Writing my first novel

...In my sixties!

I've always loved writing. For my personal enjoyment (and therapy) I've kept a journal for over forty years and I wrote professionally throughout my career -mainly academic material, reports, leaflets, booklets, guidelines and policies. When my first book, a non-fiction, was published on my 60th birthday, I was convinced it would be my final dalliance with being an author. Much to my surprise, within only a few months of publication, a story began rattling around in my head. This was an odd experience, as I hadn't written anything fictional since school, apart from the odd short story sitting unloved in a cloud.

It began with a visit to an art exhibition. I was inspired by the story of the artist and her lover, and when I got home, I read up more about them and composed an imaginary letter from one to the other. So began a series of letters. I researched the life of each historical figure, and then composed a letter I imagined she might have written. At first, there was no intention to complete a book; I was simply revelling in the experience of writing again. Then, there it was. A story appeared in my mind about a woman who finds a series of letters written by historical figures. This main character, Helena, arrived in my head pretty much fully formed. Again, this was an odd experience for me. She felt so real.

I contacted my publisher and sent them a synopsis of the story that was forming. They said they loved the concept, and advised me to submit the manuscript once it was written. They gave me some brilliant advice, for example about story structure, points of view and showing not telling. I'll come back to those ideas later. This, by the way, is one of the many reasons I love working with a small independent traditional press; we work in partnership throughout the process.

Researching and planning

The next three months were spent researching more women from history and composing the letters which would be peppered throughout the book, as well as creating the modern-day story-line that would weave them all together. In-between researching for and writing the letters, I created Helena's story-line. Sometimes one of the letters inspired Helena's story, and sometimes I needed to write a letter about a certain subject in order to highlight an aspect of Helena's journey. It was quite an organic process, and at times the story seemed to be writing itself, as it felt like Helena was telling me what was going to happen next.

There are two general types of authors. Some plan everything out before they begin to write a word of the manuscript, from plot to characters and character arcs (journeys) to individual scenes. These are the planners. Then there are the authors who just write. They've formed no plan at all. Or so they say! The act of writing, whether it's on a keyboard or a post-it or in a notebook, requires a degree of forethought, which is a form of planning. Anyway, the people who claim not to plan at all are known as pantsers. They write by the skin of their proverbial pants. Thinking about my own approach, I am a plantser. As this term suggests, I combine planning with pantsing. What comes first is a rush of ideas into my head. This can happen at any time, day or night, and whatever else I happen to be doing. I tend to grab my trusty notebook and scribble out the idea. If the notebook isn't around, I'll scribble on what ever is to hand, or text myself a reminder of this possibly brilliant idea. When writing anything based on fact, I will do in-depth research. I won't use everything I research - in fact, I would say over half is discarded. And even if something makes it into the first draft, it may not remain for long. When writing fiction, I just write. If I come to a part in the story where the character knows or does something about which I don't have so much knowledge, I might stop there and look it up, or I might skip the section and add a bright red note-to-self in the manuscript such as "Need to read up on xxx". This really depends if looking the thing up will detract from the flow or help it. I make this decision there and then.

I didn't know what the end of the book was going to be when I started writing it. Some authors, the planners, have to know the ending before they write. I enjoyed working it out as I went along. Using this article as an example, I started by just writing the first paragraph, with only a vague idea of the entire contents. After a few sentences, a structure came to mind and I wrote out the sub-titles. This was my plan. Now, as I write it, I look up things as I talk about them. I go back and forth and tweak. Once it's finished I'll proof read it and read it out loud to check it's what I want to say, and more importantly, what someone else might want to read.

A lot of authors, especially newbies, talk about getting writer's block. I think I have the opposite problem. I could literally write all day. Do I have writer's diarrhoea? I tend to let it all flow out then go back to refine later. I call this polishing the turd. TMI? I know some people try to write the perfect manuscript on the first attempt. For me at least, that's impossible.

Characters

Helena isn't based on anyone real, although there are of course elements of me in her. Other characters appeared when I needed people in Helena's world for her to interact with, in order to carry the story forward. I had no idea who they were all going to be when I started writing. Planners will advise that all your characters and their back stories should be plotted meticulously before you write. I would find this approach boring, but I can see it works for some. I chose to jot down scrappy entries in my notebook. I feel almost ashamed to share these but they are what helped me form each character, so I'll show you what I wrote. Let's take Carol, the library manager. She wasn't always called Carol. She began as Susan. Then I wrote a letter from a historical woman called Susan and to avoid confusion, needed to rename my original Susan.

