A Writer's growth

​I’ve written seven novels, eight if you include the terrible collection of words I threw together in my early twenties.  And up until very recently, I’ve never bought a book on writing.  Other than what I was taught in English lessons up until the age of sixteen, I’ve never had any formal training in writing, either.  I approach writing, as most things in life, by just giving it a go and seeing what happens.
 
So how’s that working out?
 
For me?  Not too bad, actually.  Primarily because I’m pretty good at being self-critical and being open to feedback.  I’ve not read any books on novel writing, but I have had some professional advice from editors and a fair bit of feedback on various bits of my writing from people who have a vague idea what they’re talking about. 
 
It’s because of this feedback that I took the three novels I self-published last year off the market.  Being prodded to view my stories in a certain way allowed me to see the flaws and since then, I’ve employed more professional help.
 
I’ve talked about Snowdon Publishing Services before – they’re a small business that helps authors in a whole range of areas relating to writing and publishing.  It was Peter from this company that helped me see the flaws in my published novels.  It’s Karen, his daughter, who’s helping me grow as a writer.
 
So, after writing seven novels, and getting three of them market ready, what more is there to learn?
 
Lots.
 
I’m inclined to think good story tellers are born, not made.  But just like some people are naturally good at sports or DIY and others aren’t, no one becomes a top sportsman without training, and no one gets good at fitting a kitchen without at least a little bit of practice and instruction. 
 
At the risk of sounding a tad arrogant, I think I’m quite good at making up stories, but there’s more to a good novel than just a decent over-arching idea.
 
Character Sheets
 
One of the things Karen suggested I do, was create character sheets.  Before I started to use the template she’d provided, I thought it was enough to keep my character’s profiles in my head.  I was wrong.
 
Why?
 
Because when I read the questions on the character sheet, I realised I hadn’t fully considered all the aspects of the character I needed to.  Sure, I knew how they looked, what their back story was and what kind of personality they had, but I didn’t really get what motivated them, because I hadn’t given it enough thought.
 
The first question on the sheet that started to make me think was What is the emotional wound that causes the flaw?
 
Err…
 
At first glance I didn’t know the answer.  I was struggling to work out what the emotional wound was for some of my characters.  But when I thought about it, I realised that all of them did indeed have this kind of wound.  And when I considered this wound more deeply, I was able to develop a far greater understanding of their motives.
 
Themes
 
Karen also asked me what my theme was.  Um, I had to scratch my head for a moment because I wasn’t sure.  I then Googled ‘themes’ to see what a theme looked like.  Then I figured it out.  A theme is the main idea or underlying meaning that is explored in a novel.  When I thought about the story I’m currently working on The Queen of Vorn, I realised my theme is "do what’s right, not what’s easy". 
 
Now, with this theme in mind, I thought about the first chapter of The Queen of Vorn that I’d recently re-drafted.  I thought about my two main characters, Emma and Tom.  Both of them do what’s right, not what’s easy, but in very different ways.  In Emma’s case, it’s trying to unpick the gap in her memories as a young child, in Tom’s case, its heading towards danger to provide medical aid to wounded soldiers.  I also realised I’d not done the greatest job of portraying this theme, but I knew with a few tweaks, I could make this theme pop out, and the story would be improved as a result.
 
Beat Sheets
 
What the hell is a beat sheet?  It’s basically a list of key parts of your story.  When I did a revision to the plot of The Queen of Vorn, I ran it past Karen to get her thoughts.  She mentioned plot beats and started linking parts of my story into these beats.  This is an idea that is talked about in a book she also mentioned, called Save The Cat! Writes A Novel.  There’s a diagram of this format below.

I’m not going to talk about beat sheets here, mainly because I’m about to digress and go back to the point of this blog post.  I’m going to talk about a writer's growth.
 
You see, after Karen mentioned Save The Cat, (more than once), I thought maybe I should buy a copy.  It arrived a few days back and I started to read it.  After skimming over just the first few chapters I saw a lot of her advice written in those pages and expanded upon besides.  It was one of those moments when I realised how little I knew, but conversely, how much I did know, too.
 
When I read about beats in more detail. I saw how, to a large extent, my plot slotted in to a tried and tested formula, while bits that were out of sequence were highlighted.  In some cases it made sense for these bits to be out of sequence, in other cases, I realised bits needed to move.
 
I read about how a character’s wants and needs should fit in with the theme.  Everything Karen had told me started to fit together but I also realised that I had so much still to learn.
 
So what?
 
So what is a phrase we use in the army when we’re working out a plan to defeat the enemy.  “We know there’s three tanks hidden in that wood block and they have artillery defending their flanks; so what?”
 
The so what here is that in reading Save The Cat, I learned that I’m naturally good at writing stories.  I instinctively put a plot together that fits a tried and tested formula.  I figured out I already use themes, and my characters have wants and needs.  I learned that I did most of this without thinking about it, but with a bit of conscious effort, I can really improve on my delivery.  I’ve identified some of the gaps in my knowledge and found ways to improve my writing.  So the so what in this case is this:
 
You always have more to learn, never stop learning, never stop growing.