KNOW YOUR GENRE
Whenever I’d query to agents or talk to them at conferences, it used to be pounded into me that I needed to know my specific genre. It was the kiss of death to fumble around if the agent asked you your genre and you couldn’t answer them. Nowadays, it is not necessarily always the case but I still believe the prejudice holds for most of the agents out there. The reasoning for that is the agents want to know which shelf the book belongs on. The big problem with that is when I go to Barnes & Noble and look at the bookshelves. Of course, there are the romances, the mysteries, the westerns and the science fiction. However, everything else is now bundled into general fiction. No longer are there shelves for icky bug (horror), thrillers, steampunk, what have you. Where did those shelves all go? They went out of business with Borders and all the mom and pop bookstores!
There is another very important reason to know your genre. If you don’t, how are you going to know your audience? Forget about what shelf it goes on. The agent is going to want to know who you expect to sell your book to.
There is nothing wrong with going your own way. However, if you do, make sure your story makes sense and has a hook that people can follow. If your story is about something nobody is interested in, well… you see my point?
I would list all the genres and subgenres there are, but to tell the truth, I don’t know them. I’m also too lazy to do the research! I will tell you that there are the biggies like mystery, thrillers, romance, science fiction, fantasy, western, etc. However, there are now so many sub-genres it would take me days to research them all and I would still probably miss a few. When you sit down to write your literary masterpiece, you should have an idea. My only advice is make sure there is an audience out there for it because that is one of the first questions an agent will ask you (if they don’t still ask about the shelf). That will also be your biggest problem when you go on line to seek out an agent. Most list specific genres they are interested in. Make sure you pay attention to that before you waste their and your time.
Know your genre! Research it so you know what you are getting yourself into. You could take the approach that you want to write say, a fantasy. You decide you don’t want to be corrupted by what is out there so you write it completely on your own based on what you think fantasy is, or should be. Once done, you start pitching your “uncorrupted” fantasy to agents. One takes a look at it and tells you, honestly, that you don’t have a clue what the genre is all about. You have all the “facts” wrong. Back to the drawing board. In a way, you may have invented an entirely new genre, but it is something that will not sell because it doesn’t follow enough of the rules of the genre. You have to know your genre so do the research! There is nothing wrong with bending a genre, but you have to know the genre to know what to bend.
In the case of a story that is out of the blue and doesn’t fit any genre, such as general fiction, you will have a much tougher sell. Which agent are you going to pitch it to? Which audience are you going to go for? These are things you have to think about before you dive in and start writing. I’m not saying don’t do it, I’m just saying you might want to think about it before you take the plunge. I’m all for creating new genres. I’d just hate to see a new writer get frustrated right off the get-go without having a success under their belt before they go off the deep end.
Some thoughts to contemplate.
FLASHBACKS
A while back, our writer’s group president, Jo Wilkins wrote a short blurb on our group Facebook page about using flashbacks in your story. I’d like to expand on that since it has hit home with me, particularly in my own reading experiences of late.
First off, what are flashbacks? Flashbacks are way of jumping to the past to bring relevant information into the present story. They are great tools for giving the reader background on why things are happening. They set the scene. They justify why certain things happen. They give relevant background information. Examples are prologues or when a character remembers something from their past.
I just finished a book, which shall remain nameless, that relied heavily on flashback chapters to an abbey in the 8th century. The flashbacks droned on in details I didn’t care about and had little to do with moving the story. Every time another flashback came along, I dreaded having to slog through it, yet I didn’t dare pass it up for fear of missing out on some essential clue to the rest of the story. Turns out, I could’ve skipped the first two thirds of each flashback chapter, read the last three pages and not missed much. Are you all starting to see a problem here?
This book was actually published. Overall, it was a pretty decent story, yet, the editors allowed the author to get away with this droning on for, I’m guessing here, the sake of thickening up the book. The story would have flowed so much better if the editor had red-penned a good chunk of that irrelevant material. I was not alone in that feeling from some of the critiques received on Amazon either.
