FICTION FOCUS
Keeping the faith
Writing a novel can be a long and sometimes difficult journey but Margaret James has great advice on what to look out for along the way
T
he March issue of Writing Magazine discussed getting going on your novel, and suggested ways in which to make the best possible start. Now, as you fight your way through the jungle of your first draft (or that’s what writing a first draft always feels like to me: akin to hacking and slashing my way through a practically-impenetrable rain forest), you’ll need to keep the faith with your story and with your characters, too. After all, you led them into the jungle, and they’ll be depending on you to get them safely home again, wherever home – literal or metaphorical – might be.
These characters shouldn’t be depending on you to do all the work and, as your story develops, so must your characters. So, while you were casting the really important roles, it’s to be hoped you weren’t tempted to offer the biggest parts to people who are more or less perfect already and have nothing to learn. Central characters in fiction ideally need to move on in all kinds of ways: for example, by making emotional journeys from ignorance to understanding, from prejudice to empathy, from arrogance to humility. What kinds of emotional journeys will your own central characters make?