Structuring a novel in Word

Nerd alert: if format, structure and the intricacies of Microsoft Word bore you, probably best to skip this one.

Recently, I was chatting to some other writers, comparing notes on how we write our novels. Being writers, we weren't talking about the ephemeral, arty stuff that you tend to get asked about at events...

 

What inspires you?

 

Do you base any of your characters on real people?

 

and the ever popular

 

Where do you get your ideas?

 

(I always liked Harlan Ellison's response to that one: he simply explained to people that he orders them from a company in Schenectady, New York.)

 

No, we were talking about the nuts and bolts: how we structure our books as we're writing and how we alter that structure when we're revising and editing.

 

It can be a major pain to restructure your book during edits, particularly when you have to move one chapter to a different place, or insert a whole new chapter. Either way, you're going to have to go through and renumber all of your chapters, and hope that this will be the last time you'll decide to mess with the running order (it usually isn't).

 

Quite a few of the writers I know use Scrivener, because along with many other cool features, it lets you do stuff like this automatically. However the problem is you still need to get the novel back into Word when you start the back-and-forth process with your editor.

 

It occurred to me that Word might be able to do some of this stuff by itself. Microsoft is great at including all sorts of advanced functionality and then not really telling people about it. After a spot of Googling, I discovered that I was right.

 

Disclaimer: this is how I do it, not necessarily How It Should Be Done. Also, this works on standard versions of Microsoft Word for PC, but I've been told the same technique doesn't work on Word for Mac, presumably because Apple revels in making life difficult for deviants who like to experiment. However I'm sure someone out there will have a Mac-hack.

 

Using Headings to structure the document

 

First of all, use the Heading format to structure your document. This only takes seconds, and will save you a ton of time later.

 

To do this, click on your chapter name, whether it's 'Chapter 1', or simply '1', and format it as a Heading. Word lets you have a hierarchy of headings, but I only ever use H1, because in my book(s), all chapters are created equal:

 

(My chapters are normally longer than this, by the way. Although sometimes not by much.)

 

If you keep formatting each chapter title as a heading, you'll quickly notice that each one appears in the navigation pane (usually on the left hand side of the document). If you can't see the navigation pane, Hit CTRL+F as though you were trying to find a word or phrase in the document, and then click on HEADINGS:

 

 

You'll notice an immediate benefit: if you click on any of these chapter numbers formatted as a heading in the navigation pane, you'll jump straight to that part of the book - no interminable scrolling required.

Using a sequencing field to automatically renumber chapters

 

The next tip is a little more advanced, but only a little.

 

It involves using a field instead of text to number your chapters. This means you can tell it to number each chapter in sequential order.

 

1. To insert the field, delete the chapter number, leave the cursor in the same place, and press CTRL+F9 to insert curly field brackets:

 

 

2. Then, type the phrase "seq NumList" (without the quotes) between the curly brackets

 

3. Repeat for all chapters:

 

 

4. Select All and press F9. The chapter numbers will automatically update sequentially (both in the document and on the navigation pane):

 

 

The great thing about this is, you're not forced to give any chapter a number. So if, like me, you have occasional interlude chapters outside of the regularly-numbered chapters, you can make them part of the chapter structure with the Heading format, but you don't have to include them in the numbering sequence. So you can have 1, 2, 3, FIVE YEARS AGO, 4, 5, 6...

Here's the cool part.

5. If you decide Chapter 4 should really be Chapter 2, just click and drag in the navigation pane, and the entire chapter will move position in the document:

 

 

 

6. Select All, hit F9, and because you've used fields for the chapter numbers, the chapters automatically renumber in sequence, as if by magic:

  



 

Important: don't do what I did a few weeks ago and accidentally delete your entire 100,000 word novel while in Select All. Thank God for backups.

 

If you want you can download this template with the formula field already in.

Final thought: does any of this actually help, other than the obvious time saved copying and pasting things around and renumbering chapters? Yes, I think it does, because it lets me sit down and look at the book from a god's eye view.

