Becoming a Writer Part 3

Let's get a few basics out of the way. To become a writer you must...

• Have a seventh grade reading spelling competency. CHECK
• A story idea. CHECK
• A writing implement. Pen, pencil, paper, computer, crayon on the wall. CHECK
• Some modicum of determination and inspiration. CHECK
• Time each day, even a minute, to write. CHECK

After the first blaze of inspiration fizzles -- anywhere between one sentence and fifty pages -- you have to figure out just where this book is going.

Here are some key tools to making your idea into a publishable novel.

1. Dynamic characters. There are several ways to do this. Creating a super hero like Superman. Creating a super cop or super cowboy. A heroine who can draw the attention and restraint of a vampire. ;)

Mostly great novels are made up of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Bruce Willis in Die Hard. Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle. The character Elizabeth in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Ask key questions: What does my protagonist want? What's keeping her from getting it? Why can't he get over his fears to realize his dream? What wound still darkens his heart? What is her story journey and what will be her epiphany? What can she do at the end she can't do in the beginning.

In Dining with Joy, it seemed rather simple, but the thing she could do in the end she couldn't do in the beginning was make banana bread! It took a whole book and emotional journey to get her there.

Do your character work! Figure out who these people are. Ask "why" until you get at the rock bottom answer.

Me: Why can't Joy cook?

Me: She's an athlete. Just doesn't like it. Doesn't have that gene.

Me: But she never learned to cook?

Me: Her father did all the cooking. Not her mom. No example.

Me: Yeah, but, she's a cooking show host...

Me: Her father never let her in the kitchen. He was creating.

Me: And...

Me: She started resenting him, and cooking.

Me: Ah, now you're talking. But so much she didn't cook?

Me: (eventually) She never learned to cook because she resented her father, thinking he loved food and cooking more than the family.

A-HA!

Now, I can take all of that as a building block to the plot.

2. Work out your plot blocks. Know where your story is going. Even if you like the creative, pantser process. A friend was studying architecture. She wanted to do design, be creative, forget the rules. Yet each time she turned in a design, her professors told her, "this will fall down. it's not usable." Finally, one prof said, "Learn the math. Then you can do what you want."

My friend was amazed at the power and design ability she had once she learned the rules of building buildings.

Learn the rules of the craft. Work out your story so you know where you're going. Even for a fun road trip, you have a map. A plan. Take the time to figure it out.

Weave the plot with the characters fears, goals, dreams and desires.

3. Cause conflict. Things should not be easy for your protagonist. People should not be polite. Issues and people, life, disaster, whatever should get in the way of your protagonist achieving his dream. Or, perhaps he's given up on his dream and you story is how one more event makes him almost give up on life.

You need conflict for a great novel. Author Davis Bunn had a NY publishing house editor tell him, "Ambush the reader." Let the unexpected happen. Make it happen. Turn situations and dialog upside down and write what you see.

In Softly and Tenderly, Jade was beginning to give up on having a child of her own. She'd lost three to miscarriage and one to abortion. But she was secure and loved in her marriage to Max. Until...

Then a woman is killed and Jade learns Max is a father and must raise his son. We ambushed Jade in that book. Hopefully, we ambushed the reader. :)

4. Weave the spiritual or emotional message with the characters plot and journey.

5. Bring all conflict forward. Don't hang back with a story point for some big reveal while filling the pages in between with chapters that don't move the story forward. Don't just repeat what the reader already knows.

In Dining with Joy, I wanted the big disaster to be Joy failing on a national talk show. I'd planned to write this about 2/3 of the way through the book. But I realized it needed to come more in the middle. But then what? What happens after she's outted?

Well, I had to dig deep and figure out what else was going on in Joy's life and figure out her final disaster. It was a smaller one, but after all she'd been through to that point, it was the most emotional one.

So... AMBUSH THE READER! Allen Arnold, fiction publisher at Thomas Nelson says, "Conflict makes great novels."

6. Have a satisfying ending. After you've taken everything from the protagonist, bring back hope. Let him finally find peace, achieve his dream, or whatever. The ending doesn't have to be happily ever after, but must be satisfying.

7. Once the novel is written, in all it's crappy glory, rewrite with word painting in mind. Be more careful and purposeful with your word choice. Start layering in emotional and physical colors. Make sure you have 3 of the 5 senses in every scene. Begin to hone and craft.

8. Mostly, tell a story. Take us on a journey with a complex, compelling character that we'd put up with almost anything to hang out with for 350 pages.

God bless your writing!

Becoming a Writer Part 2

So you want to be a writer? Fantastic. It's a wonderful, great, hard life. I mean, things I couldn't even imagine being an issue or concern before I started writing, are now an issue and concern.

I'm like, "Who knew?" For example? Like, how to "brand" myself. I thought only corporations used brands. Blogging with purpose instead of eclectic. Social media. How to work in partnership with publishers while remaining responsible for your own career.

Or things like staying with changes in publishing, the nuances of the Christian fiction market. You know what was selling well, what the readers demanded, five, ten years ago is very different from what's selling like hot cakes now.

I wonder if some Christian readers who used to read secular books are migrating to the CBA world and picking up books they never knew existed. As a result, a lot of these readers are romance readers, it changes the balance of the market.

