Blind to the screamingly obvious

Woke this morning, before 4 a.m. (not unusual) and used the time before getting up to think about my current wip, always a useful exercise as I spend far too long sitting at the keyboard typing not thinking.

I use a dialogue a lot to progress the plot, and realised that thus far no-one has even mentioned that there is a four week gap between man disappearing and man dying, never mind wondered why.
I know what happened (mostly) but they don't.  You'd think they would ask, wouldn't you?
At least I have the word-room to write it - a tightening of style, a reduction of characters, a more focused approach means thus far this is still well under 80K.
Onwards.

All my trials: Scrivener

A recommendation for Scrivener last week - and a list of reasons why - from Emma Darwin's excellent blog.
I tried it once before when I set myself up for Script Frenzy, but both died within days (my fault - too little preparation of either Script or software) but now being aware of the amount of work it took to sort Not wanted on voyage into sensible order, and that the follow-up will be trickier, I thought it worth a second go.

The video is useful, as is the tutorial, but the best thing is that the 30 day trial is for thirty days, i.e. if you have a day when you don't use it, it doesn't count, you don't have to use it within that time.

One day spent wrestling, back and forth between tutorial and a section of my wip left me scratchy and exhausted, but I think it will, in the long run, be useful, although it needs to be remembered it is an organizational tool rather than a writing tool.

Darn it! - a plot hole discovered

"Although it's likely Walpole will have cleared it up" Madigan, one of my characters says, speaking of possible blood and gore.

But there's been no mention by her, or any of her three companions, that Walpole has been involved in anything.

I know it - it's my story.
The reader knows it - the scene appeared earlier.
These folks, in discussion in the bar, do not know of it.
Damn.
I have to tell them, before page 193.

Observations on plotting

Things I have re-remembered from previous novels:

1. A timeline is essential, to avoid contradictions and 4 month pregnancies and to make sure ages remain compatible with the passing of the years
2.  A mind map, for working out the whys and consequences and reasons for is, I well remember, a very good and productive thing to do BUT I have to make the effort to either clear a space on my worktop, since it lacks room to do comfortably or take paper and pencil downstairs - why oh why is this so difficult to actually do??
3. Letting characters lead the way CAN be done.   A couple of days ago one said, of another "she had no idea how Stuart had met his end, yet was aware she ought to"   I too had no idea, but by allowing what I DID know of the characters concerned I have come up with an explanation.

Day 2 NaNo - 5262 words

Hmm ... plenty of words but I'm not sure how much more I can do before I start to get horribly mired in a plotless - and hence directionless and pointless - tale.
I need a motive or two, I need to write a convincing baddy, I need to decide whether I'm writing a psychological thriller or a simpler (ha!) murder mystery.
Spent much of the day trying to sort what I already had into some logical order, with only limited success.
And actually what I think I need is some time away from the computer, where I am impelled to put words down, so I can doodle and think ...
I have finished re-reading Ian Rankin's 'Resurrection men' novel, and hope not to be tempted into starting another ... he is so dauntingly superb.

NaNoWriMo2011 - plot progress

Yesterday,  as a result of reading Caroline Green's excellent post 'Let it Snow' on Strictly Writing, I used a pencil and a blank sheet of A4 and made some progress with plotting 'Not wanted on voyage', i.e. I actually formulated one, instead of  thinking up a load of characters, without knowing what to do with them. 

In the middle of the page I wrote "Madigan has discovered ..." and then I asked the questions "How?" and "What does she propose to do" and "What type of deaths?", "What reasons?", "How come people know death is to be dealt on this particular cruise?"

And I came up with 1) a villain, 2) a motive,  3) a red herring and 4) a way of linking them all.

Next thing is to find ways of killing a few off - my youngest son has made some useful suggestions re poisons ... and it starts in a day and a half ...

Pantsing and plotting ...

A few months ago Milo James Fowler wrote on Write 1 Sub 1 about the relative merits of pantsing and plotting when writing.   I am definitely an almost 100% pantser, and my fiction almost always character-driven.   Trouble comes when, as I have said before, the characters develop minds of their own and start to do and say things I had no expectation of them doing.  But it's not only the conversation:  three chapters ago a thoughtless, throwaway little episode inserted itself into another paragraph:

"And while they were out Sally phoned Sean and asked him to go and see her.   He refused, she was pressing and in the end he did as she asked, at lunchtime.  They didn’t so much as touch, although he would have liked to comfort her.   And she didn’t apologise, as he had expected she might.   Neither told their spouses of the meeting, because each was smarting from one or more of their misunderstandings."

Now these chickens have come home to roost - now Sally's husband is demanding that Sean tell him what Sally said.   Whatever it was had the effect of making Sean really bad-tempered and I have already delayed the explanation once, with a few pints, a walk along a river, a confession of something completely different, but I can delay no longer ... and I don't have anything in the way of a convincing explanation of what she could possibly have said to him that was so inflammatory!

BUT I could no more plot this than fly - for me plotting would take the heart out of what I write.   Fingers crossed that the answer will come - it almost always has in the past, even though it sometimes takes a couple of weeks.   In the meantime I write elsewhere on other subjects ...