So a week into writing the new novel, a short prologue and Chapter 1 complete.
I knew exactly how this one would start. The prologue sets up the inciting incident and establishes the mystery that is to act as the hook for the reader before we go back in time three years. So the story structurally is all set before the inciting incident and covers the events that lead up to it.
Chapter 1 introduces the protagonist, who so far I think will be the only narrator… although I am pondering if it will be more interesting to use another one. I know who. So this is the first question I have to ask myself as I start Week 2. If I do use him there lies a danger of losing some of the intrigue I need to create about him later.
What is interesting, and always happens when I write, is you can plan; you can actually have quite a detailed plan, but a character might have other ideas as soon as you breathe life into them. They let me know if I have the voice right, if I have the tense right, and if the intention of the character is right. No unexpected surprises so far. When I started to write last year’s American mystery novel, there were two narrators; alternating with chapter. The first one immediately hijacked my initial intention. She decided she wanted a second-person narrative; something I never, or hardly ever do. She also surprised me by wanting to tell her story in a non-linear way. For that story it worked (or I hope it did) because the other narrator has a timeline fixed firmly in a linear form, which I saw as an anchor to hold the reader in place, to avoid any confusion. I didn’t know when I started to write the second narrator that he had a dog and this really turned into the comedy element of the book as a whole. Those surprises at the start, I am so glad I went with as I do think they work. With this new novel, more domestic noir, the voice was as planned but a little more serious and a little austere. For the type of novel, this is okay but the danger is she may be harder to relate to. The hope is what she talks about, namely her mother’s death a year ago to the day, will soften her enough at the edges that she is someone the reader will want to go on a journey with.
In one of my novels, I Am Wolf, yet to find a home, it was always an issue for me that the main protagonist, deliberately flawed, was hard to connect with. I revised her many times and added what I thought were elements that made her vulnerable and hoped this was enough. By the end, I think the reader is in no doubt about how lost she is (both in a real and metaphysical sense). I think we feel sorry for her and sad for her, but it’s getting it right at the start so you want to read on. This remains something I need to be clear about. We all know characters must change as a function of plot. So if you take a character who is flawed, damaged, broken… you are expecting something to fix, mend, be resolved in them by the end. But if they’re too flawed at the start, you also risk your reader not caring enough to invest the time you need them to, to read on and see that change. This is the save the cat moment. In essence, it’s when you create something akin to showing the reader the character has compassion or vulnerability and hinting that a change is possible. If we see how the character treats an animal or literally saves the cat, you create something about them to like. In last year’s novel, the second narrator is likable but is conflicted and bitter over the death of his wife in a car accident that also put him in a wheelchair. So the dog was like the self-conscious saying, redeem him, show his softer side. I had no idea the basset would become so important in the story but I am so glad he walked into not just the first chapter, but the first line with what I think is one of my best opening lines for a character. I hope you agree when that book finds a home!
I don’t think the character in my new novel is as bristly as the one from I Am Wolf but it is something I had to bear in mind as I started to write her. I want the reader to like her despite her idiosyncrasies and the odd way she views the world but as I now move on to the next chapter, I will see what surprises she has in store for me.
Happy writing everyone!
Writerly Debz 
Happy writing Debz, all sounds very intriguing. Almost about to finish Tony’s Pigeons Do Talk. Think definitely spy thriller hook and waiting to find out when and how the pigeons talk!