Well, I've got this far so I'd better start committing ideas to paper now. This is day one of actual writing but I've spent a few days working out the plot and assigning characters. I had an idea many moons ago to write a sort of horror story. I was in the second year of my MA in Creative Writing and I had to submit 15,000 words of the opening to a novel for my final submission. I spent a lot of time plotting it all out, right down to chapters and headings, only to have my tutor tell me she didn't like it and I had to develop chapter five instead. That turned out to be my first novel and was set in the familiar places of Cumbria and Northumberland. My second came from journals I'd kept whilst working as a volunteer for VSO in Nepal and involved (surprise, surprise) a naive volunteer in Nepal out of sync with cultural nuances. Both novels drew on a lot of things that were familiar to me, but this new one is a bit out of my comfort zone.
Although it's set in Scotland it involves links with China and Hong Kong so I've been doing quite a bit of research online about the Cultural Revolution and the handing over of Hong Kong. I have a friend who was a journalist in Hong Kong for 6 years so I'm hoping to draw on her experiences to add some authenticity. However, information can only take me so far and as writer I have to assimilate all that info and turn it into believable characters who are psychologically motivated and operate in a world that people can believe and identify with. So, where to begin?
All my plots are character driven so that's where I go first. I had an idea that I recycled from the horror scenario so I'm not really starting from absolute scratch, but I need my characters to drive the action and that idea may get ditched if it doesn't work for them. I also decided it's going to be a crime novel and involve links with China, so obviously I need someone who commits the crime and someone who catches him/her. The character who came to me first was a retired old man living alone in a huge house in a remote area. I find that very interesting because two of the characters in my first novel also lived alone in remote areas. What is it about being alone and remote that draws me to them? I think it's probably the fact that not much is really known about them, that they're outsiders and therefore can behave differently to the 'norm' and no-one sees (or cares?) what they do or what happens to them.
From there I decided the old guy had bought the land and built the house with winnings from Littlewoods Pools, which gives me the start of a timeline and his probable age range. I then interrogate the character about family, friends, likes, dislikes, how he earned his living etc and slowly build up a back story as to why he's there and what he's done in the past. Depending on how the story goes this background stuff may or may not be used, but it's a useful starting point.
The house is also significant to him and it's going to be the crime scene so I need to sketch it out and make decisions about who, if anyone, goes there - postie? cleaner? workmen? - or if he goes to town for everything he needs. This will have implications for his character and how reclusive he is/has become. It will also have implications for how long things can be hidden before someone finds out. Once I've sorted that out I move on to the next character and the next and so on till I've got a reasonable cast and can start plotting what their relationships, if any, are with each other. Now I'm ready to write.
Wish me luck.
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