No one said writing a novel was easy, but the good news is that you’re not alone! This month, writers from all over the world are participating in National Novel Writing Month—churning out thousands of words with the hopes of completing a novel by the end of November. Whether you’re on track to write a full novel this month, or you’re working on an excerpt to submit to our Novel Writing Competition, we’re excited to share some tricks of the trade from YA Author Fiona Wood. In our latest Q&A, the critically acclaimed author of YA novel Cloudwish offers advice on how to choose the right excerpt to submit, tells us what she’s looking for in a winning entry, and shares her reflections on her own novel writing process.
Prior to writing YA novels, you worked as a television scriptwriter. What are some of the ways in which the writing process differs between these two styles of writing?
There is a lot of common ground between the forms. Both deal with a narrative structure, character development and relationships, dialogue, and place, for example. When you describe a setting in a screenplay, it’s up to the production design department to create that physical space, either on a set or location, but in a novel a sense of place has to be evoked using only words. An emotion can be indicated in big print or parenthesis, in a script, and will then be interpreted in an actor’s performance, but the same emotion must be described, in a novel. So the screenplay is a blueprint for a collaborative undertaking, but the novel is a creative entity. In terms of process, the writer of television spends more time in collaboration and discussion, whereas the novel writer works alone for most of the time.
When writing a novel, do you have a definite sense of your story’s arc before you begin? If so, how much does that change once you start writing?
I’m definitely a plotter. I would never be able to start writing a novel and just see where it would take me. It would feel like starting the work before the preparation had been done–or starting to cook before checking I had the right ingredients. I need to set out with a sense of where I’m heading and what I want to say. It doesn’t mean things don’t change along the way; they do. If I look back on my plotting notes, I can see how far I’ve departed from some of the early ideas, but I couldn’t have started without them. To give one concrete example: in early drafts of ‘Six Impossible Things’, I had the dog—Howard’s—thoughts on the page. They didn’t make the final cut.
Do you have any favorite excerpts or chapters from a novel you love?
When I teach dialogue classes I always mention the first chapter of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. It is almost all dialogue. It beautifully and succinctly establishes the premise and the tone of the novel, and the two characters, Mr. and Mrs. Bennet. Written two hundred years ago, it still feels fresh and funny.
Some of our writers might be anxious about which excerpt they should submit. Do you have any tips on how to choose a portion of writing that represents a larger piece?
It’s fine to submit an excerpt from any part of the novel. Choose something you enjoyed writing, and something that conveys a sense of your main character. But don’t sweat it! Just select the excerpt you’d like to read best if you were reading your own material for the first time. If in doubt, consider choosing a piece that shows your protagonist in conflict–perhaps in a moment of crisis, or self-doubt, or action, or decision-making.
Your book, Cloudwish, was recently named the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Book of the Year (Older Readers)! For those who haven’t read it, what’s the premise of the story?
Vân Ước Phan is a clever, creative girl who likes keeping a low profile; her life changes when she makes an idle wish that appears to come true. Cloudwish is a story about identity, explored through family, friendship, and first love.
What inspired you to tell Vân Ước’s story?
One of the inspirations for Cloudwish was a tutor program, Friday Night School, where I am a weekly volunteer. Spending time with students from the Vietnamese Australian community over many years, I saw how lucky they were to have the richness of two cultures, and, from time to time, how frustrating it could be navigating between the two cultures, representing each one to the other. When I shared my first novel, Six Impossible Things, with my then thirteen-year-old student, she noted that Uyen Nguyen, a Vietnamese Australian character, didn’t get to do much. The gauntlet had been thrown down, and I created Vân Ước Phan in Wildlife intending to make her the protagonist of Cloudwish. The title of the book is the translation of her name. She gets to do plenty.
I love establishing a minor character in one book, and putting that character at centre stage in another book. It allows me to suggest to the reader that everyone has a story worth listening to. (I did the same thing moving the character, Lou, from Six Impossible Things to Wildlife and to Cloudwish.)
Charlotte Bronte’s character Jane Eyre was another inspiration. Vân Ước lives her life according to the credo: ‘What would Jane do?’ Jane Eyre is a stellar role model, a character with no ostensible power who nonetheless has such strength of will and faith in herself that she prevails at every critical point in the narrative. Jane and Vân Ước have in common their quiet demeanors, big ideas, artist’s souls and the ability to see something in a male character that is certainly not apparent to everyone else.
A third inspiration was the gift of a tiny glass vial containing a slip of paper, from writer friend Simmone Howell (Girl Defective) that felt as though it had the potential for magic, and so inspired the wish story strand.
To take a step back and look at the broader picture–the reason I started volunteering at FNS was that it was a practical way–beyond attending rallies, and signing petitions–of saying, I welcome refugees, when the Australian government was putting asylum seekers attempting to arrive here by boat in offshore detention centres, a practice that continues to this day. Doing something constructive with my feelings of anger and protest meant that I got to know members of the Vietnamese Australian community; as well as refugees from Sudan and Somalia, whom I now tutor.
What are you looking for in a strong Novel Writing entry?
Whether the piece of writing submitted is an action sequence, an interior monologue, a descriptive passage, or dialogue, or any combination of elements, I’ll be looking for signs that the author has thought about the language and approach best suited to telling their story. I’m equally happy to see writers using conventional or more experimental styles. I hope to encounter characters and story ideas that feel fresh and original. I’m impressed by well-edited and proofread copy.
