Every writer needs a few - personalities, that is

How many writers does it take to produce a novel? One, but with multiple personalities. And that’s not a joke.

It’s a task that requires several selves – or parts of selves. There’s the intuitive, day-dreaming self who allows ideas and scenarios to drift through her consciousness until they begin to form threads. Then there’s the “medium” self, who allows herself to be taken over by her characters while they’re writing it for her.

When it’s finished, the analytical bitch-editor fires those sensitive selves – who are in love with every word – and get on with murdering the babies. After her, the tenacious self must still believe, all odds to the contrary, that a book is worth fighting for when it starts to be shown to people.

And lastly, published self must be able to think of her influences, her heroes and her favourite books, on demand. (They have to sound clever enough for her not to sound like an idiot, but unpretentious enough for her not to sound … like a prat.)

Published self must be able to speak on radio and, if she’s lucky enough, on TV. She has to make impromptu speeches and be charming to people who want her to write the story of their grandma who lived in Pofadder all her life.

Basically, she has to be the exact opposite of the first two selves, and quite different from the third – whoever heard of bitch-editor being charming.

The problem comes when our selves get muddled. If you allow bitch-editor in too early, she freezes writing self’s sensitive little soul. And if writing self overstays her welcome, you can’t do the really important job of rewriting.

A novel is written over months and sometimes years. Your voice, and that of your protagonist, evolves during the writing. You lose threads, you change characters’ names, you alter their motivations and sometimes their entire stories – sometimes because it works better, and sometimes just because you forgot.

Your tender, loving, writerly self can’t hope to see whether a sub-plot or a scene is objectively working, or whether it needs to be scrapped. Or whether a character has a reason to be there, or should just be killed.

The trick, when writing something longer, is to keep the appropriate selves in their places. And if they insist on showing themselves at the wrong time, you have to get used to pushing them back where they belong.