Here's the start of what I wrote in the notebook about Helena, the main character: "Meets Cynthia in library. Unfulfilled. Estranged from Mum - still alive? Dad walked out - hasn't seen him for ages. Wanted to do history. Went into nursing but didn't like it. Now a library assistant..." The rest is full of spoilers about what she does and what happens to her as the book progresses. I started to compile a Word document about all the characters, but gave up as I decided I didn't need it. It was taking me away from writing the story. About Helena, I wrote: "Menopausal, fifty-something. Works as a library assistant. Has a sore wrist. Hates her life. Full of self doubt and pent up anger, especially towards her mother Joan. Awkward around other people. Wanted to study history but her mother pushed her into nursing. Battles with imposter syndrome. Through meeting other characters, reading about other women and writing her book, she begins to see life and herself differently." She was the only character I wrote this much about before I went back to my scrappy notebook. As I introduced a new character, I wrote a few words about them, adding to these notes as I went along to ensure consistency. I mucked up once - one of the characters talks about her life as a child with her parents, but her father had died when she was an infant. I noticed this in my first round of edits, thankfully.

In the modern-day story-line, there are four main characters and a supporting cast of about a dozen more. Some we meet, others we hear about. As for the letters, there are twenty-two of them, an extra twenty-two characters who needed defining, plus the people they write the letters to and other characters referred to. In addition, other historical figures are mentioned. Hmmm...quite a lot of characters. To get round this, each time a new key character is introduced, either in the modern-day story-line or in a letter, the corresponding chapter is named after them. This is how the book got to be thirty-three chapters long.

There are specific terms for character types. Helena is my protagonist, the "good guy" or the heroine. The antagonist is the "bad guy" who drives the conflict in the story. Helena is this person too as she is her own worst enemy, at least to begin with. Other characters do things to upset her, but her main conflict is with herself. Other main character roles include sidekick, love interest and mentor. In my book, Alex is kind of all three, Cynthia is definitely a mentor and there are a few sidekicks.

Point of View

The Point of View (POV) is a literary device which tells a story from the perspective of one or more characters. It indicates to the reader whose head they are inside. In my novel, everything in the modern-day story-line is written from Helena's perspective, from her POV. Therefore she has to be present in the scene. Sometimes we are in her head with her thoughts, and sometimes we are in her world, interacting with it as she experiences it. In the early drafts I used two POVs but was advised by my editor to stick to one, as it would be more effective for my story. They were absolutely right. This meant some scenes had to be re-written as Helena wasn't there when they happened. I got round this by having the other character describe a conversation or situation to Helena. My story is in third person i.e. I describe what Helena is doing or thinking as a narrator. Some authors employ the first person narrative, an obvious example being a book written as diary entries, such as Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones Diary.

Editors absolutely hate it when an author accidentally slips up on POV and wanders inadvertently into another character's mind where they have no place! Sometimes, however, a story needs to have multiple points of view. A clear example would be where a book which offers the same story from different perspectives, such as in Julian Barnes' Talking it Over or where the different characters are telling their own story as well as interacting with one another, such as in Nick Hornby's A Long Way Down.

Some books are written in the second person, i.e. employing the "you" pronoun to address the reader. This viewpoint is less common, and less popular. Finally, some books are written in the omniscient narrator style, where the narrator is inside the head of all the characters and can see everything. This is far more complex to write, and I have read in numerous places it's not advised for newbie fiction authors to attempt this.

As authors, we have to decide if the characters' actions are written in the present tense, past tense or a combination. I chose to use the past tense when in narrator mode, and the present tense for the main character's thoughts. Tense swapping is a common mistake inexperienced writers make, so it's worth reading up about it if you're unclear. I've included the link to an article about it below.

Story structure/plot development

Write what you know. This is something I see often, and I concur; generally it helps to write what you know from your lived experience, especially if you're a first time fiction author. I worked as a part-time library assistant for a while after retiring from my full time job to care for my in-laws. My books both include themes of mental health journeys and LGBT+ culture, both of which I know very well. And I have always read historical fiction. Because I am old, this amounts to over forty years of absorption of the genre! Two of my favourite authors are Peter Ackroyd (e.g. Hawksmoor and Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem) and Tracy Chevalier (e.g.Fallen Angels and Remarkable Creatures).

In addition to writing what I know, story-telling for me is made all the more gratifying by researching subjects I'm interested in but may not know a huge amount about. I've always been fascinated by social history, reading about the lives of people as well as the historical facts. In researching for the letters, I immersed myself into the lives of the women who I imagined were penning them, trying to find their voice. I pictured where they would be when they wrote the letter, what they were wearing, even how their speech might sound. Many diverse subjects were explored, including slavery. We were taught virtually nothing of the history of slavery in school in the 1970s and 80s. My introductions to it were through the tv programme Roots, through Alice Walker's The Color Purple, and later through talking with colleagues whose ancestors had been slaves.  It was educational and fascinating to learn about people from different times and places.

