Note to self

[John Dean]

My house, like all authors’ homes, I suspect, is full of scraps of paper that contain scribbled notes which I will add to whichever novel I am working on, the next time I fire up the laptop.

However, it’s usually not the big things that I scrawl notes about. No, it’s much more likely to be small details that add colour to the book.

The notes are often made after I have written a scene and am walking the dog or weeding the vegetable patch and have time to reflect on what I have produced - and find myself assailed by thoughts of how to improve it.

It could be a line of dialogue that needs adding, or a hint of a plotline that I am developing. Or it could be something revealing a relationship between two people that we thought previously did not know each other or something about a location that would add colour, maybe a particularly striking tree or a particular view.

Maybe it’s the make of car that a character drives because it tells the reader something about his/her personality or a piece of body language, a shrug, a raised eyebrow, that makes a scene that little more real.

Whatever is written on the note, the key thing is not to overdo the detail. Sure, detail is crucial to any piece of writing but not at the expense of telling the story. Too much detail and it slows down the pace of the storytelling. The key is to produce the right detail in the right place.

So, before that scribbled note makes it on the page the author should always ask themselves ‘does the story need it?’ And very often, the answer is ‘no’ and the note goes in the recycled paper bin!