When a plan comes together

[John Dean]

As I have mentioned in a previous blog, I have just started work on a new DCI Jack Harris crime novel and, yet again, the process has focused my thoughts on beginnings.

The first rule of opening lines is that they should possess most of the individual elements that make up the story.  Opening paragraphs should have a distinctive voice, a point of view, a rudimentary plot and some hint of characterisation.

Some writers are tempted to begin their narrative before the action starts, such as when a character wakes up, but, for me, it is far better to begin at the first moment of something interesting happening, an approach which is more likely to grab the reader‘s interest right from the off.

I have done this in my latest novel but what is interesting is what happened next. I tend to do some planning before writing, an important thing to do because it focuses the mind (although it can act as a distraction as well. My only writing joke is two authors meet in the street. ‘I am writing a novel,’ says one. ‘Neither am I,’ says his pal).

What tends to happen once you have started writing the novel is that the story comes to life and the original plan becomes obsolete. That is what has happened here – 6,000 words in and I have a new plotline that I never envisaged but which is far better that anything I jotted down in my plan.

My advice? If the story is assuming a life of its own, follow it wherever it takes you.