story arc

Fueling the Muse—How to Mentally Prepare for “The Novel”

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This post by Kristen Lamb originally appeared on her blog on 8/27/15.

NaNoWriMo is kind of like Christmas for writers—suffering, drama, no sleep, heavy drinking and really bad eating habits. Also, we start talking about NaNoWriMo months before it actually happens.

If you are a new writer and don’t know what NaNoWriMo is? It stands for National Novel Writing Month and it is held for the duration of November. The goal is to write 50,000 words in a month.

In a nutshell, it gives a taste of what it is like to do this writing thing as a job, because for the professional writer? Every month is NaNoWriMo, so there is NO BETTER indoctrination into this business.

NaNo shapes us from hobbyists to pros, but we need to do some preparation if we want to be successful—finish 50,000 words and actually have something that can be revised into a real novel that others might part with money to read. Genre obviously will dictate the fuel required, but today we’ll explore my favorites.

Movies

I like watching movies to strengthen my plotting muscles. Unlike novels, screenplays have very strict structure rules. Also, it takes far less time to watch a movie than read a novel, so movies can be fantastic for practice (and also our goofing off can have a practical application 😀 ) .

Study plot points. Sit with a notebook and see if you can write out each of these major points in one to three sentences.

 

Read the full, lengthy post, which goes into full detail on plotting / story arc in the novel, on Kristen Lamb’s blog.

 

Why Your Character’s Goal Needs to Be 1 of These 5 Things

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This post by K.M. Weiland originally appeared on her Helping Writers Become Authors site on 10/24/14.

Every story comes down to just one thing. Know what it is? Conflict’s a good guess (“no conflict, no story” and all that), but before a story can offer conflict, it has to first offer something else: desire. In short, story is always going to be about a character’s goal.

In previous posts, we’ve talked about your character’s two conflicting goals, based on the Thing He Needs and the Thing He Wants. Between them, these two desires drive your entire story, pushing and pulling your protagonist and the people around him until they end up in a completely different place from that in which they began the story.

But here’s another question for you: Does it matter what your character wants?

Obviously, a character’s goal has to tie into the plot in a logical way. But there’s more. In order to resonate deeply with your very human audience, your character’s goal needs to be one of five specific things.

 

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Why It Matters to Authors

 

Read the full post on Helping Writers Become Authors.

 

Pacing: Capturing the Rhythm of Your Story

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This post by Sue Coletta originally appeared on Venture Galleries on 11/4/14.

PACING IS THE RHYTHM of the novel, of the chapters and scenes and paragraphs and sentences. It is also the rate at which the reader reads and the speed at which the events unfold. By using specific word choices and sentence structure– scene, sequel, chapter, novel structure– we can tap the emotions of the reader so that the reader feels what the writer wants them to feel at any given point in the story.

Pacing is especially important in crime writing.

Almost everything you read on the internet deals with picking up the pace, because so many new writers pace their novels too slowly. But what if you’re like me, someone who writes at break-neck speed, never giving the reader a break from the action? I know when I’m doing it too. I’m literally on the edge of my seat, feeling like I just drank forty cups of caffeine.

Why would too fast be a problem? People want to curl-up with a good book and be entertained. They do not want to wipe the sweat from their brow, the action happening so fast they feel like they’re on a never-ending roller coaster, and they need to unwind after reading your story. Honestly, sometimes when I’m writing my first drafts I feel wired– sweaty, hot, the muscles in my shoulders knotted into balls of pure stress. If that’s how my story makes ME feel imagine what I’m doing to my reader.

 

Read the full post on Venture Galleries.