If your spark of an idea comes from a character rather than a situation, now may be the time to work on developing this character and a few more.  Again, I’m not suggesting that you delve into total character development.  Maybe develop the protagonist and the characters immediately connected.  Then start looking at what kind of a story you’d like to share about this character.  What does this character have to tell?

Since the story, I’m working on started with a scene.  I wrote a draft of how I pictured that scene.  I then took the characters in that scene and started developing them.  I use a template that helps me to describe their physical appearance.  Then I start answering questions about their current situation, where they live, what kind of clothes they wear, what their occupation is, anything that helps me get to know the character better.  I then look at the past and try to create some history for that character.  What happened to them that brought them to where they are now, type questions.

I will get more in-depth with both plotting and characterization but this is where I stick my toe in the water to test the story.  I bounce back and forth between the plot and character, working on each character and storyline as it comes to me.  This practice helps me to determine if I have a story or just an idea.

 What do you do at this stage?  I would love to share your ideas with readers.

Your Assignment:

This week take your original idea and test it by developing the scene or characters to help you determine if you do have a story or just and idea.

 Next week – developing characters.

 Happy writing,

 Virginia

Now that you’ve come up with a story idea and have had some time to play around with it, the next step is to determine your audience.  Who would read this kind of story?  Here are some of your choices:

Literary isn’t really a genre but from everything I’ve read, no one has really given a clear definition.  As a reader, you know when something is literary.  You can usually find the books on Oprah’s list.  She doesn’t normally suggest genre fiction.  It’s easier for me to show what literary fiction doesn’t have rather than what it does, so here are my thoughts on the subject.

 Literary fiction doesn’t always have a happy ending and some times, it doesn’t always have a satisfactory ending.  Don’t get me wrong, I read literary fiction but on a bad day, it may not be my first choice. 

 The stories often have deeper meanings and sometimes I feel you have to work harder to get it.  They are generally all stand-alone stories.  You won’t find a series, usually that are considered literary.  The story settings can be anywhere and any time from historical to contemporary. 

Romance – has always been a popular genre.  For quite a few years now, they’ve sold over 50% of all genre fiction.  Some people think it’s the easiest market to break into.  I even had a writing instructor tell me all you have to do is contact a publisher to get an outline to write a romance.  The publisher supposedly will just send one out for you to complete.  That was when I decided I’d wasted my money on that class.  The instructor was a lawyer by day and he bailed out on us mid-term.  The basic requirement for a romance is that it has to have a happy ending.  The hero and the heroine always end up together.  There are vast variations though. They range from historical to contemporary, romantic comedy, suspense and so many more.  Over the years, they have developed many sub categories and the publishers have responded with different categories for each.  If you are interested in writing romances, I would suggest reading as many as you can to determine what category you want to write.  Then contact the publisher for the guidelines that will enable you to complete something they will actually have an interest in reading.

Western – The Western is one of the oldest forms of American literature.  Like most historical novels, it pays to be accurate about your information. If you long to go on a cattle drive, participate in a shoot out on Main St., or hang out at the saloon and gamble, this might be the genre for you.  Like romances, westerns have evolved and don’t necessarily have to be from the cowboy’s point of view.  It could be any of the characters in the story, women, Indians, one-room schoolhouse teacher, dry goods clerk, the choices are infinite.  Westerns haven’t been so popular in the past several years but things change.  You might write the next novel that pulls new readers back into the genre.  

Science Fiction– This genre seems to be popular with the younger writers I meet.  Science fiction takes real science and adds a twist to make it more interesting.  Some of the fictional storylines from the past have actually happened.  When Jules Verne and H.G. Wells wrote about going to the moon, it hadn’t happened, yet.  Writers of science fiction have to stay ahead of real science.  Who knows maybe what they write fuels the imagination of modern scientists? Science Fiction tends to either happen in the future or somewhere else in the universe.

Fantasy – While Science Fiction is based on scientific possibility, fantasy is making the impossible believable.  This genre is also widely popular with younger writers, at least the ones I’ve met locally.  Fantasy can happen anywhere at anytime. 

Mystery – This genre requires some skill with puzzles.  Instead of developing one story, you have to develop two, the central story and the mystery.  It usually involves a murder and it can happen behind a closed door or it can be as graphic as the writer wishes.  Like the other genres there are different sub-categories of mystery that go from a cozy that tells about the murder but isn’t explicit to suspense novels that go into detail about serial killers and their methods of murder.  Mysteries can be anywhere from historical to contemporary.

