tools, systems and strategies to help you write your novel
I added a new post over on Saturday Writers about the Best Author Response EVER to a negative review.
If you’re published or nearly so, check out Carla Cassidy’s response to a less-than-flattering review of one of her books. We could all learn a lesson from her. And sell more books in the process!
October’s almost here. If you’re looking for a low-cost writing workshop, I’ve got several for you:
And a special treat – The Poisoned Pen Web Con (PPWebCon) – a one-day virtual mystery conference. There will be video, audio and text-based presentations by mystery and crime authors from all over the world. There’s a mix of pre-recorded material available and live events. The guests of honor are Dana Stabenow and Lee Child. The cost is only $25 and it’s being held on Oct. 24. Sign up today.
My writer friend Amy called me the other day with terrific news. Rachel Caine, the author of the Weather Warden series and the Morganville Vampire series was going to be speaking at the West Des Moines Library that afternoon. Yes, THAT afternoon. After squealing internally (love her books!), I made hasty plans to get over to the library by 5 p.m.
Rachel was a delight. She gave a fun presentation on her Morganville Vampire series, answered lots of questions, graciously signed books and posed for photos. (And wore killer shoes.)
Some things from her talk:
In her presentation, she included Fun Facts about her characters and the settings, like why she named this character a particular name, why she gave one character a particular job, why she chose a certain town as the setting for the series. Even what perfume a certain character wore and why she wore that kind. (It was a blend from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, by the way.) She also included her inspiration pictures of what the characters looked like. It was interesting to learn some of the behind-the-scenes details of her novels. (This is a good idea for other authors to steal.)
“Never Say No” to your agent’s/editor’s book idea suggestion. In Rachel’s case, her agent suggested Rachel do a Young Adult vampire series. Rachel said no, young adult wasn’t her thing and she had no ideas for a vampire series. She reconsidered after a phone call with a friend who assured Rachel that she could come up with an idea which she did before the end of the call. The result became the successful Morganville Vampire series.
The British versions of her books now include a special short story written just for that edition that won’t be published anywhere else. Seem odd? It turns out that the British edition usually lags behind the American version by two months or more and many British readers were buying the American version so they didn’t have to wait. That decreased sales of the British version, so Rachel worked with the publisher to provide incentive for readers to buy the British versions.
One of the fans asked if her books would come out in hardcover. (Currently they are all paperback.) She said no, because of the economy. Fewer readers are buying hardcovers due to the price and some author that are in hardcover are suffering. A paperback is cheaper to buy, so she’s happy to stay in paperback if that means more sales.
She gets up at 4:30 a.m. and writes at a coffee shop from 5:30 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. She then goes to work at her day job. (Yes, even with as many books as she has out, she still has a full-time job.) After work she answers emails from readers. On the weekends, she still gets up early and writes from 5:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
I had a great time meeting Rachel and encourage all writers to attend author talks and book signings to show support, even if you aren’t a fan. The opportunity to ask another writer about their writing and publishing experiences is invaluable.
And these are the shoes!
Here is the fourth set of links to Louise Doughty’s columns on A Novel in a Year. The columns are available on The Daily Telegraph website, though they are deep in the archives, and have also been gathered together and published in a book, A Novel in a Year: From First Page to Last in 52 Weeks, available through Amazon.