I am asking you, as a writer, to please not punish your readers with that drivel! Keeping in mind that the book was published several years ago, it might have been a fluke that it got past an agent in the first place. Most agents never would have let it get that far, especially for a first time writer.
As a writer with integrity, it is up to you to write and present the best story you can. It is not your job to punish your readers with irrelevant material. When your story requires a flashback, make sure this flashback is important. Make sure it moves the story along. Make sure that everything presented in it is necessary to the current story, whatever time frame it is set in. It should be written to the same standard as the main plot. You should not bog it down with irrelevant story lines and side issues that sidetrack the reader. The last thing you want to do is lose focus. How many times have you read halfway through a book and put it down? I have countless times. Maybe some of them were because of irrelevant flashbacks.
In my own writing, the only whole-chapter flashbacks I have used so far have been prologues. Any other flashbacks are the occasional character internal memory, which I have learned to keep real short. For those internal thoughts, most writers use italics (for contrast) and it’s not a good idea to use more than a paragraph or two of that font or the reader gets irritated.
There are some incidents where a character must recall a past incident to the other characters. This is done through dialogue and I don’t consider this a flashback. However, the rules still apply. Whatever my character says still has to be relevant.
Please be considerate of your readers. As my friend Donald Riggio, who wrote the wonderful Seven-Inch Vinyl says, “Don’t be afraid of words.” However, don’t punish your readers with them either. Happy writing!
DESCRIBING CHARACTERS
In the good old days, it used to be almost mandatory to describe your characters, down to the most minute detail. Not too many decades ago, it was common to see the old cliché of the character looking in the mirror (or seeing their reflection in a department store window) describing themselves through internal dialogue or through narrative. One way or the other, you had to describe each and every major character and most of the minor ones. Things have changed. No longer is it necessary to describe characters in detail. In fact, in many cases, agents and editors actually encourage authors to leave it up to the reader to draw their own picture.
Is there one correct way? Not really. There are, as usual, both extremes. Describe in detail and don’t describe at all. In certain instances, each method works. Which one is right for you? From the trends that I’ve seen, unless you are an established author, or write chick-lit or romance, the most common method to describe characters, especially for male-oriented stories or general appeal novels seems to be to drop an occasional hint and let the reader draw their own picture.
I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way. A big nono was the character looking in the mirror (or seeing his or her reflection). That was the place to describe the character in detail, which became a list (which I’ve discussed earlier). I left nothing to the imagination. If you happen to describe a character with traits the reader doesn’t like, they may be biased against that character throughout the story, no matter how the character acts. The character may remind them of someone they do or don’t like. I say, don’t make it easy for them. Let them decide.
A second big nono was comparing a character to a celebrity. Never EVER describe a character as looking like “Danny Glover” or “Megan Fox” or “Katy Sagal” or “Brad Pitt.” By doing so, not only are you being lazy, but you are biasing your reader. What if your reader hates that actor? What if that actor does something extremely controversial in real life? Or, that actor plays a character so far from what your character is doing? It will draw your reader right out of the story.
Detach, the hero in my Gold series fudges the rules a bit. I describe him as looking either like the late Russian leader Vladimir Lenin, with hair, or a crazed biker. Is that comparing him to a celebrity? In a way I used to think so. The reason I decided to keep his description was as much an inside joke with the other characters in the story as it was the fact that most people today have no idea who Lenin was. A few years ago, I saw a documentary on Lenin and saw him in disguise with a wig on. Detach didn’t look a thing like how I pictured him with hair! That was when I threw in the crazed biker description. His real description came from a biker I once knew who somehow reminded me of Lenin. Crazy rationale, but it’s worked. I’ve steered away from that ever since.
In certain genres, such as women’s fiction and romance, the readers like the character described in detail. In that case, you still have to be very careful how you draw the character! Even if you’re describing Brad Pitt, or Fabio or George Clooney, make sure you don’t actually describe Brad Pitt, Fabio or George Clooney by name! You may describe them exactly in your mind, but your reader is likely to paint a different picture.
