The Writing process.

Sue’s first novel, ‘How the Mzungu Finds Her Feet’, began life as a modern day biblical Naomi and Ruth story. The first chapters took a good deal of time to get right (or rather to get to a point where she was happy with them).  There was no shortage of ideas but the execution was another matter entirely. However, with a Writers Bureau distance learning creative writing course under her belt as well as a creative writing night school course or two, Sue finally felt she had the tools to turn her idea into a novel/novella.

Sue believes that, because she took the time to focus on these useful tools, her mind was able to accommodate changes – and there were plenty – that came to her literally as she was writing. Oh, and that’s another thing, Sue says she often hand wrote chapters as a change to word processing. She felt it was more conducive to a brain-hand synchronisation rather than one running ahead of the other.

In reality, the process was much harder than anticipated. After ditching several first attempts, and close to giving up, Sue decided to take a different approach to her writing. She still needed to learn how to construct a novel so she started reading articles – one or two of which she found extremely useful. Over time, Sue had learned that the most important ingredient of any memorable story is the characterisation. One article she read explained how the setting of the story serves the characters and it was like a light bulb coming on! If we walk into our kitchen (that we walk into every day), for example, we would not feel the need to describe the room physically or how it made us feel unless there was something particularly different about it on that day. But if we walk into a completely new room/setting, we suddenly notice everything – colours, shapes, light etc. After reading this, Sue began writing with constant reference back to this idea of setting serving the character/s. It made perfect sense.

Another article Sue read talked about the importance of planning, particularly for new writers and first time novelists.  This seemed a bit of a chore at first – the book was waiting to be written!  However, the time and effort Sue put into planning, ‘How the Mzungu Finds Her Feet,’ helped enormously not least with keeping a timeline and having an overview of the book as it grew and took shape. Being able to see logical progress was vital in not getting bogged down or overawed by the book as it took on a life of its own.

Dialogue was another hugely important ingredient and a great tool to move the plot of a story along in the most natural of ways. Sue worked hard to remember these two elements and in the process found the writing she had seemingly ‘slogged away’ at suddenly became a lot more fun and the hours passed too quickly as she got lost in her own story.