Make it up as you go along!
You really can write like this...
Last night, I sat and listened to Tess Gerritsen in interview with Sam Blake at start of the Deadly festival at the British Library. I wasn’t there in person, unfortunately, I had an online ticket, but it was bloody brilliant. One of the best things I learned was that Tess doesn’t know her plots before she starts writing. She doesn’t know. She hears a voice, or imagines a character or a scene, and then she writes, and writes. She talked about how characters appear and say something to her, or how an emotion may spring to mind. She’ll turns this over in her mind, and she writes. She produces a messy first draft, and re-drafts and re-drafts until the plot makes sense. She talked about going for long drives to get over writer’s block, to gain some distance, (literally), from the book, until things become clearer.
I’ve always thought I was unable to write fiction as I never have a plot outlined beforehand. I start writing, usually with a character in mind or a place or something and I’ve no idea where it’s going. So, I give up as I’ve always thought you need to know what happens next, or at least have some idea of what the story is about. But, you don’t. You can just keep writing and thinking and imagining until something happens and then that’ll lead to something else and eventually, you’ll have written a long story that could be a book.
I might actually be able to write a book after all, if I allow myself to not know the plot from the off. It may work. This is big. 😄