP's who all said it was brilliant and I should write it.
So instead I started writing a fantasy novel about a girl called Ruby whose first chapter I had already posted on my blog as it was just a writing exercise. Nothing was planned and I just had the first line, something like:
"My teacher was really ancient: she was 172 years old and worked at the
The first line came from a lesson where I had to teach my ten year old pupil the difference between old and ancient. I said a civilisation can be ancient but a person can only be old. Then I thought, “Why can't a person be ancient?"
I wrote the story in the first person and I hadn't got a clue what it was about, but it was fun. Lots of characters kept turning up asking to be auditioned for the book. It looked like there was going to be a cast of thousands and it was funny. There were elements of the Hobbit, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, The Witches, Lost Horizon, The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Rebecca, Gone with the Wind, The Time Machine and the Narnia books. Also, Frankenstein, I Robot, What Katy did at School,
CP's who are journalists said they liked it; 10 year old children liked it and were inspired to write their own magic stories; middle aged male friends liked it and said the chapters were too short, and they wanted more, which I took as a compliment. Everyone was asking me to email them the next chapter faster than I could write it.
Then my daughter decided to be critical:
"Mum, it's very good and you are up to chapter 12, but where is the plot?"
She is certainly a critical, critical partner I thought, angrily, but then I repeated: "Where is the plot?" and there wasn't one.
I reread the WIP and noticed that all the characters were hinting about the plot. The plot was definitely there, I just had to find it. Then I thought about all my literary influences, wrote them down and suddenly I had plenty of plot, masses of it. It came pouring out. Now there were enough plots for several books, a trilogy, a whole series in fact. It was going to be epic. There were back stories, books on magic, evil enemies, a quest, historical research, a few love stories, parallel universes, everything! The plots just flowed and flowed. I drew maps for the Academy. I outlined how the Academy worked. I wrote the back stories, the founders, the conflicts, the magic. I researched historically what this ancient teacher had experienced in her 172 years.
All I had to do now, was write it.
But then writing in the first person seemed very limiting, so I started chapter 13 in the third person, and suddenly another evil character and a couple of wizards turned up. It was brilliant. It felt as if the book was just writing itself.
Now I will go back to do the second draft and write it in 3rd person.
I just have one more problem: is it YA, MG or just Fantasy? My protagonists are 16 and 172 years old. For MG don't they have to be younger than 12? But Ruby is definitely 16. She has a boyfriend and has attitude.
One of my journalist CP's, who is an editor, said it also may be too literary for MG. What does that mean?
The bottom line is I enjoy reading it and I love writing it. The drawings are fun and it is a way of escaping from reality. The CP's are reading it and finding it entertaining, and when it's finished I will see about publishing it.
I am writing the type of book I would like to read. Isn't that the best advice you can give anyone?
Jacqueline S Miller
