A breakthrough in structure

Over at my Ballerina blog, I’ve already explained my fascinating afternoon with five British and American novelists, and the importance of being reminded that they’re really quite normal people, just like me. Yes, I can also be a published novelist. It was also great to hear some of their thoughts on novel structure – for example, that they might start out writing knowing only the middle of their story, or the varying ways they get inspiration.

But the added bonus of the afternoon was suddenly getting a key idea from my own novel. Just one word from one of the writers popped off an inspirational spark in my brain that has helped me see the storyline of my novel in the context of an overriding idea. Hmm, hard to explain without giving too much detail, but basically I was worried that the storyline was too much just a series of loosely connected incidents; now I have the idea of setting the novel in just 3 or 4 key situations and using flashback situations to bring it all together. Having said that, about the last thing I read in Sol Stein’s Stein on Writing was that no first novelist should use a flashback. Well, with or without the flashbacks, I think my “keyword” concept has given me a much more concrete idea of how I can write this story. You'll all just have to wait and see!