{"id":20196,"date":"2023-01-08T10:26:33","date_gmt":"2023-01-07T23:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.anneskyvington.com.au\/?p=20196"},"modified":"2024-03-09T09:27:58","modified_gmt":"2024-03-08T22:27:58","slug":"so-you-want-to-write-a-novel-or-a-creative-memoir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anneskyvington.com.au\/so-you-want-to-write-a-novel-or-a-creative-memoir\/","title":{"rendered":"So You Want To Write A Novel? Or a Creative Memoir?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
In this month of November, I see that there are many colleagues and friends on Medium<\/a> starting out to do just that in National Novel Writing Month<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n I have written a novel, and I am pleased with my first attempt at self-publishing a debut work. But, having a group of supporters around you is just the beginning of this process. I was part of a small writers\u2019 group to begin with. We met face-to-face in our homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We all had different springboards for writing our stories. Mine was writing about my parents\u2019 meeting and they’re starting a family in a country setting in post-war times. Write what you know!<\/em> some say (Or not!). I wrote what I knew about. Others might start with a character or with a setting, or an imagined idea in mind. It differs for all of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the beginning, it was all about correctness issues to do with grammar, punctuation, and just \u201cgetting it down\u201d that concerned us as a group. We wrote while always being aware of our grammar, style, and spelling issues. This is what I call the micro level: Writing from the word up<\/em> (and from the sentence level up, to extend it slightly).<\/p>\n\n\n\n During group feedback on our pieces, this is also what we focused on: Issues of grammar and spelling correctness. We each shared one thousand words among our group. This seemed to be the maximum number of words that enabled us to correct all these minute issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After one year, I had the gist of a novel ready to be shown. Part of my brain had been in consort with me all the time while writing the story. But what a mess it was! I had to go back to the storyboard and look at the big picture next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is another level to the process of writing a novel that needs to be considered: questions of structure<\/strong>, overall themes,<\/strong> point of view, genre, plot, <\/strong>and voice <\/strong>have to be thought about at some stage of the writing process. And the sooner the better\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you can be aware of these issues, even while writing the first draft, you might find it easier to arrive at the finished product. Certainly, by the second draft, your attention must be focused here, rather than on the minutiae of the smaller elements.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Micro Level<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
The Bigger Picture of Writing a Novel<\/h1>\n\n\n\n