I am very nearly finished writing my new book. In fact – by the time you read this, I may well have finished.
Writing a book is like giving birth – there are times things race along at great speed and you think – this will be done soon. There are other times when it seems that every word is agony and this will never end.
So I got to thinking (which is great procrastination) – what is the hardest part of the book to write?
Certainly not the first chapter. The first chapter is my very favourite part of writing a new book. It is so full of ideas and hope and possibilities.
Chapter two – not so easy. I often have trouble with the transition from Ch. 1 to Ch. 2 – because at this point, I’m beginning to realise that I have to turn that wonderful first scene into a whole book – and there are another 95,000 words to go.
Chapters 3 onwards are easy. I’ve got the bit between my teeth now (thinking about a book with horses in it leads to equine metaphors). That’s until I hit…
The big bit in the middle.
We’ve all heard about mid-book sag. It’s that part in the middle of the book where things drag. Get a bit dull. There’s a feeling of just trying to get through this bit so you can write the really exciting climax of the book.
Now – at this point I must confess I am not much of a plotter. Writing into the mist – that’s not half of it. I tend to have the first and last scene of a book in my head when I start writing – and just make the rest up as I go along.
So – when I hit the big bit in the middle – my solution is to do something dramatic. Kill off a character. Reveal a long hidden and terrible family secret. Crash a car. I can do this because I don’t have a carefully worked out plot to destroy. I’ll do whatever will cause my characters the most concern and confusion (apologies for the sudden attack of alliteration).
After that, we are racing towards the climax of the book – so those chapters just flow. My fingers can’t move fast enough to get the words down… and then…
I stop about two chapters from the end of the book.
These, for me, are the hardest chapters to write. Why? Because I already know how the book ends. I’ve seen it all in my head. My characters already have their happy ever after or their just desserts. In my head, that story is over and the characters of the next book are jumping up and down – clamouring for my attention.
However, as my editors and readers tend to want those last two chapters – I do write them. I write them very quickly – because I want to be at the starting post for the next book as soon as possible.
I never type ‘the end’ because a story never ends. Authors just reach the point where they stop writing them down and leave the characters to get on with their lives.
And writing THE END is nowhere near as much fun as writing… Chapter One.