Plotting

This is so frustrating.  I’m used to stories hitting me like great big rocks of emotional inspiration.  Usually, I’ve got at least one character developed in my head.  But this original idea of mine for NaNoWriMo this year is exceptionally difficult.  I’m trying to weave together a historical drama based on Anne Lister and the Brontes but it’s just not forthcoming.  For a start, I’m having trouble imagining either such known person as characters in their own right and secondly I can’t even think of a resolution to it all if I did.

The reason I’m struggling is that I’m not good with history.  I only tentatively came to the subject a few years ago and its showing.  And although I’ve read the famous Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and Shirley I can’t say I’ve ever paid any attention to the Bronte sister themselves.

I’m furiously researching and pulling together timelines but it’s not enough.  Even that isn’t giving me the light I need.  I think I may have to give this idea up as a bad job.  Let someone else who is much more qualified than me pick it up.

If I am honest with myself the only reason I went with something Anne Lister linked is because of the TV programme, not the person herself.  There is a lot of hype surrounding both but without an intensive study of Anne Lister and the time period it’s difficult to get as pumped up about the actual woman herself because she was so complex.  And I don’t know enough about the social environments of that era.  Clothes, travel, class.  Who hung out with who.  I don’t have that kind of experience to be able to readily write with any authority.

Of course, doing so now means I’ve only got 7 days now to think of something else to create ready for November the first.

Part of me is wondering whether I should just wing it and write any bits that are clear in my head and then build it up from there?  After all, NaNoWriMo is all about just writing – no editing.  Just get the story written first and worry about the   But I still don’t feel happy about it.

There is another story I’d also like to explore than perhaps would be easier for this challenge to expand.  It’s set in the here and now and I can definitely relate to it and although I am keen on the characters and know what the resolution should be for this story I’m not sure I can expand it through the plot points sufficiently enough.

Maybe the radical writer in me should just try both.  It’ll be messy mind.  But once I’ve exhausted one, rather than stop during the month I could at least continue my writing by skipping over to another story?

It’s certainly taking up a lot of thought time at the moment with not much to show for it which is making me rather nervous but there is only one way to proceed – and that’s forward!

Thank you for reading.