Finding a name for the main character was very important. Her surname came quite easily for some reason, and in my head she was Ms Dillon for a long time, then I was thinking about someone I used to know and suddenly she became Judith Dillon.
Judith has moved to Carlisle to escape some scandal at home and is having to start a new life. So far she has a job that bores her, a supervisor that she resents and she doesn’t know anyone socially. She meets Joanna who works in a Café Bar and sets herself a mission to get to know her better.
The first 2000 words formed part of my assessment in Year 1 of the MA in Creative Writing. Having decided to extend it, my next job was to work on fleshing out the story. I started with a Mind Map to try to get the feel for how the story might progress. Mind Mapping really frees up my thoughts in a way that writing a list doesn’t do.
You may not be able to see the detail in this posting but you will get the idea. From the Mind Map I was able to identify the people that Judith Dillon would be interacting with in Carlisle and from there I developed each of their stories deciding where they would overlap with each other – and more importantly how they would overlap with Judith’s past.
Have a look at
The Mind Map Book by Tony and Barry Buzan
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