See the time you choose on the digital display above your bed, in your mind.
6.58 a.m.
Close your eyes, and ‘set’ that alarm.
Ask your subconscious to wake you at that time.
Now go to sleep.
It may sound impossible, but please do not be surprised, at all, when you awake the next morning at precisely that time you have imagined and requested yourself to awake at.
It’s incredible.
But let’s consider here what is actually happening.
Is your mind counting every second, and formulating every minute, and each hour, and counting down exactly until the moment you wish to awake - and then waking you up at exactly that time?
If not, how does it do it?
Meanwhile, while all this is happening, your conscious self is fast asleep!
This illustration, which, by the way, does work for many, many people, proves that while your conscious self is busy doing one task – like sleeping, or reading, or dancing, or driving, or watching TV, your subconscious mind can be busy performing a myriad of other tasks that you are completely unaware of.
Please, try the above.
You might be amazed.
Or perhaps you already know about the power of the human mind, and your own subconscious self?
‘But what does this have to do with writing a book?’ I hear you ask.
Actually, quite a lot.
Because now we know that on top of the many tasks it is already performing every second of every day, helping us to live and breathe and move and survive, we can also ask our subconscious self to add one more trivial task to its list: to help you come up with a plot for a book!
We’re not yet looking for a detailed plot. Or a big plan.
All we want for now is a few simple lines which describe an overview of the story. It might be a formulated sentence, or just a feeling. An idea, or the germ of an idea.
A seed, which once you trust that this will happen, will grow and develop and become the book you’ve always dreamt of.
The way I suggest you do this is to go for a walk, or sit in your garden, or find somewhere you can relax for a couple of minutes. Somewhere you like being.
Somewhere you feel comfortable.
Breath.
Relax.
Maybe even close your eyes – although this is not absolutely necessary.
Breathe deeply.
Relax some more.
Then think of your book. Imagine the title of the book written in your mind in bright colours.
Possibly even imagine the title written on a book cover.
Now ASK yourself the question, “What’s it about?”
Ask yourself, “How does it begin?”
Ask yourself, “How does it end?”
Ask yourself, “Who is the main character?”
If at this point you still haven’t decided what genre the book will be, then …
Ask yourself, “What type of book is it? What genre? Crime? Romance? Science Fiction? Mystery? Suspense? A thriller?”
Perhaps now close your eyes again, if you’ve opened them.
Think of the questions once more.
Then relax.
Take several deep breaths.
Open your eyes slowly.
And now get on with the rest of your day.
Over the coming days and weeks, ideas will begin to bubble up from your subconscious.
A genre will surface in your mind.
A basic idea.
Perhaps a few.
One of these ideas - which will suddenly, at some point, probably when you least expect it to, just ‘pop’ into your mind - will be one that immediately makes you latch on to it, and think, ‘Yes, that’s it!’.
As I said, it might not be much. Just a phrase. A starting point. A seed.
But as soon as you nod to yourself and think, ‘yep, that’s the one’, that simple idea will start to grow and develop.
Another phrase will pop into your mind.
An idea for a character.
A location.
A description of what will happen in the book at a very high level. Not a plan, just a feeling…
Never force it.
Just entertain it.
And ask more questions.
“Okay, I like the name Jack for the main character. How old is he?”
“What’s his job?”
“Okay, I like the idea that this book is about a bank robbery/ a spy story/ a holiday romance… So, what do they steal?/ what do they spy on?/ who falls in love with who and where?
Ask questions. And more questions.
Develop the idea over time.
But don’t wait until you have the whole plot before you start.
Start writing as soon as you can, and the rest of it will come to you…
But more on that later.
Don’t be surprised, however, if a complete, detailed plot just ‘appears’ in your mind, almost all at once.
This can and will happen to some of you.
Did you know that some of the greatest composers heard complete, new, symphonies play in their mind, and struggled to write them down as fast as they could before they forgot them?
One moment their minds were blank, and then a moment later, they couldn’t contain the complete, formulated ideas which they had.
Some people call this inspiration.
Others call it a miracle.
Perhaps, however, it is just you - your subconscious - working hard in the background, and then providing you with the answers to the questions you have asked of it!
In summary, the output from Step 2, is a quick, simple way to describe what the book will be about. (Not too complicated, maybe even just a one liner, but a description which captures what type of book it will be: a thriller, a murder mystery, a romance? It's your 'internal pitch' to guide you through the next steps of the process.