Week 37 – Metaphors can be dangerous: use sparingly, or they blow up in your face
Week 38 – Be careful not to slow your story down with too much clumsy exposition
Week 39 – Dialogue can be tricky but it is a powerful tool for characterisation
Week 40 – For a novel, you need a plot – and that means events, change and conflict
Week 41 – Dialogue may be easy to write reams of, but make sure it adds to the plot
Week 42 – Guard against climaxitis with careful positioning of drama and consequence
Week 43 – Step back, then zoom in again with greater understanding
Week 44 – Choose your novel’s narrator with care: that is the voice the reader hears
Week 45 – You know that favourite bit of writing? Time to leave it out for the wolves
Week 46 – Ask a fellow writer for advice, not your nearest and dearest
Week 47 – Develop your own inner critic, and be grateful for advice
Week 48 – If you are stuck in the middle, be bold, leap forward and write the ending
Week 49 – An ending will come, and when it does it will be obvious
Week 50 – There comes a time when the donkey work must be done
Week 51 – Take a clear-eyed look at your year ahead as a writer
Week 52 – This was the year that we wrote
Pick up your copy of A Novel in a Year: From First Page to Last in 52 Weeks and visit Louise’s website to learn more about her novels.
Here is the third set of links to Louise Doughty’s columns on A Novel in a Year. The columns are available on The Daily Telegraph website, though they are deep in the archives, and have also been gathered together and published in a book, A Novel in a Year: From First Page to Last in 52 Weeks, available through Amazon.
Week 25 – Think about what your character wants from life, and what stands in his way
Week 26 – This is the time to write recklessly, before we pull it all together
Week 27 – Give your characters good obstacles to help them move forward
Week 28 – If your novel is going nowhere, make a real journey towards your character
Week 29 – Do you know what your character looks like? Visualise telling details
Week 30 – Assemble all the bits and pieces of your work and stand back for a moment
Week 31 – Good character description always tells us something important
Week 32 – Writer’s block can strike at any time – get through it by reading
Week 33 – Learn the trick of trimming as you go, and cut out the adverbs and adjectives
Week 34 – Write without inhibition but edit with precision
Week 35 – Keep prose tight at the start of your novel, so as to draw the reader in
Week 36 – Mind your language: sex, swearing and violence can be a turn-off to readers
Next up, the last set of twelve weeks of Novel in a Year columns.
Pick up your copy of A Novel in a Year: From First Page to Last in 52 Weeks and visit Louise’s website to learn more about her novels.
Here is the second set of links to Louise Doughty’s columns on A Novel in a Year. The columns are available on The Daily Telegraph website, though they are deep in the archives, and have also been gathered together and published in a book, A Novel in a Year: From First Page to Last in 52 Weeks, available through Amazon.
Week 13 – Go back in time to discover an unfamiliar character to make your own
Week 14 – The ideas stage is crucial, but soon you must start on the novel proper
Week 15 – You need not know everything about the past to conjure up another era
Week 16 – Writing gets easier once you know your allies and banish your enemies
Week 17 – Define exactly what your novel’s about, and you might surprise yourself
Week 18 – Don’t mistake your central idea for the novel itself
Week 19 – Write a CV for your characters, then your plot will follow
Week 20 – Clear your diary for the next 10 weeks and take a scattergun approach to writing
Week 21 – Imagine what your character likes to eat, and how he might break a thumb
Week 22 – Don’t listen to the critics in your head, rather concentrate on getting the words on the page
Week 23 – Use your characters’ reactions to incidents to reveal what makes them tick
Week 24 – Even deleted scenes or characters play a part
Next up, the third set of twelve weeks of Novel in a Year columns.
Pick up your copy of A Novel in a Year: From First Page to Last in 52 Weeks and visit Louise’s website to learn more about her novels.
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Louise Doughty, a novelist and columnist for the Daily Telegraph, wrote a series of columns in 2006 about how to write a novel over the course of a year. She offered advice from her own writing life as well as exercises to help a new writer develop the techniques and craft necessary for writing a novel. The response to the columns was overwhelming and Louise included many responses to the exercises from her readers in her columns.
The columns are available on The Daily Telegraph website, though they are deep in the archives, and have also been gathered together and published in a book, A Novel in a Year: From First Page to Last in 52 Weeks, available through Amazon.