For most genres, drop a hint here and there. Joe stretched his tall frame as he got out of the car. Mary rubbed her blue eyes in the smoggy air. Andy tugged on his goatee while he pondered his next move. Throw these little things out but spread them throughout scenes, not all at once. Gradually draw a picture.
I decided to write this piece now because I have been keeping track of character descriptions of the past two dozen books I’ve read. Not a one of them has directly described a main character in detail. I thought about it and for most characters, I have no idea what they look like except for a general idea. You know what? I don’t care. What they look like isn’t important. The story is what matters. Of course, I’m not reading romances so I’m sure that is a factor. I read thrillers, icky bug and mysteries. The only characters that are ever described in detail are occasional bad guys and special characters, usually to magnify evil or bad traits (sometimes in stereotypical fashion). However, the main characters usually don’t get that kind of detail.
I’m not telling you not to describe your characters in detail, but you don’t have to. It’s something you can leave to the reader’s imagination.
SWEARING IN YOUR STORY
There’s always the time and place for a well-placed colorful metaphor, as Spock calls those words in the best of the original Star Trek movies (in my opinion). It’s entirely up to the author and the genre whether to use them or not.
When I first started writing, I just went for it. No holds barred. I wrote like I talked at work and at home. As it turned out, didn’t work, no cigar. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that writing the way people talk doesn’t come off well on paper. When it comes to swearing, that’s tenfold.
I’ve mentioned this before regarding accents and it also applies to every day speech which is full of mannerisms, quirks and swearing. It reads terrible! I’m bringing this up because it you’re going to use swearing in your work, you have to use it discreetly or not only does it become annoying, it loses its’ impact.
I started out writing present-day earth-based science fiction. The characters were military and civilians working together and they talked based on the environment I worked in, which was not exactly PG rated. As I’ve stated many times before, that first effort will never see light of day. I became more serious with effort number two when I went for icky bug and wrote The Greenhouse. I decided that since it was icky bug and already full of death, gore and mayhem, the liberal use of colorful metaphors wouldn’t make any difference. However, over time I noticed I was a bit heavy-handed with the profuse use of those words, but was still too dumb to know how to throttle it down, editorially speaking. I didn’t have a writer’s group in those days.
My third novel, Lusitania Gold went for Action/Adventure (which today I have to call Adventure/Thriller to be more politically correct in the publishing world). I was going for a Clive Cussler vein (who didn’t use those words) but a bit rougher and more adult. I still used colorful metaphors but not quite as many as in The Greenhouse. As time passed and I wrote more of the Gold series stories, I ended up in Las Vegas and found the Henderson Writer’s Group. Over a span of about two years or so, I had a chance to read Lusitania Gold to the group and discovered how I was overusing the colorful metaphors. Though the speech was realistic, it didn’t come off well on paper. When I read it back to the group, it became glaringly obvious. I learned to throttle the words back to the bare minimum to get the most impact with the fewest uses of them.
I also came to a marketing decision that I think some of you might want to consider. My Adventure/Thriller series is six books, so far. I would like it to appeal to the widest audience possible. I also started a fantasy series with Meleena’s Adventures. In one the Gold series, I could use colorful metaphors, but chose not to for the widest audience. In the other, those words would not be used at all in a fantasy setting. Nowadays, I keep my colorful metaphors to just the icky bug stories. Icky bug is a rather narrow genre so I have no expectations of reaching a huge audience. In a way, it’s a much freer environment, but restricted in where I can realistically take it.
When you decide whether to use them or not, if you don’t already have religious or moral mores against their usage, consider your market, genre, and potential audience before you plunge forward.
Okay, a lot of philosophy and not much instruction. The reason for that is there doesn’t need to be much instruction for this one. There is one simple rule that I’ve already used for writing in accents. Drop the f-bomb (or whatever word you choose) occasionally for emphasis to let the reader know the character is using it, but revert to regular language for the majority of the dialogue. Don’t overdo it or you’ll jerk the reader right out of the story and into the grammar instead.
How much is too much is still a fine line, and there is no specific rule. If you read your work to an audience, you’ll be able to tell pretty quick whether you’ve crossed the line. Just watch how often your audience cringes!