For example, in the case of ‘Haunted From Within’, my idea was:
‘I’ll write a crime thriller. It’ll be about a man who see visions of murders taking place. The man’s a reporter. He investigates the visions, and finds the murderer.’
After I had accepted this idea, the seed sprouted. I started asking more questions, and more answers and ideas popped into my mind.
Very soon the idea had changed to:
‘I’ll write a crime thriller. It’ll be about a man who almost dies, but receives a transplant which saves his life. He then starts seeing visions of murders taking place. The man’s a reporter. He investigates the visions, and finds the murderer.’
Very quickly this developed to:
“I’ll write a crime thriller. It’ll be about a man who almost dies, but receives a transplant which saves his life. He then starts seeing visions of murders taking place. The man’s a reporter. The reporter realises that the visions he is experiencing are the actual murders of the victims, as they take place, as seen through the eyes of the serial killer, whose organs are now inside his own body. He investigates the visions. The reporter realises that he has to discover the identities of all the victims, and then also identify the serial killer.”
Then, focussing on the main character of the story a bit more, I got this:
“I’ll write a crime thriller. It’ll be about a man who almost dies, but receives a transplant which saves his life. He then starts seeing visions of murders taking place. The man’s a reporter for the ‘Evening News’ in Edinburgh, Scotland. He’s about thirty years old. His name is Peter Nicolson. He has a girlfriend but is not yet married. He is scared of heights. The reporter realises that the visions he is experiencing are the actual murders of the victims, as they take place, as seen through the eyes of the serial killer, whose organs are now inside his own body. He investigates the visions. The reporter realises that he has to discover the identities of all the victims, and then also identify the serial killer..”
All this happened in rapid succession. Possibly minutes.
From that, it was pos
sible to sit down and move to the next stage.
----------------
Before we move on to the next chapter, we should consider for a moment, what happens to those of you who start with an idea for a plot, but don’t have a title?
Actually, I think this is the easiest path of the two.
If you already have an idea, and you know what genre it is, then you are already half way there!
To come up with a title, we follow a similar process to above. You find somewhere you like, sit down, take a moment to yourself, and relax.
Ask yourself, “What shall I call this book?”
Now, as above in the other scenario, just get on with your life.
Very soon, a little idea will knock on the door of your conscious mind.
Don’t be surprised if you love the title your subconscious gives you.
If you don’t like it, close your eyes, shake your head, forget it, and then … ‘get on with the rest of your day’.
You know what comes next.
Very soon, a little idea will knock on the door within your mind.
And when it does, and if you like it, you’re ready to read the next chapter.
Chapter 4
Book Length
In the Irvine process for writing a book, the author lets his or her subconscious mind do most of the hard work.
However, whereas the subconscious mind does the work, it’s very much the case that the conscious mind must be in charge and provide the guidance.
The conscious mind has to ask the right questions at the appropriate times.
The conscious mind has to give praise to the subconscious mind when it creates a good idea or helps the author to write something very good.
AND… the conscious mind has to keep the subconscious mind under control, providing guidance about how long the book is going to be, and keeping track of progress throughout the book, speeding the action up when necessary, slowing it down at other times, and keeping the size, length and number of chapters under control.
Let me give you an example of why this is necessary.
Many years ago, I decided to write my first book. I never gave any thought as to how long it should be. I just knew I wanted to write a novel, and that I had a good idea.
So, night after night, I sat down, and wrote.
And wrote.
And wrote.
Eventually I saw two words appear on the page, which read “The End”, and I realised that I had just finished my first book!
I was very happy.
When I did a word-count I found out that it was almost 300,000 words long.
It had taken me two-years.
I was very proud.
I had written my first book.
It was a few weeks before I discovered that no one would publish such a large book.
In paperback form it would be too large and too heavy. Distribution and freight costs would be very high. Printing costs enormous. The price of the novel would never recoup the costs.
AND, if despite all the odds, it was ever published, it would be prohibitively expensive to translate it.
Plus, this was my first novel. No one would take such a risk on an unknown writer.
I was very proud of my novel, but by now, I was a little concerned.
In fact, I was beginning to feel rather stupid.
This was in the days before ebooks.
However, even nowadays, I have discovered to my ongoing cost that many publishers are today looking for novels of around 100,000 words only.
Sadly, to this day, I continue to write large books, but now am often forced to split them into a series to make sense of what I have created.
The lesson from this story, is that even though you may become motivated to write, someone still has to keep hold of the reins and make sure you don’t overdo it.
