Installment #2: Beginning.

Trying My Hand At Writing A NovelWriting By

Jan 14

I'll be honest with you; it’s taken me a minute to get around to this novel thing. I was going to start writing one during NaNoWriMo 2020 when my friend Courtney announced she was going to write one and invited all of us in our writing group to join her. Courtney is about two and a half decades younger than I am, blonde, smart, funny as hell, and the very definition of perky as evidenced by the fact that she takes circus classes and knows how to spin in the air with only two strips of fabric holding her up. As far as I’m concerned, Courtney is one ripped seam away from a coma, so I wasn’t at all surprised that she would take on writing a novel in 30 days. A challenge like that is right up her alley.

As for me, I had every intention of going on that journey with her, but I had to finish The Executive Chair first so, I put it off… way, way off. Nearly a year later the book is still just an idea.

But all that is about to change.

I've always wanted to write a novel. I had dreams of living in a lakeside cottage with big bay windows that overlooked a dock with a boat tied up at the end, gently rising and falling on the waves as the tide rolled in. I'd sit at my desk gazing out onto the water, as ideas cascaded out of my mind and onto the page. That’s how it was supposed to be, right? It’s supposed to be easy. After all, Stephen King, James Patterson, Nora Roberts, and a whole host of writers just vomit out book after book. How hard can it be? (this is where I laugh maniacally as if I’m just begging for some time at a state facility.)

I'm telling you right now, for Kelly Edwards, this will absolutely be a process. I am determined to make it happen because this idea has been rattling around in my brain for too long for it not to find life in some form or another. But I doubt my first time out will be a walk in the park.

The book I'm writing is a mystery with a paranormal twist. I’m using a classic three-act film structure because I think this story needs that kind of general five-major-moments scaffolding to hang the story on. My main character is a Black female detective desperate to solve a series of violent crimes before the next victim is claimed. While she has a high clear rate on her cases, she’s also prickly, methodical, and doesn’t make friends easily which is a problem because I’m setting this in Montana (where African Americans make up a whopping .6 percent of the population). My hero is way out of her element at the start of the book and things will only get worse when she comes up against supernatural forces her very rational mind can’t explain.

I've mentioned this before in my IG and LinkedIn posts, but I follow Weiko Lin's step outline technique in Crazy Screenwriting Secrets which simplified things for me more than any other template out there. I’ve already laid down a loose beat sheet that includes 35 beats for the A story. I’ll get to the B and C stories later. Not sure about you, but I find the beat sheet and outline stage incredibly tedious. Since I already know how the story turns out, I just want to get to the end as quickly as possible. Working out the story and character motivations feels like drudge work that squeezes every ounce of fun out of the writing process. That said, if I force myself to do it, it will save a ton of time and effort in the long run.

In order to keep all of the characters straight, I drew out a diagram of where they each live in the town, their socio-economic status, their key character traits, their allies and their enemies. That part was a lot of fun. Some of the people in the book are already taking on a life of their own and I’ve already grown attached to one character in particular who I thought was going to be a villain and might wind up being more of a good guy in the end.

This coming week I’m going to start some character work. I want to know more about how my hero operates in the world, what she fears, what she’s good at, and where she’s failed. I will probably do a character aria for her where I just write a page or two of dialogue to hear how she sounds. I can tell already that I really like her and I’m excited about the journey she is about to go on.

In case you are wondering, Courtney finished her book months ago… naturally. It’s a fantastic idea and, if I know her, the book is fun and surprising just like she is.

As for me, I’ll continue to post my next steps each week so you can follow along with the evolution of this next endeavor.

More soon...