It’s taken six months to rewrite my novel – Splintered Lives. This is the sixth draft. And that’s not counting all the edits per draft.
The First Line…
It took six months to write it in the first place.
We’d just moved from Bahrain to Dubai . Kids were settled in school, Mr S with his job. Me, home alone and back to square one. I’d come from an editorial job on a glossy in Bahrain with a list of useful contacts so I fired off a stream of emails. And waited for all the job offers to roll in.
Patience not a strong point, job offers not rolling in, (replies not even trickling in), I came up with a plan.
“I’m going to write a novel.” I told Mr S.
“Lovely,” he said. “Do you know how?”
I’d scribbled down an idea before I left Bahrain: Girl finds photo of her mother’s wedding, a wedding never-before mentioned, setting in motion the discovery of all the mother’s secrets. Mother has a condition where things have happened to her in her past that she has no memory of.
The premise of the story sorted, all I had to do was pad it out by 100,000 words.
Couldn’t be that hard, could it? Grazia had just commissioned me to do a piece; I knew how to write.
That first day, I sat myself down in the spare room that I had commandeered as my ‘office’, and full of pride and optimism at how resourceful I was being, tapped out, over the course of several long hours, some spectacularly average paragraphs. The extraction of each sentence on a par with peeling off a layer of my skin. Not only did I not have a clue how to write a novel but I knew nothing about the subject matter either.
A solid start.
The next day, undefeated, I started to research conditions that would cause amnesia and lost time. Dissociative Identity Disorder ticked some boxes. I had a fit.
Then, I took a month to read every novel that I’d previously enjoyed. (I knew there was a good reason for shipping all our books twice). I dissected every element of each story. Style, subject, characters, number of points of view [POVs], first person or third narration, present or past tense, dialogue or description, sex or no sex, one timeline in chronological order or multiple timelines going backwards and forwards. What worked for me? What didn’t I like? How did the author do it?
Then I went back to my character’s condition: Dissociative Identity Disorder [DID] and got in touch with Remy Aquarone, Analytical Psychotherapist and Director of The Pottergate Centre for Dissociation and Trauma.
“I’m writing a novel” I emailed, when I’d got over how pretentious that sounded, “About a woman with DID and how it impacts on her daughter’s life, would you be able to help me get my facts right?”
To my surprise he replied almost straight away to say he’d be delighted to help. And so, feeling marginally less foolish, I started to write a story. Without a plan, without a clear idea of how I would structure it, and without knowing how it would end.
As my confidence and the story grew, I would email Remy scenes and ask him how plausible they were (on the clear understanding that this was fiction and I was allowed dramatic licence for the storyline if not the facts about DID). Would my character, Suzanne, say this or do that? What would it feel like? How would it happen?
He put me in touch with someone who has DID – a woman of a similar age to Suzanne. She generously allowed me to interview her, to find out what life is like with the condition, and the impact it has had on her children. I could now understand what Suzanne’s daughter Isabelle might have gone through.
I wrote in the first person and the third person. I had three narrators (points of view – POVs) – Suzanne, Isabelle and Suzanne’s friend Liz. And two time lines – Then and Now.
Storyboard for Splintered Lives
I discovered I much preferred writing in the first person – Isabelle’s story is all first person. I found her ‘voice’ very early on. And Liz’s. She was easy. She was me. I started Suzanne’s in the third person, struggled to find her voice, because she has other identities (Jackie, Jade and Jessica) with different personalities/ages/voices, experimented with first person, found each of their voices, and returned to third person as it worked better when she switched identities.
I wrote solidly for six months, day and evening, until one day, without a great fanfare, the story just finished itself.
I left it to macerate and landed myself a job.
When I returned to the UK, jobless and fancy-free, I did a rewrite, gathered a group of beta readers and asked for feedback. Back to the drawing board, I started the edits again.
And again.
And again.
I got rid of Liz’s POV, retained Suzanne and Isabelle’s, changed their story arcs, tightened the style, removed filtering, showed more told less, asked other writers for advice and feedback, made a crucial sex scene less Mills & Boon (there’s a fine line), removed another, built the chemistry between the characters instead, went back to Remy and another psychologist for their expertise, deleted chapters, added more, jigged them around, made the ending happier, edited the hard copy, amended the soft copy, and finally finished by the deadline (last weekend) imposed by the agent who’s reading and critiquing it as part of a literary prize I won last summer.
When it’s done, it’s done – does not apply to novel-writing. It never feels done. There’s always something you’re not happy with, something to change. But for now, it will have to do. I’ve sent it off, it’s out of my hands. I’ll be hearing back end of May.
Now at a loose end, I set myself some tasks. 1. Clear out the attic. 2. Get fit (dog pursued squirrel. Pulled me over. Damaged cartilage). 3. Fix laptop (light shows through worn keyboard). 4. Resume View From A Broad.
- I did go up and look at the mess. But bloody hell! No.
- I’m walking again every day and doing an exercise class. Yawn.
- I will, I will. But… attachment issues.
- View From Abroad. Next week. Watch this space…
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daniellesimpson 