DIALOGUE TAGS PART 2
In Part 1, we were left with this:
“It’s time we gathered our things and headed for home,” Jane said.
“I agree,” Roger replied.
“We’ll come back tomorrow and try again.”
“I’ll have to ask if I can get off work early.”
Weak. Could be better. If you look at most novels nowadays, you will find that rarely do authors go for straight dialogue. They’ll mix in a bit of action, often taking the place of tags.
Jane stretched her legs. “It’s time we gathered our things and headed for home.”
Roger nodded. “I agree.”
“We’ll come back tomorrow and try again,” she added as she picked up her jacket.
“I’ll have to ask if I can get off work early.”
Notice now how the tags are basically gone, replaced by action instead. The only flaw now is in the third line where there is an as which I’ll fix next. As is a weak word that I use way too much. It is a word that should be used sparingly. Also, she added is a tag mixed with picked up which is action. You don’t need both.
Jane stretched her legs. “It’s time we gathered our things and headed for home.”
Roger nodded. “I agree.”
“We’ll come back tomorrow and try again.” Jane picked up her jacket.
“I’ll have to ask if I can get off work early.”
We’re getting there except now I’ve created a different problem, one I warned about before with using said too much, except this time I did it with action tags. I put one action tag at the beginning and the other at the end of the sentence. As you fudge things around and adjust your prose, you have to be aware of this and watch out for it. It may take several reads to catch on to it. Also, don’t fall into a pattern trap where you have several sets of dialogue patterns that match within the same scene. Even though the words might be different, the patterns might be the same. A reader will pick up on that. You have to mix things up!
Jane stretched her legs. “It’s time we gathered our things and headed for home.”
“I agree.”
“We’ll come back tomorrow and try again.”
Roger handed Jane her jacket. “I’ll have to ask if I can get off work early.”
One of many ways to fix that little piece. No tags at all.
Of course, you can use tags, but they are not necessary. You can use action instead. You can imply the tags. Whatever you do, you must somehow let the reader know who is speaking.
In conversations where more than two people are talking, it is critical that you identify who is saying what. It can be through a tag, an action, or a manner of speaking (accent used discreetly). In my Gold series adventure/thrillers, some scenes revolve around conference meetings with six or more people. I have to positively identify who is speaking. I originally did it through plain old tags, but learned the hard way that seeing all those tags over and over again made reading the dialogue repetitious. I soon cut some out with implied tags which cut a few dozen in an average conversation. Then I honed it a bit more by adding a few action tags and came up with a healthier balance. If I were to rewrite the scenes today, I might change all of my tags to actions. I’m still up in the air on that but I’m leaning that direction.
It’s all a matter of individual taste. Some authors demand tags while others abhor them. When I read stories nowadays, I notice who do and don’t use tags and how authors use them. I prefer the minimalist approach. Maybe other readers will also, unconsciously. It easy to just add tags. It’s harder to do less with finesse. Just some thoughts to complicate your life!
DIALOGUE TAGS PART 1
Good dialogue is essential to any story. Without it, at least to me, a story would be mesmerizing, boring to the extreme. Good dialogue is not just a matter of snappy lines, but how they’re presented on the page.
There have been several trends about how authors are supposed to handle dialogue. One is to use so and so said after each line. Two is never to use so and so said after each line. Three is a mix of the two. Four is to be creative and use other words instead. Five, six??? What is the right choice? The answer is really about as simple and as complex as whichever way the wind blows. However, I can give you my take on things after many years of writing mistakes, reading what I think works, and insights I’ve picked up from talking to agents and listening to them argue and discuss it with other authors and agents.
Using tags consistently comes off as repetitious and boring.
“It’s time we gather our things and head for home,” Jane said.
“I agree,” Roger said.
“We’ll come back tomorrow and try again,” Jane said.
“I’ll have to ask if I can get off work early,” Roger said.
I know I’ve taken that little snippet to the extreme, but even a first-time author’s nose should smell something rotten. An easy fix is to mix things up a bit.
“It’s time we gather our things and head for home,” Jane said.
