Before I Go To Sleep author is inviting suggestions for new book

Steve, whose debut novel Before I Go To Sleep became a huge international success selling more than 6,000,000 copies worldwide and was made into a film starring Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth, is calling the new project The Experiment.

Thousands of aspiring writers are expected to collaborate in what will be the UK’s first open-source novel written in real time, right now by Steve. The hope is to lift the lid on the mysterious process of writing a novel. As Steve writes, so he puts the chapters online. The idea is that anyone can interact and suggest setting, plot twists and character as the novel emerges in real time. People can interact via platforms including www.sjwatson-books.com/the-writers-lodge; https://sjwatson.substack.com; https://twitter.com/SJ_Watson; https://www.instagram.com/sj_watson; or https://www.facebook.com/S.J.Watson.Writer.

“I have been doing a newsletter for a while which provides a very interesting way to have direct connection with readers and other writers in a way that is not mediated by the publisher or an editor. It's a great way of sharing what I'm writing, and there are a lot of people who are out there reading my work who are interested in the process of writing in general but also there are other people out there who are perhaps wanting to become writers themselves. I began to do something that I called The Writer’s Lodge, a section of my newsletter where I was sharing tips, and the idea was to bridge the two aspects.

“I write what I call draft zero. It is a draft of a project where I'm trying not to censor myself and to write as freely as I can safe in the knowledge that nobody will see the work. But I thought with this actually I'd like to put my money where my mouth is and show what that first draft is, that first drafts are always bad and that you have to be prepared to do bad writing in order to do good writing.

“So I thought I would share my draft zero. I'm writing in effect a serialised novel. At the moment it's about a chapter a month and the idea is that I regularly upload a new chapter. I just wanted to make the whole thing as open as possible and have my readers share their thoughts and also make suggestions. I started with no preconceived ideas when I started off by asking people for their ideas, for scenarios or characters or lines of dialogue.

“I have been doing this for more than a decade as my full-time job though I don't like to think of it as a job and now this is a really great way of writing which is freeing and which means that I don’t have to write in any fixed way. I'm not obliged to take the suggestions. As I get further into it, I'm having to have my own ideas as well but I'm trying my very best to stay open minded. If there isn’t an idea that flies or is inspiring then obviously I reserve the right to come up with my own ideas…

“This is something that's going to take as long as it takes, but actually it is something that is much more about the process than it is about the result. It would be nice if I have a novel at the end of it but that's not the goal. There is an aspect about it which is about teaching. Just because you have a best-seller under your belt it does not mean that you find it easy. If the whole thing falls apart in my hands then in a way that is also success. It will demonstrate that it is still a very difficult process even if you have a publishing deal.”