Just a guess. But come on romance readers, we welcome you!

So, what do you need to know as you start out?

1. Read a lot. Read widely. Read to study the craft. How did the author put this story together? When I wanted to write chick lit, I read a lot of chick lit to figure out how the author told the story.

2. Study the craft. We have some great tools and work books over at My Book Therapy. Make sure you understand point of view, how to use conflict and tension, the purpose of back story, all the basics of good writing.

3. Write your book all the way through to the end. Don't stop and start over more than once or twice. My first book took 2 years to write because I kept starting over. Keep going. There is always something that happens in the middle or the end that reveals something you can layer back into the beginning.

4. Rewrite your book. Get it critiqued. Rewrite it again. Dig deep to get those character layers. Delete stuff! Rewrite. Your genius will reinvent itself. Trust me. :)

5. Get involved with writers organizations. Join ACFW, ACW, My Book Therapy, RWA, local writers guilds or groups. Take or audit a creative writing class at the local college. Get into the writing community.

6. Attend conferences to learn and to network. Get to know people. Join Twitter and Facebook. Follow authors, editors and agents.

7. Listen more than you speak. Give more than you take. Be teachable.

8. Be ready for the long haul. No shortcuts.

9. Once you've finished your manuscript and attended a conference or two, and you feel you're ready to query agents or editors, research the ones you're interested in. Read their guidelines. Read their blogs. Be informed. Send them the RIGHT stuff. If an agent does take children's manuscripts, don't send yours! I tell you, writers can be so obtuse sometimes.

10. Realize your manuscript is not God's gift to literature. You've not written something that defies all the rules and even a publisher who doesn't published Amish Sci Fi Steampunk still won't want your masterpiece. Don't shoot yourself in the foot.

11. Once you find an agent interested, do what they ask as soon as you can. Send the synopsis and first three chapters if that's all they want. Don't send them the whole manuscript. Follow directions. Same with any editor you might be dealing directly with.

12. Behave like they taught you in kindergarten. Please and thank you. Honor. Do what you're told or asked. ;)

13. Blog with a view to hone your prose and to observe life. Observing life, catching the hyperbole is so much a part of great fiction. I am a big fan of blogging as a way to train yourself as a fiction author.

Can I end on the lucky number thirteen? I think I will. I'm not afraid. Next, I'll blog on what I think it takes to make an average author extraordinary. :)

(... to be continued. Part 3)

Becoming a Writer Part 1

Lately, I've had a some folks ask me about becoming a writer. They, or someone they know has written or wants to write a novel. I get asked a lot about how to get published and the steps involved. So, I thought I'd discuss it here. Create a reference. Make a few people laugh. Make a few people cry.

One. Writing a novel is hard work

It's more than an idea, a flash of inspiration. It's more than a driving passion. More than the wrongs you want to right about your life or the life of others. Its not, please, please, please, a sermon or church lesson. It's not theology or doctrine. It's not a tract or propaganda. It's not a way to sugar coat your driving message.

It's story. It's a slice of life. A novel is taking the ordinary and making it, in some way, extraordinary. The storyteller in you has to see the hyperbole in life and assign it to your characters.

To write a novel you need quiet alone time. Not always, but some where along the way you need to dig deep and get the core layers of the story on paper.

You need "butt in chair."

You need the ability to stare at a blank page for more than a minute without quitting, going to You Tube or surfing the web. You need to write what's on your heart, letting the words flow, then have the courage to go back and change or delete half if not all of them.

You need to be teachable, to learn the craft. Let other writers read and give input on your work.

Your mother/father/sister/brother/husband/wife/children/employee/dog/cat/best friend do not count as accurate readers. Why? They know you. They hear your voice in the story. They will love it because they love you.

Outside input is a great test to your voice as a story teller. You either have it or you don't. You can learn craft. You can't learn that inner "story teller" that makes pretend people come to life.

I knew I might, just might, be able to make it as a writer when I was in Venezuela way back in '89, training typesetters at a newspaper how to use my company's computers to do their job. While they practiced one afternoon, I started writing a story. As new writers often do, I worked with a burst of inspiration which soon faded because all I had was a "what if" idea. No real story. But, it started out well and I pasted it to a display ad page (this was before PCs!) and typeset it.

I had to go back to teaching, so I left my page for later. When I went to pick it up from the typesetter, four men hovered over my story, reading it. Now remember, I'm in Venezuela. They speak Spanish. My story was in English. They smiled, told me they like my story, blah, blah. They were flirting. The probably understood some of the words but not the concept.

Two months later, I go back to the paper to work on another project. One of the typesetters stopped me in the hall and asked in his broken English. "What happened to the girl?"

"What girl?"

"In the story?"

"What story?" Ohhh... I laughed. "I don't know. I never finished it."

He frowned. "We want to know. What happens?"

So four men who didn't read or speak English well carried that 500 word piece in their hearts for ... two months? I tucked that moment away. Maybe, maybe, I could become a writer. Some day.

That's a piece of my story. What's yours? What's the reaction to things you've written? Take those tidbits of encouragement and use them as inspiration.

(... to be continued)