“I agree,” Roger replied.
“We’ll come back tomorrow and try again,” Jane added.
“I’ll have to ask if I can get off work early,” Roger said.
By varying the tags, some of the repetition is eliminated. However, the tags themselves are still repetitious.
“It’s time we gather our things and head for home,” Jane said.
“I agree,” Roger replied.
Jane added, “We’ll come back tomorrow and try again.”
Roger mumbled, “I’ll have to ask if I can get off work early.”
Notice how each tag is a different word. Also, two of them are at the beginning of the line while two are at the end. Better, but still no cigar. The dialogue comes off as stilted and awkward.
A trick I learned a long time ago, especially when there are only two people in the conversation, is that tags need not be used for every line. Who is speaking can be implied by the order in which they are spoken. The trick is to throw in a tag here and there so that the reader doesn’t lose track of who is speaking. Another trick, which is a separate topic, is to use characteristics of speech. Sometimes in lieu of tags, one can tell who is speaking by how they say it, eliminating many tags. That subject will be discussed fuller in another article.
With a bit of tweaking, the original dialogue can be changed as follows:
“It’s time we gathered our things and headed for home,” Jane said.
“I agree,” Roger replied.
“We’ll come back tomorrow and try again.”
“I’ll have to ask if I can get off work early.”
If there were a next line, there should be a tag to remind the reader who is speaking. That dialogue isn’t what I’d personally write, but it demonstrates my point. It can be improved still further.
In part two of dialogue tags, we’ll talk about using action instead of tags. We’ll also discuss using no tags at all.
Until then, happy writing!
WRITING CONTESTS
Step right up! Pay your $10, your $20, your $50. Submit your story to our writing contest. See your name in print! Win big!
Ahem…
How many of you have been tempted by writing contests? How many of you have seen them advertised? If you are a writer, you’ve seen them around. They are as tempting as heroin. A naked girl to a horny teenager. New shoes to a girl! A sports car to a middle-aged guy! Pick your metaphor.
To put this bluntly, most writing contests, especially when they ask for money are a great way to spend money. Period. I could’ve used a much more graphic metaphor, but you get the point and I have to keep this family friendly (more or less).
I made the mistake of being drawn in to one of those boondoggles once and got burned. I lost $10 in the process. Luckily, it was only $10 but it could have been worse. What was the result? I’m getting ahead of myself.
This contest was from a no-name publisher out of Orange County, California. They were just starting out and wanted to sponsor a contest for full manuscripts to find “the next big thing.” Since most contests were for short stories, I figured $10 wasn’t much to charge for a full MS, so what the heck! After all, the sponsors have their costs too, don’t they?
Said contest organizers probably received several hundred manuscripts. Whether they actually made any money off of it I have no idea. Let’s just say that every single submitter lost their money except for one. That one got the publishing deal. The prize? A published book by a firm that failed almost immediately. The book? Uh… I can’t even remember and I’m pretty sure it dropped like a lead balloon. Since the publisher went belly up within a few months of publication, the poor author probably got stuck with a garage full of books unless they managed to slip into a deal with someone else. What it boiled down to is that that one author got something for his $10, but every other author just donated $10 to that author’s publishing contract. Is it starting to become clear now?
Short story contests are almost as bad. The fees vary but when you consider how many people submit to them, then consider who the judges might be. If you don’t make the cut, you are just helping to pay for the winners publishing fees. Now consider if you happen to be one of the lucky ones. What do you really think you are going to get? Sure, maybe a publishing credit, but consider my thoughts:
I’d rather spend that $10-$50 on postage and printing to submit my short story (or novel) to legitimate publishers on the off-chance they might actually like my story. If so, it might be published in a legitimate publication that will actually be seen by the public.
Think also of this. How often do you go to the book store and see a short story compilation or anthology (or a novel) on the shelf that came from a writing contest?
Okay, I’m waiting…
What would you rather spend your money on?
LISTS
Lists, lists, everywhere there are lists.
