Successful Novel Plotting

conscious tells you that he or she is there for a purpose. She may be merely looking at the view, as you are, but she is using her senses – just as you are. Put several people in the scene, or a family group, and your inner imagery of these people changes. In other words, there is a story there, and you automatically accept it.

Think about a beautiful painting that is all scenery and nothing else. However lovely, soothing or dramatic it may be to look at, it’s a still-life scenario. The moment you put a person in the scene, your sub

One lady said in amazement: ‘But you’re talking about her as if she’s real! As if she really existed!’ And my answer to that was: ‘Of course I am. She’s as real to me as if I’ve known her all my life. I’veshared all her joys and sorrows, and I shall weep at her death.’

This was a world away from my family background, but the true and, to me, rather glamorous facts gave me the spark on which to hinge my fictional plot.

In this context, the novelist Jean Rhys says that a novel has to have shape, and that life doesn’t have any

Throw in everything, and then be ruthless and cut.

write visually; think logically