When I now look back upon my 300,000 word ‘masterpiece’/disaster, I realise that I was very naïve. Rather stupid. And that I wasted many, many nights at my desk when I could have been out in the sunshine. Or writing another book, which, with better forethought could actually have been read by someone instead of gathering dust in the top drawer of my desk. My very own ‘top-drawer’ novel.
Where it still is to this day.
The lesson to be learned from this chapter is that before you start to write, you should set yourself a target length for your novel which is acceptable to both yourself and your customers and your audience.
If you are hoping to find a traditional publisher for the book, make sure you don’t write too much.
If you want one of the many new ebook publishers to accept up your novel, then try to get a view from Amazon just how long the other successful books being published actually are.
I would suggest that you target about 100,000 words for both.
Before we move to the next chapter, I feel that I should also add that if you want to write a book, and it’s not going to be a novel, you have lots of options open to you nowadays.
In particular, for people living in the UK, I just want to highlight ‘Kindle Singles’. These are short books between five thousand and thirty thousand words. To learn more, go to your browser and type in ‘How to submit Kindle Singles’. If you don’t have the time to write a full-length book, this is perhaps another option you could explore!
Now, on to the next chapter…
Chapter 5
Plotter or Pantser? How to write the book (Part One)
We’re making progress.
We have a title, a genre, an outline of what your book will be about, and a target for how long the book will be.
The next step is to actually sit down and start to write the book.
To put pen to paper, or more realistically, start pounding the keyboard and make words appear electronically in a Word document.
At this point, some people will begin to feel uncomfortable.
“But I don’t have a full plan yet?”, you may hear them cry out in anguish and alarm.
Or,
“My wall is not yet covered in little yellow sticky notes? I haven’t detailed all my characters? I don’t even know who my characters are yet? How can I start? No… no... I’m not ready!”
To which I say, “Relax! You are ready! Almost…”
In a future chapter we will talk about ‘The Beginning, the End, and the Middle’ of your book. I’ll leave that till then, but for now I would just say that starting a book without a clear idea of everything that is going to happen is fine.
It’s okay!
In fact, it may even be preferable.
I know that some people want to have almost every minute detail worked out and written down in notes stuck all over their walls, or in overflowing notebooks, or detailed notes on their laptops which outline what each chapter will be about, but that’s not completely necessary. It works well for some people, but for others it’s just an excuse not to write the actual book.
I’ve heard of people, even met people, who spend years and years planning a book, but never actually start it.
If you’re one of those people, then this book is especially for you.
The message of the Irvine Method, is that instead of doing all the planning consciously, and producing reams of detailed descriptions and plans, it’s best to leave it to your subconscious to do this for you.
I’ve heard the expression ‘Plotter’ or ‘Pantser’ used before to describe those who plot, and those who just sit down and write, and seemingly fly by the seat of their pants.
At first, I thought I was a Pantser.
Now however, I realise that I am actually also a Plotter.
But, I let my subconscious do all the plotting. I trust that my subconscious brain is immensely more capable than my conscious self.
And from experience I have been amazed by the results it can produce.
In Haunted From Within, I started with one character, and the plot outline we discovered in the last chapter.
As I wrote the book, sitting d
own eagerly each day to type whatever came into my mind, new characters appeared without bidding, and starting walking across my pages and announcing themselves to the world, without even discussing it with me first.
Before I knew it, numerous sub-plots had emerged, all seemingly diverging in different directions.
I found it amazing.
It made me even more motivated to write, and to turn up at my keyboard each day just to discover what happened next!
What was supposed to be a difficult job of writing a book, became a joy and pure entertainment as I read about the characters in the story and discovered what they were up to. It was like reading a brand-new book, only that the words were appearing on the pages only microseconds before I read them.
Towards the end of the book, although I did begin to get nervous about how at least six subplots could possibly all come together before or in the final chapter, I trusted my subconscious and continued writing.
Incredibly, in the last pages of the book, they all did.
Unbelievably I hadn’t consciously planned any of it, not really, because I was paying due respect to the guidance in Chapter 8 of this book - which was why I was nervous – but the truth of the matter was, that my subconscious had planned it all.
When I had finished the book, I read it again. And again.
And I was amazed to find that almost all of the loose ends that had emerged during the writing had tied themselves off before the final words ‘The End’ appeared.
Also, facts and figures which I have used or included or written about earlier in the book, then checked out and backed up future plotlines that emerged later in the book. All without conscious planning.
All amazing… as far as I was concerned.
Get Writing! How ANYONE can write a Novel! Page 2
