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How To Write a Book: Get It Down

I was working with a young author recently who struggled with compartmentalization. She was trying to get to her computer to write when ideas came to her. She was beyond frustrated because often the act of passing through a doorway wiped the inspiration from her mind. In despair, she waved her hand to my neat story outlines and plot schematics and laptop and lamented, "You write your ideas into your manuscript, don't you?"

Shocked I questioned her, "Where do you type your ideas when you get to your computer?"

"I open my manuscript and scroll to a part of the story where I think it'll fit..."

"Mercy sakes alive! Lordy no!" was my response.

The poor thing was trying to insert inspiration straight into her story. I can't even imagine the snarl this must cause her story flow and I opened a folder next to my desk to show her how I capture my ideas. Flutters of paper, scraps, napkins, post-its stuck to one another were mounded within. She clapped her hands excitedly. Then I opened my purse and showed her similar caches of inspiration tucked inside zippered compartments. Then I started opening the notebooks I have everywhere. By then she was laughing with relief.

"Some inspiration will find its way into your story and some won't. Jot everything down, speak into your phone memos, do whatever you can to capture that idea but don't try to shoehorn it into your story on the fly."

And on that same theme, when I've written a scene and decide to cut it, I cut it and paste it at the end of my manuscript behind a bold heading MIGHT NOT FIT. More than once I've resurrected phrases, interactions, or research from those with a simple cut and paste and saved myself having to re-create something that'd I'd tossed.


-- Anna Erikssön Bendewald 




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