How to Write According to a Professional Novice

Who am I to give tips on writing? I've been writing since I could wield a pen, and this is my chosen career. Despite only having one actual novel published, these are some tips and pointers that I want to share with you, because writing is fun and I wish more people realized it.

1. Research is key, provided you don't get sucked down into a wormhole of obscure, bizarre and slightly frightening historical documents.
I once spent a cheery night in researching 18th century methods of torture. There is perhaps a surprising number of articles and information on the topic online. Unfortunately, my evening's research came back to haunt when I went to sleep that night. Needless to say, I was exhausted and freaked out in the morning.

2. Deadlines are beautiful things.
I personally subscribe to the NaNoWriMo way of doing things: one 30-day month, 50,000 words, butt-in-chair-words-on-page. Wham bam, hey look, a new book! One that is messy and squally and riddled with more plot holes than a good Swiss cheese...because the sooner you have the bones of the thing, the sooner you can get to the fun part, which leads us to...

3. Editing is fun and rewarding and everyone should do it.
If you subscribe to the epic block party of writing that is the Nano approach, you are left with the bare bones of the story. You've written it: that's the tough part. Presumably, you've done elementary research. Now you get to add meat to the bones, raise that howling infant, nurse to life that decrepit starving thing that you have beaten into submission...no wait, scratch that last bit. What I mean is, once you have that manuscript written, you can really delve into your characters and plot and flesh them out. De-cardboard your villain. Your hero needs to have some flaws. Does that one scene in the bar really need to go on for 2,000 words? Why does X have brown hair in one scene and blond in the next? Do you have a deus ex machina that needs to be explained? (I did, and coming up with a reasonable explanation was rough, believe me.) Now is the bit where you read and rewrite and research and rewrite and let others read and rewrite. Which leads me to Rule #4.

4. Love your editor/beta reader. Have fun together.
When I was working on Fidelio (I'm still working on Fidelio...), I reached out to people who knew the opera and loved it. I talked about it with them on their blogs. I talked about them with it on my blog. It became That Which I Could Not Shut Up About, and luckily for me, there were others as equally enamored, who were willing to read my drafts and let me know what they thought, what they liked and didn't like, what didn't work, etc. And you know what? It is FUN. I adore getting my latest draft back in my email, and opening it up to see what my readers have said. Having my writing read and critiqued by someone else allows me to look at it with a fresh pair of eyes, and has undoubtedly improved it for the better.

5. Before you start asking questions, make sure people know you're a writer.
I read once of a mystery writer who toured a chocolate factory as research, and nearly got escorted off the premises because she was asking the tour guide questions like, "Is it possible to drown someone in a vat of chocolate without the security cameras seeing?" She'd forgotten to mention that she was researching a murder mystery. In my Fidelio, I have scenes where a man suffers a traumatic head injury, and is later tortured. I have a friend with a medical background who walked me through the physical/psychological effects of such poor treatment, who remarked once, "If I didn't know you and your sickbed kink, I'd be seriously worried right now." Start every bizarre question with, "I'm researching X for a novel; what can you tell me about it?" You might regret it if you don't.

6. Know where you're going, but don't freak out if your characters take you somewhere else.
You know your plot. You know what you want to have happen. But did the character who was supposed to leave with the villain just pepper spray him and dance blissfully out into the night? Let your characters move naturally and the story will advance organically. And if something doesn't fit later, you can always take it out.

6.5 Let your characters talk to you
F.Scott Fitzgerald once said, "Writers aren't people exactly...they're a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person." If your characters don't take on a life of their own, to the point where they snap their fingers and say, "Hey! I wouldn't do that; I'd do this!" then they're not going to enhance the plot much. Let your characters talk to you. When you're running errands, chat with them. Pretend they're in your situation and see what they'd do. Some of my best witticisms have come from me imagining a conversation between two characters who're commentating on something. It makes me laugh. It makes me look happy. It makes me sound completely insane, but hey, there are worse things in life.

7. Inspiration comes from anywhere and everywhere.
One day in college, during a particularly dry lecture on modern Egyptian regulation of the Suez Canal (don't ask), I wrote a short scene about a haunted castle, where the castle itself was a character. It wasn't a long scene, just a doodle, and it wasn't any particular castle. But I spent an enjoyable hour, and when the day was done, I went to the library to look at photo books of castles, because I'm a nerd. I found a book about Versailles, filled with scores of eerie, gorgeous photos of the empty palace. My imagination went berserk; I had my castle. My book, Lost Ones is set entirely around the idea of a big, lurking, empty palace. And I must have done something right, because the darn thing was published. :-)

8. Subscribe to a good writing magazine.
I am a huge fan of The Writer Magazine. My granddad first got me a subscription when I was sixteen, after we'd spent some time discussing future career options. After pointing out to me that I'd already written three (bad) novels and countless short stories, and fake-anecdoted my way through most of my school years, he suggested I make an actual study of fiction writing and ignore the critics. "So you'll be living in a box," he said, "Who cares? At least you'll be happy." And the next month I got The Writer in the mail. It has shown me countless tricks and helped me with both the creative and business side of writing. And my life has never been the same.

9. Study
Look at your favorite books, the ones you read over and over. Now go through them again, and this time, read not for the story, but for HOW the story was told. Look at the language, the sentence structure, the slow reveal of the plot, the characters. Look at how the author uses secrets, or suspense, or joy. Look at the bones. When you admire a writer, study their writing. This will make you a better writer. Plus, it's fun. Two of the writers who've had the biggest influence on me are Joanne Harris and J.R.R. Tolkien. Their writing is poetry. Hopefully one day mine will be of the same caliber.

10. Have fun
If you get bored, you've got a problem. Don't abandon your project, but take a serious look at it and see what is boring you. Because if you're bored, your readers will be, too. Whenever I get bored with a scene, I free write it. Boredom comes when you try to control your characters too strictly. They'll get cranky and put up a fight, and you'll end up with a lackluster piece of writing. Let them go. Follow them. Eventually you'll end up at the plot again, and you may have created a really great and necessary scene in the mean time. And for everything else, there's editing.


(Photo above by Chris Baty)