Writing My First Novel – The Cards We’re Dealt

After my announcement in my last blog post that I’ve decided to self-publish my first novel, perhaps I should tell you a little bit about it!

As the title of this post suggests, it’s called The Cards We’re Dealt, and in terms of genre it falls in the space that’s known as upmarket fiction or book club fiction. For those of you who don’t know so much about the publishing industry, basically it’s in between straight-up commercial fiction and literary fiction. There are elements of my book that also make me think it overlaps a little with women’s fiction (a term often hated in the publishing industry!).

I love these little infographics below as I think they’re a great way of explaining the genres:

Originally posted by Women Fiction Writers, who credit agent Carly Watters for their creation. 

Where the idea came from

I have to be honest here: I’m not sure I can pinpoint exactly where the idea for my first novel came from, but I think it might be a sum of a few parts.

I’ve always been a daydreamer, and after any book I’ve read or movie I’ve watched I’ve always imagined being immersed in that world and storyline. What would I do in that situation, what would I do differently, what would I say?

That, twinned with a “what-if” mindset, means the wheels of creativity are always turning. Writers often toy with what-if ideas for stories. What if I could fly? What if you were able to hear what everyone is thinking.

On top of these two aspects, my lifelong love of music shines through in this book. In some ways it’s my love letter to music, and rock music in particular.

These three elements converged into me devising scenarios of what it would be like to be ridiculously talented musically, to perform on stage to people who knew all the words to songs you’d written, to be famous and the good and bad sides of fame.

Photo by Pixabay

How it evolved

But none of that is enough to constitute a story. There’s no plot in there. No hook. Just made-up scenarios or scenes.

Then Mark Turner walked into my head.

J. K. Rowling once said Harry Potter appeared fully formed in her mind one day and I could never previously fathom how that could happen. But it did.

Several years ago, Mark Turner appeared with a name and a story, and I could see every detail of him clearly in my head. This character had a past, he had a dream, and he had his flaws.

And so the story began to take shape. Mark Turner’s life gained colour and nuance. He had two siblings, a brother and a sister, who he could bounce off, and argue with, and love, and fight for. Over the years (I don’t even know how many), those characters fleshed out in my mind and they told their own stories. They brought themes I wanted to explore, and those particular themes are why my novel falls into the book club or upmarket fiction genre.

When I finally decided to write this book, writing the characters was easy. I didn’t need to prepare character sheets (like lots of writers do and like I’ve done for other subsequent novels) as I knew them inside out. They’d been a part of me for years, and, in a way, they all hold a little piece of me in their actions or nature on the page. It’s been strange to see how attached I’ve become to fictional people after I’ve spent so much time writing about them!

Photo by lil artsy

Getting those words down

After I’d discovered the plot points revelation I mentioned in my previous blog post, I started writing. The story emerged. I kept a word count record as a form of motivation – it was really satisfying seeing those numbers get higher, no matter how little I’d written each day.

With this novel, I didn’t write 100% in order. Sometimes, if I felt particularly strongly about a scene or could envision it clearly in my head, I’d jump ahead and write it. I ended up with a few key milestone scenes scattered through my Word document like islands, so writing the “bridges” in between was easy. I needed to get from A to B to C, and this is what had to happen in between.

It definitely helped my writing: if I was ever feeling blocked with a scene or unsure where to go with it, I skipped to one that was tugging at my heart. That way, I was never stuck and the words kept going up.

Image by Wokingham Libraries from Pixabay

Editing – get out the axe!

Terry Pratchett apparently said the first draft is just you telling yourself the story, so subsequent drafts are to make it readable to an actual reader. After I’d finished my first draft, I read writing craft books, articles and more on editing, and I dived in.

It started with major structural editing. Was I happy with the order of my scenes? Did anything need to change? Was I starting in the right place? A few things changed at this point, and I still have a document with cut scenes and chapters (just in case!).

Then it was developmental editing. This meant looking at things like character development, settings, themes, key scenes. Was I conveying everything I wanted to? Maybe I hadn’t emphasised this character’s goals or flaws enough?

Once I was happy with the overarching storyline, it was time for copy editing. I had a whole list of crutch words to search for and attempt to replace (or sometimes delete – do you have any idea the number of times we use the word “that” when it isn’t completely necessary?), and it was a case of close reading my novel and looking for stronger verbs, making sentences more concise, enriching descriptions.

It sounds tedious, reading your manuscript over and over and over again, but I enjoyed it. Would you believe that in editing I managed to cut 6,000 words from what was clearly a bloated manuscript? (I told you in my previous post I was always an over-writer!).

Image by Adrian from Pixabay

Editor feedback

I decided to invest in editor feedback on my first three chapters between my structural and developmental edits. I was extremely nervous doing this as it was the first time I’d shared any adult fiction I’d written with anyone outside my family.

Not only that, but I won some free editor feedback on those first chapters through a writing contest on Twitter/X.

Both editors gave some great, constructive feedback and tips I could then apply to the editing process for the entire book. They both said the concept was intriguing (more on that in future posts!) and that my writing is beautiful. Those words gave me a huge confidence boost. People outside my family and with no loyalty to me liked what I wrote – gasp! They liked my book idea! :O

Photo by Pixabay

And now it’s almost ready…

Since making the decision to self-publish, I’ve gone back to my novel and I’m doing a final proofread before I format it for publication. One last read-through before I share these characters with the world. One last read-through before The Cards We’re Dealt becomes a Real Book. It’s a nerve-racking but exciting thought, especially as I queried many literary agents without success before getting to this point—but more on that in my next post.

For now, I’ll leave you with the blurb for The Cards We’re Dealt. I’m looking forward to publishing and you all getting to read it.

“You have to play the cards you’re dealt.”

Eighteen-year-old Mark Turner thinks he’s been given the toughest hand possible: his father is dead and he’s been left to look after his younger brother and sister, Josh and Sadie. But he might have one ace up his sleeve…

Music and raw ambition sweep Mark, Josh and Sadie from busking on the streets of Edinburgh to the bright lights of stages in Las Vegas and beyond, swallowing them up in a world of excess and temptation, friendship and loneliness.

But as their star rises, cracks begin to appear in the family. Only by facing their past will they find peace. If they don’t, it could take them all down—and Mark’s musical dream with it.

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