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Back to Articles Page Here’s how to proceed, making your manuscript a work of art. Fiction or nonfiction? First, you have to know if you’re writing fiction or nonfiction. If it’s nonfiction, then you’re writing something that really happened or is going to tell someone how to do something. A self-help book is nonfiction. Documenting history is nonfiction. A biography is nonfiction. If you’re writing fiction, then you’re going to make up a story that’s not real. Mysteries, romances and thrillers are usually nonfiction. They’re created to be ‘bigger than life’, with a unique spin so they’ll sell. And, the more unique, the better. In the rest of this article, I’ll be concentrating on fiction, because I’m more familiar with writing fiction than nonfiction. Tense—Past or Present? After you decide if it’s fiction or nonfiction, you’ll want to figure out if you’re writing present or past tense. Most books are written in past tense. This means they’re telling what happened already. If it’s present tense, then the action is happening right along with the story. For example, the following is present tense:
This is the same story, but in past tense.
In past tense, all verbs are in a tense that indicates the action already happened. In present tense, the verbs are all in the action at that moment. Whichever tense you choose, make sure you can stay in that tense for the entire book. If you’re not sure which tense to choose, choose past tense. Present tense is more difficult to write, because most of the books we’ve read or the tales we’ve been told are in past tense. Point of View: On television, most of the shows you see are done in omniscient view. This means you’re someone watching the plot unfold, but don’t identify with one particular character per scene. Omniscient means ‘all seeing’, so you can jump from scene to scene without having to worry about the reader getting confused. Even though omniscient viewpoint seems to be the easiest to do, it’s not the best. If you use omniscient viewpoint in the written word, the reader won’t identify with one character, thus making them more likely to not like the book. So, when writing a story, you need to tell the story from one of the characters in the book, since the reader’s not watching it on a screen. You have a few options for this. You can write in first person or third person. Second person isn’t usually used, which is using the word ‘you’ for the main character. Here’s an example of first person, using ‘I’ for the main viewpoint. It’s as if the reader is inside the character’s head, seeing and feeling what the main character is experiencing.
Third person is like the following, and can be illustrated as ‘close third person’, mimicking first person. For third person, it’s as if you have a camera inside a character’s head, but you’re not that character. In most of this passage, you’ll see what the character (Deborah) is thinking, which is ‘close third person’.
Most romances are written in third person. Mysteries, many times, will be either first or third person, depending on the preference of the author. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, but as a beginner, I’d advise third person unless you can keep first person narrative to a minimum. (First person narrative tells what the character is thinking.) Many books change point of view from scene to scene or chapter to chapter. Personally, I find that distracting. However, it’s up to you what you do. As a beginner, I’d advise staying with one character as long as you can, and never change characters within a scene. Genre: Genre (rhymes with dawn-rah, but with a 'j' sound instead of a 'd') is the type of book you’re writing. Fiction novels can usually be categorized as a romance, mystery, thriller, horror, adventure, fantasy, and so on. There are also crossover genres, but for a beginner, I’d suggest keeping it simple. Romances usually are constructed by the following loose rules. The hero and heroine meet and either hate each other or are at odds in some respect. For example, the hero could be a rancher, and the heroine is a vegetarian. It’s instant conflict. The romance doesn’t have to be the entire plot, because they should be working together to achieve some goal. However, your goal, as a writer, is to keep the romantic suspense building from day one, making the couple realize at some point in the story that they are in love. They can’t acknowledge that love until the end, keeping the suspense going for the reader to guess whether they will end up together in the end. In a romance, they will end up together, by definition, except in odd cases. The hero and heroine both have to have an inner conflict and an outer conflict, that both have to be resolved before the ending. For example, the heroine can never love another man, because she devoted herself to her dying fiancé years before. If she ever loves another man, she’ll be lying to herself and her dead fiancé. Her external conflict is usually shorter term. Let’s say her external conflict is that she can’t afford her mortgage and the bank is going to take her house. If the hero was the banker taking her house, that’s conflict and great in a romance. Mysteries are different than romances. Yes, you can have romantic elements, but the romance isn’t the key problem…the mystery is. It can be trying to find something that was stolen or find a murderer, for example. The protagonist (the good guy) spends the whole book trying to solve the mystery. Make sure you add in a few ‘red herrings’ (possible solutions that are a dead end and not the answer) to throw the reader off. In adventures and fantasies, your characters are on somewhat of a journey. They’re trying to make good win out over evil, making the world a better place. Thrillers and horrors are written the same way as the other books, however, the suspense has to ebb and flow throughout the entire book. You never know who’s around the corner, and with horrors, you know it’s going to end in bloodshed. What next? Now that you know if your masterpiece is going to be