Cue spotty book with hand-made paper pages...

Tiny Nell

Exciting times.

Ideas, words and visions have been brewing for months and months, but I kept them in my head - and consequently forgot a lot. Today I found myself jotting them down into my special book, the one where all my children's book ideas have begun their journey as mad scribblings. I only write in here when I believe that there's a new book on its way. My thoughts have made it into the back, a tentative approach, but still a commitment. When they appear at the front in a more organised format, I'm in business! It feels imminent...

How do you prepare for the birth of a new book?

Carol

When the ideas and characters have formed a coherent pattern to me, and I have to start writing.

About ten minutes ago I had a thought about one of my ideas- that idea was about four years ago. I thought it would be an historical, but the aspect today suggested how it could be contemporary.

It just needs more time, and will go into the queue...

Tiny Nell

Do you start straight away on Chapter One, Carol, or do you make notes first?

Carol

Sometimes I do if I've seen that scene in my mind.

I make notes about each of the main characters, and if I have the whole story in my mind then I do chapter outlines, and a synopsis.

The story I'm writing now hasn't had the same degree of planning, so I have a more general outline, and I know where certain scenes will probably go. In this case I am always writing the next few scenes in my head before I commit them to the keyboard- and that's where they change slightly.

Because we each work in a different way, I think we need to trust our instincts more. We know when something isn't working and needs to be changed or put aside.

You shouldn't worry about doing something differently for a change- some stories just need that change to work.

happy_author

I open up notepad write down the ideas, I even try and give the book a title. Then the more ideas that pop into mind, I just jot them down into that file. Got 7 ideas brewing, some may never come to anything but who knows? I am writing a novel at the moment and do not know how it will end. I just write as I go along.

Stan2

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Jen

Well I havn't got a system yet. I tend to write and then get to a point where I think it's terrible and give up!
At the moment I have a few ideas and I've started writing but I'm not happy with it so I've taken a step back and I'm reading a book on writing to help.
My main problem is finding names for my characters I still can't think of any and I've looked on baby names websites.
I never know how much to plan but not planning doesn't seem to work either I'm hoping this book I'm reading about writing from the middle will help a bit- in fact I should probably go read that now so I won't feel too guilty about not writing much

Tiny Nell

Yes, we all have individual approaches. You could give your characters an initial letter until you think of suitable names, Jen. I love names. I think of them instantaneously and never change from my first thought!

Carol

And my characters tell me if I give them the wrong name.

heather

I had to change some character names when I was putting my stories into a collection as some were used more than once for main characters. It was quite painful!

Tiny Nell

Oh, yes. I had to do that, heather. There was one man's name I had been rather fond of and had used in more than one story. I hated changing it as I had got used to him with that name!

Stan2

You could have a character named Stanley!