One of the key story-telling strategies to learn about is "Save the Cat". Originally developed as a guide for screen-writing, it's been adapted into a book for novel writing and there are numerous articles and videos available online. Basically, it divides a story into three acts and within each act there are story "beats", fifteen in total. We start by outlining the world in which the story is set, and defining the theme. We meet the main character. We have an event kick starting the story into action. And so on until we reach the finale and the very last beat of the story, where we witness the aftermath. I had already started writing when I learnt about Save the Cat, and it really helped me to think through the pace of my story and fill in any plot holes. I'd highly recommend learning about it as a guide.

Another concept is "showing, not telling" or as my editor prefers to say, "showing without too much telling". Sometimes we do just need to simply tell what happens, especially if it's to move the story forwards easily to the next scene, where the telling acts as a bridge. However, when we want the reader to experience deeply what the character is feeling or seeing, then showing it is far more powerful. Here's an example: instead of telling the reader how the character is feeling, we show it by how she behaves. If she's feeling awkward, we might have her looking away, blushing, shifting in her chair, and twiddling with her hair. We might share her thoughts about the situation. More words might be required but that's okay if we want this section to stand out. We need the pace to slow at this moment as it's important to evoke the scene. Likewise, if we want the pace to increase, we can show this by the use of shorter sentences, of staccato thoughts in the character's mind.

There are many other strategies and in my opinion, it's fun to explore them and see what is a good fit for your style of writing and genre. Online writers' groups such as those on Facebook can be another useful resource for learning.

Steps from draft manuscript to publication

Once I'd completed the draft manuscript, I went over it several times looking for anomalies. I had an alpha reader go through it looking for any mistakes or anything which tripped him up. Then it was sent off to the publisher. From starting to write the first words to sending it off took four months. I am a fast writer and thinker, and I am retired so I have the luxury of doing this full time. I know some people spend years researching and writing. Both approaches, and everything in-between, are fine. I expected to wait weeks until I heard back, but within days, I received a response, and it was a "Yes"! Oh blimey, I thought, I have written a novel at 61!! It suddenly felt very real, no longer just an idea in my head.

And so to the rounds of edits. First, I received an editorial report. It highlighted some things I needed to work on with regards to plot, characters, dialogue, point of view, prose and layout. That sounds like a lot, but in reality, it only meant making some fairly minor changes over the course of the next few weeks (not the total re-write I had to do with my first book). For example, I had some dialogue taking place in "white box" i.e. I hadn't described the setting or what the characters were doing adequately. Additionally, one of my main characters was a little too generic so needed fleshing out. Some of my writing was a little clunky. I went through the manuscript making adjustments to all of the things raised in the report then went into more detail, looking for things at a granular level where I could improve. I, like most people, have a fondness for certain words, such as words "that" and "think". I went through the manuscript looking for these and other tics. Tics help identify an author's voice but if over-used, especially unconsciously, they can become very distracting for the reader, pulling them out of the story. Here's another page from my notebook, where I scribbled the tics as I found them, and then ticked them off, one by one as I worked on them.

Since then, it's been through another couple of editorial rounds and is now back with the publisher for their final edits before proofreading and then publication in the Summer. So now, I wait and deal with my imposter syndrome (see previous blog!). There's still plenty to do - we're already starting to think about the cover design, back cover blurb, and setting up our ARCs (Advanced Copy Readers) who will receive a free pre-publication copy in exchange for an honest review. Then it's over to the publisher to do the final press release, newsletters and launch while I continue to do my bit with regards to marketing.

In conclusion, if you are an older person who has always wanted to write a book, I would strongly encourage you to do it. It's scary, rewarding, educational, fun, hard work and sometimes frustrating, but it's so worth it.

Em

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Women of Note will be published by UpLit Press in Summer 2025.

To find out more about my books, or read more of my free blogs on writing, mental health and more, visit www.mjbuckman.com

References (all accessed online in February 2025)

Adams K (2020): Pantsing in Writing: Should You Risk It? | The Writer's Cookbook

Writers HQ: Planning VS Pantsing - Writers' HQ

Kokosi C: How Many Characters Should A Book Have? (Hint: Readers Love at Least 2) - Writing Beginner

Literary Devices website: Point of View - Examples and Definition of Point of View

Reedsy Live (video): Save the Cat! Writes a Novel (with Jessica Brody) //youtu.be/fd-v_JKSzZU

Chesson D (2023): Past Tense vs Present Tense: Which One Do You Need for Your Novel?