How I wrote WSP
Advice to writers on how to structure a novel - ‘The Skeleton Key’
I’m not Stephen King – I can’t sit at a typewriter with an idea in my head, then hammer away and produce a perfect story in one sitting. I just don’t have that kind of genius.
I’m also NOT JK Rowling, despite a handful of strange messages sent to me insinuating it, and someone repeatedly trying to hack my Reddit account. JKR’s already got a pen name – I’m fairly certain the last thing she’d do is carry on writing Potter novels when she definitively laid her quill down and moved onto pastures new, as sad as that is for… humanity. All I’ll do is point to 1. My meagre bank balance and 2. the startling lack of adverbs in The Winter Solstice Pact - and leave it at that.
But anyway, my point is this: the overwhelming majority of stories with any kind of interwoven plot or developing investigation ultimately benefit MASSIVELY from being written using a process, to ensure quality and to avoid getting lost. And as mechanical / inorganic as that sounds, that’s how it’s done by all the published masters... and it’s how authors like Lee Child managed to produce one (very) well-written novel a year, for two decades.
A method.
Aside from it being my own advice, this is how JKR wrote the original canonical novels herself. She even posted a video online where she briefly covers how she writes her books: it’s worth watching, but she doesn’t go thread to needle on the process.
So, at the risk of revealing the industry secrets of the very best writers, I’ve chosen to share my process for how I created The Winter Solstice Pact. I don’t go into how my ideas formed, or how I chose my prosaic style as that is all entirely subjective: this is literally how to piece together a story mechanically. It’s a method anyone can follow, and once it’s done, the actual writing itself is a whole other matter.
In response to questions/throwaway statements over Winter Solstice Pact (WSP) being an AI written piece – you’ll no doubt surmise after reading this section of the website that it wasn’t written by AI. It couldn’t have been. Whilst AI is great for a lot of things, writing actual stories (or indeed academic essays) that are worth reading simply isn’t in it’s wheelhouse, from what I’ve seen. It doesn’t have the sustained ability to create, to remain consistent, and to retain a particular voice. It’s ability to write humour is appalling, and it cannot dream up great plot twists or long-form arcs.
I’ve intentionally kept all details about myself under wraps. I don’t “do” social media, for example. For me, WSP was a labour of love and, as far as I’m concerned, it’s all about the product, not the person behind it. But giving this advice, sharing this method, requires bona fides, and I get that. So I’ll share two things about my background which I otherwise would not have shared.
Firstly – in my younger years I trained at University as a Screenwriter. I have been doing creative writing my whole life, ever since I could hold a pen. But I received formal Undergraduate education in writing long-form screenplays, teleplays and serialised drama. And I wasn’t bad at it, even though I never went into that world professionally.
= I know how to write.
Secondly - as some readers have surmised and asked me privately, I can confirm I have been employed as a Detective and have also worked for many years in the intelligence world – a wealth of personal experience which I have leveraged in significant parts of WSP. This is why, for me, Harry moved into ‘The Quarter’ – a secretive, elite department more akin to my real-world experience than bog-standard Auror work.
= I know how to investigate.
…Which neatly leads to my first piece of advice for writing anything: write what you know, write about things you can really FEEL - and then whatever your write will have a ring of truth to it that most works out there do not - cannot - achieve.
This method that I give to you all, I have given the name “The Skeleton Key.” For want of a better reason, it is a catch-all method to unlocking the ability to write any kind of story. It’s a literary Alohamora, but it comes from the way you build a story, starting with what I call ‘The Skeleton.’ This is NOT how to spell properly, or have good grammar, or write engaging dialogue. This is structural.
As this is quite a long method, I’ve broken it down into sections below. They’re best read in order, for reasons that will become obvious. I’ve done my best to really explain the nuts and bolts of it, and not to breeze over how it’s achieved. There are professional authors out there who probably won’t be happy that I’ve released this for free, but my take on releasing this to everyone is simple: if this method helps even just one person out there turn a story that’s been jingling round their head into a tightly-written piece, worthy of reading by people who don’t have much time to read, then it’s worth it.
I’d advise you to read it in order, as it’s a structure based on progressive development of the key attributes.
It’s how I put The Winter Solstice Pact together, how I avoided writer’s block, and how I turned out a work I was happy to give to someone to read, a piece I could genuinely be proud of.
SLJ