Tag Archives: organizing a novel draft

Writing a Goat Novel

One of the most commonly asked questions of an author is where they get their ideas. Even for a goat novel there is no easy answer except life.

The germ of my novels is a character I find interesting. This may be someone I see out somewhere or someone I knew sometime. As this character becomes more real, the questions change to what would happen if? What would this character do?

Dora the Alpine/Nubian goat from Dora's Story
Martha Cunningham is known for her horse paintings. I knew her when we both taught at Bunker High School. My original illustrator withdrew and I asked Martha for her help. She worked hard to get comfortable drawing Dora and the various situations found in the novel.

“Dora’s Story” began with Dora and a question of whether it was possible to write a gpat novel about the life of a goat in the spirit of “Black Beauty” and a horse. I have known a lot of goats, met quite a few goat owners and heard about other livestock owners.

A list of possible things that could happen to a goat started forming. Each thing brought in the type of owner who could trigger the event. The list got quite long.

Emily from the goat novel Dora's Story
In Part 2 of Dora’s Story Emily gets and names Dora to participate in a 4-H livestock project. She and Dora become fast friends. When her mother sells Dora, Emily is devastated and tries to find her.

The novel might have remained only a list until Emily appeared. Then the story had a focus: Emily and Dora were best friends, parted for some reason leading to a search and a final reunion. This goat novel would be easy to write.

I was so wrong.

Confidently I started writing. The first part was so easy. The second part started getting sticky. The fourth part fell into shambles. Perhaps this goat novel was never meant to be written.

Leonard from the goat novel Dora's Story
Leonard rescues Dora and they become fast friends in Part 4 of Dora’s Story. Leonard has had to give up his cattle and retirement is not where he wants to be. Dora and the other two goats provide Leonard with livestock and something interesting to do each day.

Except I knew the ending.

My list of story points became a time line. My goat shows became pages of classes, goats entered, goat owners, awards. The shambles got rewritten.

Shawn from the goat novel Dora's Story
Shawn, from Part 6 of Dora’s Story, is the baby of the family. Dora becomes his goat. The two set off to conquer the goat shows.

My goat novel “Dora’s Story” was written and went into rewrites and more rewrites. The timeline was off. More rewrites. More corrections.

My goat novel was like a movie in my head. I saw the goats, the people and wanted to have an illustration for each part as well as having a cover with Dora on it. Thanks to Martha Cunningham those illustrations became reality.

And “Dora’s Story” was written.

Read some pages from “Dora’s Story“.