Every writer has their own method of writing. When it comes to novel writing, some plan out all their characters, plots, landscapes etc, in advance and in great detail. I suppose the advantage is that by the time they actually start writing, it's a smooth run through a set path – you're following a roadmap.
Others – like me – have an idea of the story they want to tell, and they allow the plot - chapter by chapter - to twist and weave wherever it seems to want to go.
When I first started writing The Girl with Special Knees, I didn't have a cast of characters planned out in my head. I had an unhappy child called Doll who was going to be transported to another world - beyond the stars – where she would find adventure, danger, betrayal; she would be a hero in this new world, and her true talent, courage and grit would be revealed. I also wanted to explore the inner life of her mother, a woman in despair who put her best foot forward every day despite unnumerable family heartaches and broken dreams.
That was it. Starting out and even as I wrote each chapter, I was constantly asking myself, 'Who will Doll meet next? What's going to happen now? How will this scene play out? Will Steve break Andi's heart? What will Shirley do next?
One thing I found very helpful in inspiring new plots and scenes was making a Creative Vision Board. I randomly cut out pictures that caught my eye from National Geographic Magazines, Home Interiors, Women's magazines etc. and pasted them onto an A3 size thick paper. There were misty landscapes, rebels, interesting faces and animals. These colourful collages inspired the character Ramish, Doll's horse called Poppy and another character Caisimir – just looking at the images conjured up all sort of possibilities in my imagination.
Closer to home, a whole board of Kevin Bacon pictures inspired how I wanted my Dan character to look. I needed Major Tom to be handsome and charismatic with more than a hint of danger and volatility, so Sean Connery filled another vision board. When Doll wakes up in Nan-Nan's house in Almazova, I deferred to my vision boards with luxury interiors, and those images from interior magazines brought Nan-Nans house – and later on, Nells country residence to life in my head. Visuals stir the imagination and are a great way to imagine yourself into new storylines and new characters.