The difficult part of all this is that all genres can contain elements of other kinds of writing.  That’s what makes it interesting for you and helps you decide exactly what you want to write. 

Here is another suggestion to help you continue to come up with new ideas.  Use a book journal.  This isn’t something you write about you, it’s a way to organize your thoughts about what you are writing.  You can use it to keep track of story ideas, scene ideas, character names and background information.  Write down what you accomplished on your novel for the day.  Write down your word count or page goal.  You could keep this journal separate or include it as a section of your book information binder.  Find what works for you.  Keep this next to you when you write.  When your memory fails you, open it up as your personal writing reference.  Have a section that describes your characters so that when you’re half-way through the book you don’t mention green eyes for a character that started out with blue.  Writing a novel takes time and this way you don’t have to remember everything in your head.  Write the thoughts down and you have them for future reference.  I like to have a section that shows my outline, story ideas, characters, settings, time frame.  Stick a calendar in your binder that will also cover the time frame of your story. Anything that will keep you organized.

These are just some of my suggestions.  How do you work on your novel?  Want to share your thoughts about the writing process?

Assignment –

This week decide whom your audience is and what kind of book you want to write.  Start reading what is on the bookshelves in that genre right now.  Get familiar with the genre.  Take it a step further and check out the publishers.  Go online and find their guidelines so you can shape your story into something they might like.  This is an adventure.  Have fun with it.

Next week, I’m going to write about where to begin, characters or plot?

Virginia

            Now that you have your spark of an idea for a novel, what do you do with it? This is when it starts getting fun.  There are several methods and I will share a few with you to get you started:

            1. What If – This is where you start asking questions. What if this happens, then what happens next.  When doing this, I look for a domino effect with the story.  I like to find something that is a natural result of what happened before and let it build until you have some scenes that feel like puzzle pieces of the story.  Each piece links together forming the story, but sometimes you need to take it a step back before you can go forward.

            2. Mind mapping – is a visual way of doing the – what if.  Take the subject you want to expand upon and write it down in the middle of a sheet of paper.  The first thing that comes to you that connects with that subject, write it down off to the side and circle it.  Connect the two with a line.  This can be another character, a setting, an object, or even a situation.  Continue adding more circles and lines to whatever you’ve written in the center of the sheet of paper. You can then add more circled subjects to those that you’ve developed from the original. Keep making connections, even if they don’t totally make sense at the time.  Eventually you will have some threads that you can’t let go of and have to develop.  Those thoughts are the ones you should use to develop your story.

Don’t throw the rest away; keep them handy so that if you find yourself needing more to work with later, you already have something to play with.

            3. I suggested in my earlier post that you should think about journaling.  Your journal can provide more ideas that you can now develop.  I am going to suggest that you have a book journal.  It is a record of you writing this book.  Some authors keep one with each work in progress. Each day as you journal, you can keep track of any new ideas for the story.  I will go into more detail about the book journal in another post.

            4. Brainstorming is another way to develop a story.  You could do it as a group or with a trusted writing partner.  I have a friend who is great for bouncing ideas off because she always sees something that I miss.  It’s also nice to have someone to turn to when you’ve written yourself into a corner.  Hopefully with a little planning, that won’t happen.

            5. I call it multi-tasking.  While you are doing something mindless, like washing dishes, vacuuming, dusting, or whatever – think about your story.  Keep it in mind while you go about your everyday tasks and besides helping you develop the story, it will work to pull you into your next writing session. 

            6. Take a walk and mull over your story.  Getting out and getting some exercise and fresh air can’t hurt and again is something you can do without thinking about it to allow your mind a chance to wander and ponder your story.

            7. Get out of the house.  Watch people.  Take notes describing the people you see, the sounds around you, the smells, listen to people talk to work on your dialogue.  You can’t write dialogue exactly the way people speak because it wouldn’t hold the reader’s interest.  But listen for the way people speak that might help your characters to sound like individuals rather than everyone sounding alike.  Again, I will have a later post that gets into more about dialogue later. Look for ways to describe gestures.  Watch body language and you interpret what it means when you see it.  Think of how you could describe a character better by how they move.

            Like an artist, you can describe what you see and use it later with your work.

