The jigsaw which becomes a novel

A couple of years I took part in a creative writing course. The woman conducting the course gave the participants a copy of her published book carrying the name; Jigsaw.

Editing is a bit like putting a jigsaw together. You have all the pieces, you might even have the puzzle nearly completed, however a few pieces look out of place; they don't seem to fit properly where you put them. OK there you go; you take those pieces out and put them aside. You fiddle around with some other pieces you hope will fit better. In the process you come to the conclusion the situation is actually far worse than you anticipated.
Panic stricken you throw yourself in front of a passing bus. You've put so much time and effort in writing and editing the story it is driving you crazy.

I found a solution for this problem many writers suffer from; I have a print out of the complete book, going over each page I divide them in different sections.
I color each passage with a separate color;

• red for action/conflict.

• purple for discussions

• green for descriptions

• brown for memories/flashbacks/dreams

• blue for anything else

So with the colour pencils out I am able to see which piece of the puzzle is where in the current draft. When making a real jigsaw puzzle I begin with the border and the corners, this gives the jigsaw a strong foundation and all the other pieces fit inside the border. You know if you've read J.A Konrath's tips you  put action or conflict in your first chapter, later you can play with different color combinations to see what suits best to keep the story flowing.

Tips from J.A. Konrath

Tips for the first chapter

1. Make sure the first chapter starts with action.
    
2. Show, don't tell. This means you don't need a one paragraph description of a bedroom, a character's thoughts on everything, and for god's sake don't put any back story in the first chapter.
    
3. Keep it short. It doesn't have to be James Patterson short, but a ten page first chapter is better than a thirty page first chapter when it comes to grabbing attention.
    
4. Watch your POV... try to stick in one character's mind for the whole chapter.
    
5. Cut everything that doesn't move the action forward. EVERYTHING. If it moves the story forward, or gives us a better feel for the characters, put it in a later chapter, but not the first. Leave the reader wanting more, not knowing everything.
    
6. You probably don't need a prologue. Editors often cut them, and readers often skip them. Try to remove it and see if the story suffers. If you really believe you need one, don't make it longer than a few pages.
    
7. And this is the most important---trust yourself. You've been writing since you were four. You know how to craft a sentence. Not everything needs to be rewritten---sometimes it comes out right the first time.

Conflict is the main ingredient for successful fiction. The question of "What happens next?" is what keeps your audience glued to the page. Not pretty description. Not clever phrasing. Not cute dialog. The motor that drives the story is conflict. The central plot of any story should be centered around a conflict. The sub plots should introduce more conflict. There should be conflict on every page, and even in every paragraph.

Readers don't want characters to be happy. They want them to be tortured for 90,000 words, and then happy at the very end. Maybe. That's the essence of a page-turner.

Travel for more useful tips to Joe's site.

http://www.jakonrath.com/writers.htm