Manuscript Monday: Nine Sentences

I think, in this first Manuscript Monday post, I should explain my writing a little bit. I write: poetry, a lot of poetry; flash and short fiction; and am currently writing two novels. By accident.

‘How?’ you ask. Well, I started writing my first as part of my degree. The Writing Project was my degree’s equivalent of a dissertation; I handed in the beginning of that novel. Novel #1 literary fiction, a novel in fragments.

Novel #2 (YA, post-apocalyptic) happened in the shower. I had an idea and I knew I had to write it. I managed to hammer out 15,000 words in three days. I’m now on 17,000. Novel #2 may never see the light of … bookshelves. However, it will be finished before Novel #1.

A few days ago, when hanging around on Twitter, I saw this link – I can’t remember who posted it, unfortunately. I had never thought of compressing my manuscript into nine sentences; in fact, before I read this article, I’d not thought something like that was possible but I did it and magic happened. Not real magic, I didn’t shoot fire out of my hands (though that would be fantastic).

Novel #2, while being a shower epiphany, did not have an ending. I knew what was happening up to a point. Then, nine sentences later, I had an entire novel. So, there will be other things that happen which are not in those nine sentences, which have not yet climbed themselves out of my brain matter but I have a structure now beyond that which happened in the shower.

While I’ve not written much in the last week, I know where I’m going and I know where I’ve been and that is certainly something.

It is unnerving how quickly this novel has happened, I don’t tend to write very quickly, I like to let my work sit for a while before thinking that it’s terrible and starting again. (It’s an unhelpful trend that I really hope to break.) Having nine sentences in front of me that tell me what is going to happen and knowing that it’s right and even to an extent how I will be getting to each point is refreshing.

I will definitely be trying this method on all future novels (except perhaps Novel #1, which rebels against being compressed into a few sentences).

Have you tried the nine sentence technique? Did it reveal anything you didn’t know? Are there any other techniques that follow the same vein that you have found useful?