The crew consisted of John, the barber, Mary the receptionist, Gary the mechanic, Ruth the pregnant housewife, Harry the old man, Aldo the kindly Dwarf, Zorba the mime, Charlie the deaf mute, and Hillary the vice president of the women’s library league. They staked out the soda shop and watched for anything unusual.
How long did it take before your eyes glazed over? That is the problem with lists. They can be repetitious, boring, too much information at one time and tedious. They can develop a rhythm that puts the reader in a kind of hypnosis that makes them lose their place. Some readers eat this stuff up. The more words the better. However, most contemporary readers are not as patient as they used to be. They’d like to get to the point. Some say people don’t read anymore, but that simply isn’t true. People still read. However, the way they read has changed. Long endless wordy tomes are not as easily digested as they used to be. People want something that is more palatable to a faster lifestyle. Does that mean you should be afraid of words? Of course not! Just present them in a more palatable fashion, that’s all.
Now, is this a list?
The dark castle loomed overhead. Two towers rose above crenellated parapets, each with gun turrets bristling with cannons. The cone-shaped roofs held slick red tiles with hooks lining the seams. Every other stone in the masonry pattern contained a piece of coal set into the center of the block. Green moss grew down from the center crenellations as if green slime were overflowing from inside the castle walls. A red glow emanated from the un-glassed windows dotting the wall under the parapets. This being the west side of the castle, there were no doors. The blank wall below the windows ended in a deep moat filled with murky water and vicious creatures of unknown species.
If one were to stretch things, it might be considered a list. However, it is really a narrative description. That’s not the same as a list. A description can carry on forever and become as boring as a list. However a short paragraph, similar to the above, is perfectly okay. Maybe even twice as long, if the verbiage is colorful and interesting. Be careful what you define as a list before you start cutting!
A list can be used for effect. For example (taken from my short story Galf):
Whenever we would go down to visit Grandpa in Playa Del Ray (Playa Della Ray), whether Ivan and Ray were there or not, the conversation was usually about galf. Galf clubs, galf balls, galf carts, galf tees, galf courses. I mustn’t forget galf pros and galf score cards.
In this case, the list was used for effect. I kept it short, only two short sentences, ten and nine words each.
If you are just trying to pass off information, don’t do it with lists. Spread it out in bits and pieces so the reader never sees it as a list and never has a chance to get bored and skip the information.
There are many more examples but you should get the idea.
Happy writing.
SHOWING NOT TELLING
Geez, I hate those words!
They are my nemeses, the curse of my writing existence, the Phoenix that carries me down in flames. For the longest time, I just didn’t get it. No matter how hard I tried, I could not see or tell the difference between showing and telling. It’s taken years to be able to notice the difference. I still get irritated when I hear those words. There is a commercial for Netflix where this woman tells a character “Show, don’t tell” and I just want to slap her silly.
Showing and not telling seems almost like a contradiction in a story. After all, you as an author are telling a story, right? Wrong! You are showing a story. As weird as it sounds, your job is to show a story, as much as possible. Now as hard as it may be to get your mind around this concept, well, at least it was for me, a story is a lot more interesting if it is shown through words than told through words.
The best way I can demonstrate that is by an example.
Mary went into the house and told Jane that there was something going on at the office and it creeped her out, but she didn’t know what to do about it. Jane at first, didn’t believe her, but after a bit of convincing, had to admit there may be something to what Mary was saying. They decided they should go back down there and check it out together.
What you have is a bit of narrative where the author is telling the reader about something that transpired. While there is nothing outright wrong with that, besides being a bit passive, there is a big problem that many authors cannot see right off. The entire paragraph is a bit tell. This is where I used to get into trouble all the time. I couldn’t see it for what it was. I was describing something that happened, but what I couldn’t see was that I was being lazy and not turning it into something more active. That is what you, as an author need to watch out for.
That paragraph needs to be shown. How do we do that? Instead of telling the reader what happened, turn it into dialogue and action. Make it happen in real time instead of something that happened in the past.
Mary went through the door and faced Jane at the kitchen table. “There’s something going on at the office and it’s creeping me out. Scott keeps going in the back room and locking the door. He’s up to something.”
