Kim Neville

The other day I realized I reached a milestone in my writing journey without noticing.

When I began my first novel, published authors seemed impossibly brilliant to me. How did they hold novel-sized stories in their brains? I couldn’t fathom it. This is evident in my first draft and in the second and third drafts, too. I wrote like I was driving in the dark with the headlights on, seeing only what was directly in front of me. I revised the same way.

Not anymore. Sometime over the year year my mind expanded. It all fits. The whole story, all the characters and their various backstories and motivations. I can hop from the middle to the end and back to the beginning without flipping wildly through my stack of notecards.

Mind you, I’m not brilliant yet. The notecards are essential for keeping track of all the little details. And the writing still isn’t easy. But it’s easier than last time. And all it took was practice: the process of beginning and finishing, of studying the craft and then beginning again.

My brain grew. How cool is that? It makes me feel powerful. It reminds me of the potential we all have to continue to grow and learn, to get smarter and stronger. It reminds me to keep reaching because all those hours I’ve put in do matter. They made a difference. They made me better.

I’m trying something different with my new novel. When I wrote The Glass Doll I had no plan. No plot, no conflict, no idea who my characters were. All I had was a cool setting — this old, broken down fairy-themed amusement park. And I stuck two people in a car and drove them to it. Then I kept writing, with blind faith that a story would emerge along the way.

It took a full rewrite and four revisions for that to happen. It was a long and messy process. I know. Novels are always long and messy endeavours. Still, I can’t help thinking I could’ve saved some time and grief if I’d done a little planning.

I came across the concept of dreamstorming during an intensive novel writing workshop I took in August. The idea resonated with me instantly; I knew I’d have to try it. For the full explanation, pick up Robert Olen Butler’s book From Where You Dream. But basically, it works like this: before you write a word of your first draft, you sit down every day in your writing place, and you don’t write. Instead, you daydream about your story. Imagine scenes in the beginning, the middle and the end. When a scene occurs to you, write down a summary of it in one line. Then add a couple of sensory details. This part’s important because it helps to build the scene in a concrete way in your mind.

Here’s an example from my current project, which is so new it doesn’t even have a working title yet:

Jamie wakes in the night to find Lucy outside looking for Ever. Rattling leaves. Bobbing flashlight beam.

Not much to it, but when I read those words I can play the scene in my head like a movie.

When you’ve got a whole bunch of scenes jotted down, like two or three hundred, you write each of them on an index card. Only then do you begin to organize them in a way that makes sense, discarding some, adding others and eventually forming an outline.

It’s been a couple of weeks and so far, pretty fun. The process feels right. Sometimes it’s hard to sit down and do nothing but imagine stuff. Part of me feels like I’m wasting time. I have to look back at my pages of scene notes from time to time to remind myself that I am actually working. I’m looking forward to seeing what I’ve got at the end of this. Expect a progress report in a few weeks.

So, writer friends, I’m curious. Have you heard of dreamstorming? Ever tried it? How much time do you spend planning and outlining before you begin the first draft of a novel?