Ready to join tens of thousands of writers around the world and write a draft of your novel in 30 days? November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, and whether you register officially on the website and follow the rules (175-pages/50,000 words) or not, it is a great time to take advantage of collective creative steam. And in order to try, you must truly give yourself permission to work quickly, and messily, through the first draft. Is it a good idea? Yes, if you get the basics of your novel clear first. According to NaNoWriMo rules, you can begin …
Tag: writing fiction
Deep Problems, Big Story
When it comes to creating a great protagonist, the character with the biggest, deepest problem wins. In my last blog entry–Does Your Story’s “Equation” Add Up?– I touched on the terms “story catalyst” and “deep-story problem”. I want to discuss them both in a bit more depth because they are crucial to the creation of a marketable story. A truly effective story catalyst (also referred to as inciting incident) kicks off the narrative, hooks the reader, and sets the protagonist on a journey (dealing with the deep-story problem) that will end in a life-changing crisis and climax. Because they are …
Does Your Story’s “Equation” Add Up?
As an author, 2010 is my year of collaboration. I’ve been working with former CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson on a female-driven espionage action thriller. At times the process has included input from our two literary agents, select editors, a film agent, and various sub-rights agents on other continents. Needless to say, I’ve had story mechanics for highly commercial books on my mind. In my work as a coach and consultant, I read manuscripts on a regular basis. Often, I can identify what’s working–or not–within the first 20 pages. Assuming you are aiming to sell to a publishing house, your …
Fiction, the Mind, and Ghosts
“So far we’ve looked at two places where you can put the character emotion you’ve stripped out of your dialogue mechanics–into the dialogue itself and into the language of your descriptions written from an intimate point of view. A third place is interior monologue. Movies and television may be influencing writers to write more visually, using immediate scenes with specific points of view to put their stories across. But fiction can always accomplish something that visual media will never be able to touch.” From Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King In other words: The fiction writer …
Quote of the Day on Point of View
Today’s quote from Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass: “Point of view is more than just a set of eyes looking upon the world. Those eyes come with a mouth and a brain. Those must come into play, too, or your novel will have the chilliness of a movie camera. There may be times when objective point of view is useful, but by and large it is best to use the singular advantage that the novel has over other art forms: the ability to bring us deeply inside a character’s experience.”
Dreaming Awake
“Creative writers make believe. They train themselves sharply to observe the world around them, to notice the unnoticed. They reach back into their past lives for rich characters, vivid settings, and meaningful events. But at some point, the search for raw material veers toward another source–it turns inward to what isn’t, wasn’t, and could never be, yet somehow seems right, real, and true.” From: THE CREATIVE PROCESS by Carol Burke and Molly Best Tinsley
Of All the Stupid Things
As my friend, writer Alexandra Diaz, celebrates the publication of her wonderful debut novel, Of All the Stupid Things, she also shares some advice and thoughts about the writing life. *What advice do you have to writers? If writing is what you really want to do then keep at it, and keep at it some more. All artists encounter people who tell them that they will never make it, but you’re the only one who can make that decision. *What do you think was the most crucial move you made in your writing life that pushed you toward publication? Whether …
Gabriel Garcia Marquez on Imagery, Memory and First Lines
The next time you read a novel, stop after the opening line. What promise is the writer making to the reader? A beautifully crafted novel will begin to work its magic from the first words on the page. Below is a brief excerpt of an interview of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in conversation with Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza in the marvelous book, THE FRAGRANCE OF GUAVA: Which visual image did you use for One Hundred Years of Solitude? An old man taking a child to see some ice which was on show as a circus curiosity. Was it your grandfather, Colonel Marquez? …
Fiction According to John Irving: “You might say I back into a novel.”
Fiction according to John Irving: “You might say I back into a novel. All the important discoveries–at the end of a book–these are the things I have to know before I know where to begin.” In his lucid book THE FICTION EDITOR, THE NOVEL, AND THE NOVELIST, editor and author Thomas McCormack quotes Irving to say: “I want to know how a book feels after the main events are over. The authority of the storyteller’s voice–of mine, anyway–comes from knowing how it all comes out before you begin…” This quote comes in the midst of Thomas McCormack’s discussion of what …
Story Form–It’s a jungle out there!
I had a call yesterday from a writer who wasn’t sure if the story she wants to write will best be told as fiction or memoir. We talked about fear of exposure and how fictionalizing a life story does not necessarily do anything to address that issue. We talked about the kinds of books she loves to read. At the end of our brief conversation, she asked if I had an exercise that would guide her along a discovery process to find her story’s form. I have a simple step, I said, to take you in that direction. Sit down …