Jane shrugged. “He’s always up to something.”
“No, this is different.” Mary grabbed her shoulder. “Have you noticed how he looks at everyone lately? The way he smells? He has this gleam in his eye.”
“I…” Jane squirmed. “Now that you mention it, he does seem a little off.”
“Have you ever tried to go into that back room?”
“Well, no. Not lately.”
Mary slapped the table. “I did, yesterday. Guess what he did? He practically bit my head off. Sheila from accounting heard him too.”
Jane stood and grabbed her purse. “Maybe we’d better take a look for ourselves.” She glanced at the clock. “He’ll be gone for the next few hours.”
“I’ll drive.” Mary jiggled her keys.
Notice the difference? It is much longer, but it went from a boring and mundane paragraph telling about something to a dynamic scene that showed something.
Now for the tricky part. There is nothing wrong with telling in a story. However, there is a time and place for it. Telling should be kept to a minimum. When it is possible to show it, show it instead. You’ll have a much better story that way.
WRITING STYLE – HOW WE MIGHT GO ABOUT IT
I’ve talked a little about this before but I think it’s worth going into a bit more detail. There are many ways to go about writing your story. A popular method is to outline the story, then fill in the blanks. There is a course one of our Henderson Writer’s Group members, Gregory Kompes mentioned a few years ago. It is called, Write Your Novel in 20 Minutes. This course is a perfect example of outlining the entire book first. While that works for some people, it doesn’t for me. I’ll go into my method a little later.
There are many advantages to outlining a book. You can lay down the plot, see it clearly and fill in all the holes. That way you have it all organized and ready to go. Then all you have to do is write to the outline and voila! Instant novel. It makes the writing process more efficient and can avoid many pitfalls brought on by insufficient planning and lack of research.
As I’ve said before, when I set about to write a novel, I only have two steps in planning. Number one is, “Where do I start?” Number two is “Where do I end?” Everything else in-between is a total surprise. My creative process is an adventure, it’s a fantasy trip, it’s an escape from the realities of life. To me, writing is like watching a movie as it’s being created. There are bound to be pitfalls with this for some writers. It won’t work for everyone, but it works for me.
When I start out to write a novel, I NEVER outline it, I NEVER plan out each chapter, and I NEVER know exactly what’s going to take place. Part of the fun is just letting it flow. That’s my creative process. Does it create problems? For me it doesn’t. I’ve had to eliminate chapters here and there, take out an extraneous story line vector, but never anything major.
When it comes to research, I cross those bridges when I come to them. Something may inspire me to go one way or the other. If I reach a bridge I can’t cross, I diverge to a bridge I can cross. With an outline, a writer can see these bridges before they get there, so in that case, an outline saves a lot of grief. However, for me, I find these predicaments nothing but minor divergences. There is still that element of total surprise as the story unfolds.
As for quantity, in a typical day, I will write 2,000 to 3,000 words. I have done as much as 5,000 words in a day, especially when I have to flesh out an idea and don’t want to lose my train of thought. It is when the rules slow me down too much that I have to throw them aside and get the idea down on the computer. As an example, I wrote my first fantasy novel, Meleena’s Adventures – Treasure of the Umbrunna (originally called Slab) in 29 days. It is short for a fantasy, 79,000 words, but at least I wasn’t slowed down by research. I incorporated as much of what I’ve learned as I could, and think I did pretty well. Later, during the editing process, I found areas that required some research. That is when I addressed those details, not interrupting the original thought stream.
Meleena’s Adventures was written from the single POV of the main character. It is third person, as I hate writing first person. I decided to keep things simple. I mainly had to watch out for omniscient POV and author intrusion. I didn’t get into anyone else’s head until the very last chapter. That sped things up. I haven’t seen it done by others that often, at least in 3rd person.
What works for me may not for anyone else. If I had to plan out each chapter, worry about each word, double check my syntax, I’d never get anything done. That would just suck the life out of my inspiration. But that’s just me. I’m presenting it here for you as on way to go.
Happy writing.
The Worlds Of Fred Rayworth 