Week 1 – Take up a notebook and pen, and write one sentence
Week 2 – Some simple advice: read
Week 3 – Keep your first line simple, serious and avoid the jokey one-liners
Week 4 – Your greatest asset at this stage is passion, so enjoy it and exploit it
Week 5 – Having an endless fascination with other people is essential for writing
Week 6 – Start by excavating your own secrets, and then you can try turning them into fiction
Week 7 – Even a small accident can be turned into something consequential
Week 8 – It is vital to set aside a time and place where you can write undisturbed
Week 9 – Feeling trapped, either physically or emotionally, can provide fertile ground for dramatic writing
Week 10 – Don’t be afraid of dramatic subjects — be bold
Week 11 – Invent a character whose voice is not at all like your own
Week 12 – An arbitrary change to your original idea can have unexpected benefits
Next up, the next twelve weeks of Novel in a Year columns.
Pick up your copy of A Novel in a Year: From First Page to Last in 52 Weeks and visit Louise’s website to learn more about her novels.
By Holly Lisle
So how DO you keep from boring the socks off your readers? (And in a related question, how do you keep from putting YOURSELF into a coma while writing your story?)
Well… you CAN cheat, making grand promises, going off in a million cool directions…and then have the whole thing fizzle into a big wet lump of “it was all a dream” or “it was just a misunderstanding.”
You can, in other words, suck.
Or you can play fair.
To be true to your You and your Muse, craft a story that delivers what it promises. To do that, you need to do this:
Create a believable story where actions are followed by consequences. In real life, situations happen this way, so don’t hold back in your stories. It may seem cruel, but your audience will actually thrive on how much trouble you can heap on your protagonist while watching him drag himself over broken glass by his lips to save the woman he loves.
And if you have a female protagonist willing to make that sort of commitment to the man she loves, stand back. You’ll flat-out floor your readers, and get wistful fan mail from men who want to know where to meet a woman like that. (I have the fan mail to prove it. 
)
Let’s go deeper, into the two paths you can take to create stories:
You have cheating narrative and you have sustained narrative.
Cheating narrative uses smokescreens and parlor tricks to entice a reader through the book, teasing with cliffhangers that never go anywhere, promising character conflict that never materializes, and getting to the end of the book with nothing that matters having happened from one end to the other. Cheaters try to keep the reader from discovering that they had nothing to say, but were using a ludicrous amount of words to say it. Except, unfortunately for the cheaters of the writing world, readers are pretty bright, and sooner or later they catch on. And then they get ticked off, and bounce your book off a wall, and tell the 5000 people on their MySpace page just how much your book reeked.
Sustained narrative follows a logical path from point A to point B to point C. Conflict begets chaos, cliffhangers frequently send the character off the cliff, and promises made are promises kept. This leaves the reader satisfied with your story, but hungry for more. Writing sustained narrative gives you fans who write telling you to hurry up with your next book, because they cannot wait to read it.
To get sustained narrative, first you CREATE. You begin with a situation that might happen in the real world (or a believable magical or alternate world) given the right set of circumstances. The stage is set and the air is ripe with problems for your main character.
Then you COMPLICATE, by building logical problems. Readers can’t be allowed to see the problems coming, but when you pull them out, they have to be both surprised, and they have to say, “Yes. Of course! That IS what would happen.” The complications you add must follow as a natural progression of your initial situation.
Resolving the complicated situations your characters find themselves in is not always easy. If you wrap the solution up in a neat little box with a bow, people are going to litter the landfill with your book. If you wimp out with “it was just a misunderstanding,” well, we’ve been over that. If it was a misunderstanding, it didn’t matter, and why did we waste our money on your book?
Don’t cheat. Win your readers by telling stories that matter, by daring to make promises, and by daring to keep them. Do this, and the people who read your first book will be looking for the second faster than you can sign the contract for it.
You can do this.
Note from Cheryl: To find out more about how to tell stories that matter and how to make your plot grab your readers, check out Holly’s book, Create a Plot Clinic, and her novel-writing workshop, How to Think Sideways.
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