When I first started to write I just wrote, let the words flow with no idea where my story was going to go, and only the hint of something in my head about what I might write. I let the ideas develop themselves. Then I came across the 'Snowflake' method which got me thinking about how I could at least have an outline of a plan. And that's what got me realising that I work much better with a plan. From there I learned about having a flatplan from Holly Dawson through a webinar she ran for Jericho Writers. I now have little prompts (you can just make them out in the photo above) which have the chapter, place, date, character list, what happens, and what the purpose of the chapter is. Using these prompts helps me to get my ideas out of my head. And more importantly they help me to keep working on my structure, making sure that everything fits together the way it needs to.  By using this approach I spotted some glaring errors in my timeline, and realised that I had one of my ...

Do you remember I said I was starting a self-edit course in September? I started, and wow! What a rollercoaster. I'm surprised daily by what I'm learning. At the start of the course I also booked a 1:1 with an editor, and the two combined have helped me to realise that I'm not actually writing a thriller. I'm writing historical fiction.  Now, you could be forgiven for thinking I should know what genre I am writing. Truth is, though, I used a contemporary parallel theme to help me tell the historical part of the novel, and I'd not realised that was simply a tool to get me to understand my writing, and to help me get into my writing. As a result, a big decision has been made. I'm committing murder. I'm killing off all of my contemporary characters and removing all the narrative that was about the current day part of the plot. I don't need it, I don't them. From this point forward, I'm writing a historical novel - and that feels epic! It feels like ...