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Developing ideas: Garth Nix

New ideas 2014
New ideas 2015
PictureGarth Nix, sci-fi and fantasy author
These ideas are offered as workshop adaptations of Garth Nix's '9 stage in writing a novel' (blog post 12.3.2014) You might also like to try the idea 9 in Quick writes: Longer structured exercises derived from Ernest Hemingway's famous six-word story: 'For sale: baby shoes, never worn'

1. 9 snapshots (observations/ideas recorded in your journal) - 
  • a person's behaviour you've noted recently
  • a distinctive sound that you've heard
  • a piece of technology
  • a scene from history/ the radio/TV/internet news
  • words or a scene from a book that you've read/ a sign that you've seen
  • something someone else has told you about
  • something that you can imagine
  • a landscape
  • a town you've visited recently
 - no more than a few words or phrases which can later be 'connected', 'interrogated' or 'mined' - a single child's trainer at the side of the road - a plastic bag flapping like a bird caught in the bramble - a tinny sound of a song on a radio - a woman setting out from her house then suddenly turning  back - sun in late afternoon off the Cornish coast - a taxi-meter

2. Now imagine a scene featuring one of the snapshots above; imagine an overarching mood or feeling (frustration, fascination, fear, anticipation, contentment), and write 9 sentences. As you mull over your ideas, let your mind track backwards, forwards, inwards and outwards from the chosen 'snapshot' - some questions which might excite more thoughts or story-patterning ...
  • what had happened the day/month before? 
  • how did this remind her of a scene from her childhood - or what her mother had said? 
  • how did this echo events in the 'real' world? 
  • how would this reappear, distorted, in his dreams? 
  • who 'took' the snapshot/ who saw or heard this and what were they doing/feeling at the time?


3. The snapshot is accompanied by an illustration/film clip. What are the colours/angles/the sound effects/the mood music? What details are in the foreground - and what, in the background, has significance? What will be the consequences of this scene?

4. Revisit the same scene through the eyes of another character - if you have adopted first person move to third; if you have told this in the present, move to the past. The idea is to dig over the ground of your idea until you have a fine tilth, ready for the planting of a story.

5. Write a list of 9 other characters who might feature in this story - named characters are fine: 'Sofia Renato - a single mother of 2 children, living in the flat upstairs' ; unnamed characters are fine: 'the fisherman in his boat on the lake'. 

6. Choose one character and list 9 things that they have in their pockets/ in their suitcase/ in their room; 9 places they have been to in their lives; 9 memories of significance (or collect 9 objects which will feature in the story ... or write a 9-line monologue by that character.)

7. Draw a map of a town/place in this story and find 9 names for roads, rivers, buildings,features and places first from the words you have used - and then from 9 related words: 'Rose Avenue', 'Disappointment alley', 'Whisper brook', 'The Rock building' ... 

8. Now find an intersection/cross-roads/place that interests you on your map and write the conversation of 9 lines between two characters who meet there.

9. The book/novel is completed: write the blurb/ the introduction/the acknowledgements or the interview with the author.

10. Now devise the title(s) and 9 chapter headings.

Simon Wrigley
Outreach director
12.3.2014

    The National Writing Project UK is a research project supported by NATE,
the National Association for the Teaching of English. Contact NWP.
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