It’s a long weekend here in the UK. More time for writing. More time to procrastinate by filling in online surveys while watching Doctor Who. Historical novelist, Faye L. Booth, tagged me yesterday to fill in twenty writing-related questions. Here’s my answers to the first five of them.
1. Do you outline?
When I’m writing a novel, yes. When I wrote Lessons to Learn, I had a page of bullet points, covering the things that I wanted to happen before the end. For the current project, I’ve got a Word file saved on my desktop with a few notes on what occurs on each day of the story. As I write, the future is changing slightly, and I’m updating the file.
2. Do you write straight through a book, or do you sometimes tackle the scenes out of order?
Straight through for the most part. I feel that, as I write the first draft, I’m getting to know the characters – who they are, how they think. I can’t write a section about their later life if I don’t know how they get there. Even though Lessons to Learn moves backwards and forwards in time, I wrote the first draft chronologically: all the New Zealand sections then all the Korean ones.
3. Do you prefer writing with a pen or using a computer?
I wish I could say pen here. It sounds much more writerish. However, I’ve always been a computer geek, and to me, typing my work just makes more sense. I find that I write faster on the computer, that the words flow better and that things like track changes and comments make the editing process a whole lot easier.
That said, on the rare occasions I write poetry, its almost always drafted in my notebook before being transferred to my computer.
4. Do you prefer writing in first person or third?
My preference is always been for first person, and for revealing a character through their narrative voice. However, I’d like to experiment with writing more third person pieces in the future. Sometimes it’d be nice to be able to give a wider perspective on the events of the story.
5. Do you listen to music while you write? If so, do you create a playlist, listen randomly, or pick a single song that fits the book?
I prefer quiet when I start writing. No TV, no music, everyone else asleep. However, once I’ve been writing for a while I tend to tune out everything that’s happening around me – so if there is music playing then, I probably wouldn’t notice it anyway.
