I have had the pleasure of speaking with Roz Morris, author of Nail Your Novel, among many other books. This book is a map for any writer who wants to write a novel but may get stuck, get lost, or feel overwhelmed.
Toni: I’ve read your book, Nail Your Novel. I found it to be very easy to use and fun to read. What was your inspiration for writing this book?
Roz: I was inspired to write Nail Your Novel because – well, first of all I love writing about writing! Seriously, though, it grew from my critiquing work. Many of the problems I saw with clients’ novels were caused by them not having control of their material, or the confidence to experiment or change things. They would write in a haphazard way, flinging ideas in as they thought of them. Even if they planned before they wrote, they often lacked the means to analyse a draft and what it is doing. Most of the revisions I suggested involved taking the story apart and reassembling it, or changing story arcs, or amalgamating characters – and many clients found this terrifying because they didn’t know how they were going to do that. Also, although they were reading a lot about craft, creating deep characters or perfect plots, they were overwhelmed with information and didn’t know how to use it. And even more people start novels and run out of juice, or get lost and disheartened, because they don’t know how to generate a story, or pull threads together to make an ending.
So I thought about how I go about writing a novel, and why I don’t get panic-stricken about the initial draft or making even the most drastic changes – and realised it’s because I feel in control of what’s going on. So I thought the most helpful thing I could do for people was to write it all in a book!
Toni: Your book has several exercises and games to help writers get over those hurdles that appear when writing a book. Do you have a favorite? What works best for you?
Roz: I love all my games. Nothing’s worse than sitting at your desk not knowing what to do. If you write as a profession, it’s money ticking away. If you write for fun, it’s time you’ve probably had to steal from other parts of your life, and so the frustration is just as acute. But frustration makes you annoyed with everything you do and you can’t create. Games help put you back in a positive frame of mind – which is what you need if you’re stuck.
I also love inventing new ones! When I was doing only ghostwriting, the books were fairly straightforward, but my own novels are a little more unusual and present their own challenges. The novel I’m revising at the moment, Life Form 3, has needed new diagnostic exercises – one that I invented for it was the Fairy Tale synopsis.
But my most useful game has to be the beat sheet. Not only do I swear by it myself, I’ve had so many appreciative emails from readers who have told me how it’s transformed their work.
Toni: Have you ever had a first draft that intimidated you with all the work that needed to done?
Roz: They always do! All my books give me a lot of challenges, but I enjoy working out where the problems are and solving them. It’s part of the creative process.
Toni: Your beat sheet idea sounds like a great way to get the story structure in shape. Can you explain this in a nutshell so potential readers can see why this is such an important step?
Roz: The beat sheet is a tool for troubleshooting a story draft. When you’re revising it’s easy to see the line-by-line problems, such as wording and flow, but not the bigger problems such as pacing, arcs and how individual story threads are working. The beat sheet allows you to manage it all at once – and get much more out of the story.
This is what you do. You write a short summary of each scene, assessing its purpose in the story. You use coloured pens for each story thread or group of characters, emoticons as shorthand for the mood of a scene. You use another colour to draw in where you’re going to swap scenes around, add new ones in or adjust the content.
The colours and emoticons allow you to see the ups and downs of the plot and whether the tension is building for the right people. You can make all sorts of creative decisions with the beat sheet. For instance, the emoticons might indicate you’ve got too much tension building – so you might rework the order of scenes to give the reader a breather. You might rewrite one of the tense scenes to make it lighter. You might feel the narrative has got bogged down in a repetitive loop – and looking at the beat sheet will show you where you can trim the flab.
When it’s done, I keep the beat sheet beside me as a route map for editing. I can swap scenes around, cut or expand and always know where I am in the story.
Toni: Where can your book be found?
Roz: You can buy Nail Your Novel at Amazon.com http://tinyurl.com/2dxrsp2 or if you’re outside the US, from Lulu http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/nail-your-novel/5301103
Thanks very much for having me – it’s been great chatting! My blog is www.nailyournovel.com and you can also find me on Twitter @dirtywhitecandy and Facebook.
Roz is a rockstar. Listen to this woman and please visit her site.