fiction or nonfiction, know the tense, point of view and genre, it’s time to start. Right? Not quite. Some writers are 'pantzers' and some are 'plotters'. I’m a mixture of both. A pantzer is someone who just sits down and writes. They know the first few things mentioned in this article, but figure everything else out as they go…including the whole plot and characterization. A plotter is someone who decides everything about the story in advance. They create outlines and storyboards, characterization and complete descriptions of settings before they write one word. Since I consider being a pantzer a bit risky and being a plotter rather boring (if you know the entire plot in advance, why bother writing it?), I take a different plan of attack. First, I decide on the main characters. I usually have a man, a woman, and a bad guy (antagonist). I know what they look like and their main jobs. Then I look at the major scenes. I know how they meet or the initial scene, and usually know the ending scene. Then I figure out fifteen points I want to include in the entire story. I use a spreadsheet to write down everything I need to include. First Scene and First Lines of a Chapter For the first scene, it has to grab a reader and hold them in some sort of suspense to make them want to continue. It’s a type of marketing ploy, subconsciously making the reader want to buy the book. This scene, and every beginning and ending of every chapter after that has to have this ‘hook’. You don’t want a reader to put down your book, and subconsciously, the reader wants to do that at the end of the chapter. But you, as a writer, want them to continue. Also, the more intense the conflict in the story, the better. Conflict and trouble are what drives a story. So, your first scene has to have a hook. What if your hook included something that was so outlandish (because unique and outlandish sells) that the reader has questions about the first sentence? Great. That’s your goal. Plot and Characters Now go and figure out your plot and characters. You need scenes for this plot, and with your characters and their dialogue, your book should sell. Keep the pacing high by never dumping backstory (things that happened before the book, that is important to the plot) by the paragraphs in your book. Don’t write just a book of narrative, but include dialogue to keep it going. Every scene should propel the plot forward as well, so dump any scene that’s not related to the plot. In other words, if you took out any given scene, if your plot stays the same, then that scene’s not necessary. Subplots Subplots are smaller things that keep happening. For example, in a romance, you might have the main heroine trying to fight for education for children while working against the town council bully (the hero). But the subplot might be that her mother keeps trying to fix her up with friends of hers or that her family wants her to buy a house near theirs. It’s a plot in itself and may or may not be related to the main plot. The best books I’ve read, though, incorporate subplots in the main plot, making them cross paths and further the main plot. Chapter Length: I try to make all my chapters around 20 pages, double-spaced. Sometimes it’s a page off from that in either direction, but that’s my goal. Some authors do more, some less, but I think a reader wants to be involved in the chapter but might have a short attention span. Twenty pages seems to me to be a good estimate of length. At the end of each chapter, you need something to happen that hooks them in to the next chapter. Cohesion For my scenes, I make sure that the character has to go on to the next scene and can’t just walk away. For romances, the heroine has to be joined to the hero in some way, and can’t just walk out of the book. For the mystery, I make the protagonist have to find the solution for some reason, whether it’s personal or for revenge. It’s the same for every other genre. If the characters can walk away, the reader will ask why they don’t. The reason for them to stay has to be huge. The Three Act Story: Some craft books describe the tried and true three-act story. In the first act, the conflict and the characters are presented, with the characters fighting to overcome the conflict, which won't be resolved until the end of the book. The turning point is when the main character decides they have to fight the conflict and can't turn back. For example, in The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy is transported to another land by means of a tornado. She can't go back home, but has to search for the Wizard, taking her on the rest of the journey. But that first scene, in black and white, sets the tone for the rest of the story. The second scene ends when she accidentally kills the Wicked Witch of the West with water. She has to continue on, because the main plot wasn't finished. She wasn't home yet. The third scene ends when she goes home, taking her back to her home in black and white. The three-act story is used many times in books and movies. The protagonist has to make decisions at the end of each section, propelling them through to the next act. The Climax or Black Moment: The next to last scene (the climax or black moment) has to be the most intense. You’ve been building throughout the story to the ending, and this one is the deciding factor of whether they get the mystery solved or the hero and heroine end up together. The best climaxes I've read are where the reader is made to believe that the character is going to lose everything. That makes the win so much better and makes the reader very happy with the outcome at the end of the scene. The Last Scene: The last scene usually ties up the loose ends, and is much calmer than the next-to-last scene. Go Forth, Young Grasshopper: This is how to write a book, in a nutshell. There are many books written on the craft of writing a book, and some contradict others. Just remember…be true to your characters and plot, and if you have a great story, the readers will love you. Back to Articles Page |
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