Have you found your seed word yet? I’ve been reading the very good Scarlett Thomas book, Monkeys with Typewriters: How to write fiction and unlock the secret power of stories (phew, that’s a gob-ful), in which she suggests you need three things before you embark on your novel: (1) a (main) narrative question; (2) a thematic question; (3) a seed word.

Narrative question

Thematic Question

(from ‘Monkeys with Typewriters’, by Scarlett Thomas)

So what, then, is a seed word and why do you need one? The seed word, as Thomas describes it, should contain ‘the main essence of your thematic concern’, whilst simultaneously, somehow, containing ‘everything in the novel’. She suggests you make a list: a list of all the separate things your novel seems to be “about”‘ and, ideally using a dictionary or thesaurus, you try to find a single word that links them (most likely an abstract noun). Words have lots of meanings, Thomas says, that you may not – consciously – be aware of. The odds are remote that Jane Austen sat down, consciously, to concoct a seed word, but Thomas suggests (very plausibly, I think) that you might say the seed word of her novel Emma is ‘respectability’, containing, as it does, ‘both the idea that someone is […] worthy of respect […] and the idea of respectability as being inherently to do with a polite society.’

She makes a promise, too: ‘when you find the correct seed word for your project it will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. While constructing a thematic question gives you focus and purpose, finding the correct seed word is quite magical.’

Well, the hairs on my neck must be lazy, I’m afraid, because did they stand up? No, they didn’t. But, still, I have found my seed word (somewhat late in the writing process… better late than never, eh?), and that word is ‘autonomy’. And in spite of the bone-idle hairs on my neck it was – and is – an exciting thing, because seeing how clearly and cleanly this single words fits all the disparate strands of the book, like a stick of seaside rock with the word autonomy right through the middle, I feel I must be doing something right (at last): in my humble experience, when the pieces all lock into place, with no wiggling or fiddling, it’s usually (fingers crossed…) because what you’ve concocted has some sort of truth in it.

In the midst of NaNo (especially for all you pantsers out there) finding your seed word might well seem a waste of precious writing time. But the brain has a strange way of solving creative tasks when you’re least expecting it: don’t exchange precious writing time for the pondering of your seed word, but do let your mind have peace and quiet, occasionally (put down your phone, switch the radio off); take a walk, or a bath, do the hoovering, pick up your knitting… You never know when your seed word will come visiting.