Special guest Nicola Whyte, debut writer of 10 Marchfield Square, reveals how she plans the middle act of her novels to avoid overwriting…
Or watch it on Youtube…
TRANSCRIPT
MARK: What small thing has made a big difference to your creative process?
NICOLA: I think planning the middle, really. Because I used to plan the end and then, you know, your characters do their decisions, and then it would be like, hey, guess what? This 90,000 word novel is 130,000 words. And now I’m like; if I know the middle, it is much easier to stay on track. I think that’s probably the biggest change for me. I think in terms of, yeah, stopping me from going absolutely bananas. But also like a piece of information like… we talk about the German market: I was in a, a workshop with Imogen Cooper, and she said that if you translate a book into German, it adds almost a third onto the length of the book. When you consider translation costs, and paper costs, and ink costs and all the rest of it, it was like, whoa. Because up to that point I was like, it’s not that big a deal to cut some words, but actually, you realise in terms of making it appealing… So those two things together really focus me on not overwriting, not just enjoying myself forever and meandering off down wherever, and just keep me focused.
MARK: So yeah, yeah, I see that’s a very good point. The German editions of my books are quite chunky, but I just thought it was because they were a slightly smaller format. But that makes complete sense now. And when you when you talk about planning the middle… because for many people this is one of the most difficult parts, because the opening is all fun and games, the middle act is where you need to escalate and things have lots of consequences and sooner or later you have to tie these things up. How are you planning that middle?
NICOLA: So it’s that big shift. What’s the big change that is going to happen? That gear change. So when I’ve decided like what’s the big turning point, where everything sort of goes up a gear, once I know what that is, then it keeps me on track. And it means that my characters are never… You know, it’s like keeping the target in sight so they can’t veer off too much. You know, if you do what the characters want you to do, you will end up so far away from where you need to be. And editing for word count is probably one of the most painful versions of editing. When you’re trying to shave off 40,000 words and you’re going, ‘I can’t possibly!’ but you have to. Learning the hard way is also a very big motivator.
Mark Stay Writes 