Inciting Writing
Getting started with a new novel
‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ a reader asked me during a recent conversation on books. I published a new novel last month, Love’s Knife,1 a medieval murder mystery set in Toulouse and Book 1 in the Trobairitz Sleuth series. This month, I’m starting Book 2 in the series, which has the working title of Salt’s Wound. So how do I get from word count 0 to word count 90,000? How do I approach the blank page and get started with a new writing project?
Writers often hear about ‘the inciting incident’ – the situation at the beginning of most novels that sets the protagonist off on a quest and/or puts them in jeopardy. Finding that incident is certainly part of the starting process. My first five novels were all sparked by a kidnap of a medieval woman. In my latest book, the inciting incident is a murder. But I think the starting goes back further than that incident.
What are the other elements that incite writing - right at the beginning? I have found that starting (getting inspiration), for me, coalesces around an object, a place, and a face.
An Object
This object (a kind of totem in the writing), for me, is often an object that I see in a museum. Totems that have worked for my previous novels have been the Witham Pin, which I used in Love’s Knife, and the Dunstable Swan Jewel, which I used in Almodis the Peaceweaver.2
I don’t have the object yet for the new novel and am searching for it.
A Place
A place is often right up there at the beginning too. My Conquest series on the turbulent life of Nest ferch Rhys during the Norman conquest of Wales, began with the view of the castle of Llansteffan on a headland above a triple river estuary, on my weekly journey from Oxford to Pembrokeshire in Wales.
Now, for my new novel, Salt’s Wound, I’m intrigued by the mountain abbey of Santa Maria de Gerri del Sal in the Pyrenees, with its sail-shaped, triple-layered bell tower. (Ah ha! triple seems to be a thing - triple pin, triple estuary, triple bell tower.) Santa Maria de Gerri had its own salt basins.
A Face
A face for a character is often one of the starting points too. I might see the face in a painting or in the life around me. I saw a face that I took as the model for my Welsh heroine, Nest ferch Rhys,3 as I was travelling on a train from Oxford to Pembrokeshire. (That train seems to have been an important incubator.)
I used Whistler’s portrait of a street urchin, Alice Butt, as inspiration for the heroine, Beatriz de Farrera, in my Trobairitz Sleuth series.
Trying to figure out where is the murder scene, who is the victim, who is the murder and what is the motive at the moment. Searching for the incitements and waiting for them to coalesce.
Find out more about Love’s Knife on my website and on Amazon.
I wrote a trilogy about Nest ferch Rhys. Find out more.
Thank you for sharing about your writing inspiration! I often get my inspiration in a similar fashion but had never thought too much about it before. Your objects and locations are very intriguing, and it makes me look forward to your next book all the more!