Writing Tips

Soon to be expanded with selected materials from my Planning Your Novel class.  See my Home Page for a link to register for the class in you live near Dunwoody, Georgia.

What It's All About

Good writing helps, but you've got to have:

• A unique twist (high concept)
• Your own voice--which you discover just by letting it flow, brain to fingers, don't let your editor get in the way, save that for revisions
• A simple, sound story structure, with at least a couple of twists at the ends of acts one and two, and preferably more.

Structure

I'll expand this section considerably later. Numerous books have been written on the subject, and screenwriting books are quite helpful because the screenplay is a manageable length to comprehend and discuss and because even many good novelists wander randomly through their stories, which might benefit from tighter structure.

The Hero's Journey rules, but you're going to need a second Ordeal at the end of Act II as the turning point into Act III.

Screenwriters try to include about 5 "watercooler scenes," scenes the audience will talk about at the watercooler the next day. Not a bad idea.

It's a good idea if at least one of the twists, revelations, or surprises is thoroughly shocking, such as the death of a sympathetic character such as the Best Friend we assume will surely survive till the end--then all bets are off, the reader is worried that your Hero or Heroine really might not succeed / survive.

Love Scenes

Read bestselling Romance authors. Women write incredible love scenes, men, not so much. I've bought Angela Knight's Passionate Ink, look for a review at some point.

Key Elements in Novels

Unique Idea
Before investing your time creating a well-written book that the agent "just isn't enthusiastic enough about to sell,"  play with your concept.  Come up with a twist that makes it different from other novels and implies a fun world to explore:  not just a fantasy, but a boy in wizard school or a thriller where dinosaurs are the villains.

Character Arc

Give your Heroine a character an "inner need" she needs to fill or a flaw she must overcome in order to solve her external story problem.  Create her "Opponent" and the Inciting Incident so that they force her to confront and overcome her flaw.

Story Structure

These resources discuss the universal pattern most good stories follow.

• The Hero's Journey - The Writer's Journey, Christopher Vogler
• Michael Hauge's Structure:  http://www.screenplaymastery.com/structure.htm
• Save the Cat, Blake Snyder
• The Hero's Two Journeys DVD - Hauge and Vogler
• The Screenwriting Formula or How to Write High Structure, High Concept Movies,  Rob Tobin

Begin With Inciting Incident

Start your novel where the story actually begins, the Inciting Incident, in the first scene, page, paragraph, or sentence if possible.

Conflict in Every Scene

Determine the purpose of every scene.  The Heroine should start each scene with a goal and encounter obstacles, and fail or only partially succeed.  She formulates a new goal-or, in a reaction scene, she responds to her failure and then comes up with a new goal.  See Debra Dixon's  GMC:  Goal, Motivation & Conflict.

Smart Revisions

Make revisions an exciting process of creating art-and cut the time needed-by doing it in two stages:

• Reread your novel and make notes of issues to fix, passages to add or delete, etc.  Then trace one character or issue at a time through only the relevant scenes in the manuscript.  Don't go through the whole book looking for all issues in one pass.
• Then edit, clarify, and pretty up the writing, applying the great voice you've developed by the end of the book.

Crystal Ball:  Technology will make books shorter

Digital books, especially those targeted to phones, will bring about the rebirth of the novella.  Combined with people's lack of spare time, the tightly focused on-the-go delivery medium will drive content creation, producing bite-size content for our ADD society, used to fast cutting in films.  Authors often seem to struggle to meet the mandatory 85,000 - 100,000 word count novel form, which is driven by paper-and-ink business models, their plots often meandering and episodic.  Many genre books, such as romances, already provide manageable reads, as low as 65,000 - 70,000 words.  This trend will accelerate with the melding of digital content delivery channels.  The short story and factoid-like nonfiction will rule, and bring down novel word count as well.  Additionally, non-fiction books with an idea that could be expressed in a very long magazine article, currently bloated to achieve word count of traditional publishing delivery media (printed books) will be trimmed to provide the essentials without the filler.  The price will fall, and we'll be able to purchase and read far more books, increasing our knowledge while still providing a wider revenue stream to publishers and authors.