            8. Start thinking about your characters, I have writer friends who go through magazines looking for their characters.  Sometimes it is easier to describe something if you have a picture in front of you.  One of the writers I know made an excellent suggestion.  We have a used bookstore in my area and she picks up used magazines just to find pictures of her characters.  You can take it a step further and use it for settings.  All those home and garden type magazines have great pictures of houses and rooms with descriptions and terms you can use in your writing.  The same thing goes with character clothing.  If you’re writing about someone who wears designer clothes, here’s a personal guide to description.

            9. Listen to the words in music; sometimes it will trigger a reaction that gives you an idea for your story.  Also, think about what music you were listening to and see if you can make your own soundtrack to use while writing.  If you have a strong connection between the music and your story, it can pull you back into the story for each days writing session.

            10. Start developing your characters.  Write down everything you need to know about them.  As you get to know your characters, they can help you develop your story.  I will post later about character development but now is a good time to start who your characters are and what their motivation is.  What do they want and why are you writing about them?

YOUR ASSIGNMENT – Start brainstorming your idea.

I look forward to comments and suggestions.  Next week – Genre and is this a series or stand-alone? Who’s your audience and who publishes what you write?

Virginia

I have always been fascinated with the writing process.  That is one of the reasons I’ve enjoyed the author interviews on this blog.  If you have read enough of them, you will see what I mean.  They are all doing the same thing, writing novels, but they all have their own path they follow.  There are subtle differences as to their methods.  But as a writer, we all know there are, basic steps to take to complete a novel and those steps are what I want to cover with this series of posts.   

Each week I will cover some aspect of novel writing.  This week, let’s look at where to start.  Some writers start with characters and others have a plot.  I generally picture a scene that won’t let me go.  The current novel that I am working on started that way.  It was the basic what if scenario. 

What if a woman came home to find her husband dead in their bed and she had proof that he’d been with another woman? And then what if all the evidence points toward her as the main suspect in his murder?  Like an onion, I started peeling back layers of the story. What makes it look like she’s guilty?  What did the crime scene look like?  What happened between them to make others think she could be capable of murdering him?  What really happened and who really killed him?  What kind of person could have something like this happen to them?

The questions are endless. 

Some other suggestions for story ideas are:

1. Reading – Have you ever read a book that started out pulling you in but half way through you felt like something was missing?  The jacket blurb and even that first chapter or two didn’t go where you thought the story should have gone. It’s disappointing but it also could be one way to determine what you need to write.   Maybe you like the premise but didn’t care for the way it was developed.  Take the premise and make it your own.  Now is the time to develop and write the story you want to read. 

2. Movies and television – Basically the same thing can be done with movies and television.  Take the idea and write something that satisfies you.  I’m not suggesting you plagiarize but its okay to share a premise and make it your own.

3. Read or watch the news.  It’s great if you write mysteries.  Take a real crime and fictionalize it.  The article will only tell you the skeleton of the story.  Create your own characters, locations, reasons for committing the crime and even change the murder method.  Create your own mystery.

Don’t stop at reading the crimes. Read the letters to the editor, advice columns, local politics, and the good feel stories about your area. Did that letter to the editor sound as if the writer was upset about something? Upset enough to do something about it?  Advice columns are full of quirky questions that make you wonder about the writer and whether it could really be true.  Local politics can give you a wealth of ideas. Corruption and power can thrive in your stories.

4. Personal experiences in your own life and in the lives of family and friends.  Of course, you’ll need to be discreet and fictionalize the situations you can’t write it down verbatim.  Besides most true life, adventures usually are too boring without using a little creative imagination to juice it up.  Many writers have received feedback from others telling them it wasn’t believable when in reality it did happen but that doesn’t necessarily make it a good story. 

5. Journals – Write down something about your day.  If time doesn’t allow you to write daily try to write down the interesting stuff, the things that have touched your life or your world that day.  Put it aside and when you’re looking for ideas, go through your journal entries and see what calls to you. 

6. Dreams – I started keeping a dream journal a few years ago.  I don’t seem to remember most dreams but the ones that I do remember I write down.  Like your regular journal, read them occasionally for new ideas.  I think this could be a great source for mystery and horror writers, especially those nightmares that wake you in a tangle of sweaty sheets.

These are just a few ways to find that spark of an idea.  The ideas that won’t let go until you do something with them. 

YOUR ASSIGNMENT –

Take a few days to work on your next story idea.  I hope you enjoy this project and feel comfortable sharing questions and suggestions along the way.

Next week, I will cover how to develop those ideas.

Virginia