 

I can have a chapter breakdown on hand and immediately jump straight to the chapter I'm interested in. If I decide the prologue should really go at the end, I can do it in a couple of seconds, click and drag.

 

It gives me a bit more of the illusion that I'm in control, and if you ask any writer, they'll tell you that you can't put a price on that.

Five tips on plotting

Welcome to another fun-filled effort-avoiding installment of my periodic reposting of articles I've done elsewhere on the web.

This one was from the Scottish Book Trust, who kindly asked me for my top five tips on plotting a thriller back in April.

With a mere two and a bit novels under my belt, I don't make any claim to be an expert. These are just some things that work for me, and that may or may not be of use to other writers starting out. Feel free to pick and choose which of these to pay attention to. Rules are made to be broken, after all...

***

1. First person narration makes plotting a lot more difficult

I’m instinctively drawn to writing in the first person, as it’s the purest way for a reader to identify with your protagonist. You can really get inside a character’s head when he or she is the one directly relating the story. However, this approach has its drawbacks, particularly when it comes to plotting. If the story is told from the point of view of a single character, that means that every notable event in the book has to happen while the character is there, or else has to be told to them in exposition from another character. If something exciting is happening somewhere removed from your hero, you can only find out about it after the fact.

That’s why when I began writing The Killing Season, I decided to cheat a little. The chapters focusing on the hero, Carter Blake, are told in the first person. The chapters where I cut away to other characters are related from their point of view, but in the third person. That way, I get to have my cake and eat it: the reader can be a few steps ahead of Blake, but still see the world through his eyes for the most part. It’s much easier to plot and pace the story, because the action doesn’t all have to happen to the lead character.

2. Make sure there’s regular action beats

It’s important to have key scenes that advance the plot by introducing a new element or unexpected reversal

I don’t necessarily mean action in the obvious sense; there’s no need to force yourself to insert a car chase or gunfight every thirty pages. Rather, it’s important to have key scenes that advance the plot by introducing a new element or unexpected reversal. That can be the aforementioned car chase, or it could simply be the hero encountering an intriguing new character in a bar.

3. Lay the groundwork, then go back and make sure it’s solid

Anton Chekhov famously said that if there’s a rifle hanging on the wall in the first act, it has to be fired in the third act. Stephen King perceptively pointed out that the reverse is also true.

Authors are in the happy position of being able to snap their fingers and rewrite reality whenever they choose. So if you get to the end of the book and realise you need a key element in place earlier on, go back and add it in so it looks like you meant it all along. You can see this being done in movies all the time – it’s pretty obvious the power loaders are going to come in handy later on in Aliens, for example. The trick is to weave this in so that the reader doesn’t twig that there’s a Deus in that seemingly uninteresting Machina in the background…

4. Don’t neglect character beats

Action is fundamentally important in any thriller, but I’d argue that character beats are every bit as vital. Maybe I’m weird, but the parts of a thriller that stay with me are the quiet moments when the hero is alone and in a contemplative mood. One of my favourite scenes in the James Bond novels is a short sequence in Live and Let Die where we discover that Bond is quietly terrified of flying. People say they want an exciting plot, but I think what they really care about is interesting characters.

5. Keep track of the loose ends

Thriller plots tend to be complex, because there’s usually a central mystery and you have a bunch of characters running around keeping on top of various secrets and skulduggery. That means it’s important to make sure the plot hangs together and that the fine detail makes sense. It means that what most people think is an artistic endeavour can sometimes feel more like a massive construction project. I keep detailed timelines, spreadsheets and cheat sheets everywhere when I’m writing, because otherwise I wouldn’t have a hope in hell of keeping it all together in my head.

Having said that, you should never lose sight of the fact that you’re targeting the reader’s gut, not their brain. The plot should stand up to scrutiny, but the technical work should never overwhelm the desire to tell a good story.