We’re so excited to kick-start a brand-new series of blog posts called ‘Feature Friday’, starring some of our very own Joffe Books authors! This feature is designed to allow authors to have free rein to discuss a topic of their choice to share with our readers.
This week we’re delighted to have David Hodges in the spotlight for our first Feature Friday post. Without further ado, over to you, David!
TO PLAN OR NOT TO PLAN – THAT IS THE QUESTION
I am often asked by people, ‘How do you plan your crime novels?’ The answer I give them is, ‘I don’t.’
To plan or not to plan is a knotty question in the fiction writing world. Some writers spend hours, days – maybe even weeks – planning each stage of their novels down to the finest detail, specifying exactly what is going to happen in each chapter right down to the end. But that approach does not work for me. I have certainly tried – especially in the early stages of my writing career – but I found it a boring, laborious task that simply tied everything down so tightly that it completely ruined my enjoyment of writing.
That is not to say that I don’t have a plan at all – which may sound a little contradictory – but what I mean is, I have an idea in my head as to where my novel is going, which has invariably been inspired by something I have seen or heard in everyday life. It could be a creepy, derelict house I am driving past one night, when I see a light on in one of the windows where there shouldn’t be, or an off-the-cuff remark from someone who suggests in a jocular way that the local mortician could be sending more people on their way himself to make his business more viable. If what I’ve seen or heard strikes a chord, it will set me thinking, ‘What if?’ From that point on, the story will develop in my mind and I will spend a fair bit of time jotting down ideas on an A4 pad, until the plot emerges. At that stage, I begin writing and the story carries me forward almost of its own volition. At times I may have to change or amend things as new options occur to me. That is the downside of this kind of approach, and it requires a totally focused mind to remember what effect any changes might have on what has been written before. But the central theme remains locked in my brain and I build the twists and turns around this. In short, I know where the story is going and roughly how it will end, and the beauty of it all is that I have a ball writing it, which for me is the main thing.
So, should writers plan their work? I have to say that is up to the individual writer. If planning works for them, then great, but if it doesn’t, as long as the storyline is consistent and holds the reader, then what does it matter? The important thing with a crime thriller is to remember that it is intended to thrill. However much planning goes into it, if it doesn’t do that, then it becomes a damp squib. Maybe I am out of sync with the views of many of the writing schools, but one size can never fit all in a creative industry and, if my style or approach makes me a maverick, then that is what I am, and as long as people keep reading my novels, I will keep writing them.
