Tackling the dreaded blank first page

[John Dean]

 

I am working on a new DCI John Bizzard crime novel for my publisher The Book Folks, and that means being faced with the dreaded blank first page.

So, how do writers get going under such circumstances? How do they start writing their story? Well, in this hectic world, I have always felt that there is a lot to be said for holding back and allowing myself a little time to think, rather than plunging straight into the writing.

Yes, I know there is an argument for beginning to write and letting the story throw up its own ideas, and, yes, I know that authors are renowned for putting off writing, as shown in my only writers’ joke, in which two authors meet in the street and one says ‘I’m writing a novel' and the other says ‘Neither am I’.

The joke highlights the author’s capacity to delay the writing process (they make huge amounts of tea as a displacement activity, for example!) but delaying the process can be seen as useful because it allows the brain to roam before it hones in on the main idea for the narrative.

The result in the case of my new novel was exactly that, a couple of weeks walking the dogs and rounding up the hens while plotting the novel rather than diving straight in to writing.

That meant that when I did finally hit the ‘create new file’ button, I had a good idea for those all-important opening lines that have to grab the reader’s attention and a strong sense of the new characters I am creating. The rest will emerge from the writing process itself.

Now I am writing the book itself… well, I will be after making a cuppa!

* The first seven novels in the Blizzard series have been brought together in a best-selling Kindle boxset, for just 99p! You can find out more at https://www.amazon.co.uk/DCI-BLIZZARD-MURDER-MYSTERIES-books-ebook/...