Introduction 1
About This Book 1
Conventions Used In This Book 2
What You're Not to Read 2
Foolish Assumptions 3
How This Book is Organized 3
Part I: Getting Ready to Write Fiction 4
Part II: Creating Compelling Fiction 4
Part III: Editing and Polishing Your Story and Characters 4
Part IV: Getting Published 4
Part V: The Part of Tens 5
Icons Used in This Book 5
Where to Go from Here 5
Part I: Getting Ready to Write Fiction 7
Chapter 1: Fiction Writing Basics 9
Setting Your Ultimate Goal as a Writer 11
Pinpointing Where You are as a Writer 13
Freshmen: Concentrating on craft 13
Sophomores: Tackling the proposal 14
Juniors: Perfecting their pitches 15
Seniors: Preparing to become authors 16
Getting Yourself Organized 17
Mastering Characterization, Plotting, and Other Skills 18
Editing Your Fiction 18
Chapter 2: What Makes a Great Story? 21
Choosing What to Give Your Readers 22
Creating a powerful emotional experience: What your readers desperately want 22
Educating your reader 23
Practicing the gentle art of persuasion 24
Making Life Hard on Your Characters: Conflict Plus Change Equals Story 25
The Five Pillars of Fiction 26
Setting the stage: Your story world 27
Creating characters 28
Constructing the plot 28
Formulating a theme 30
Expressing your style 31
Seven Ways to Deliver the Goods 31
The here and now: Action 32
Giving your characters a voice: Dialogue 33
Revealing thoughts: Interior monologue 33
Feeling with your character: Interior emotion 34
Seeing what your character sees: Description 34
Taking a trip to the past: Flashback 35
Supplying narrative summary 35
Chapter 3: Finding Your Audience and Category 37
Identifying Your Ideal Novel 38
Looking at what you love to read 38
Thinking about what you love to write 39
Defining Your Ideal Reader 40
Considering worldview and interests 41
Looking at gender 42
Writing for readers of a certain age 43
Defining your niche 43
Understanding Your Category 43
Genres: Surveying categories based on content 45
Understanding audience-based categories 50
Picking your category and subcategory 52
Finding Your Category's Requirements 53
Targeting your word count 54
Accounting for major characters 54
Determining levels of action, romance, and all that 55
Identifying your story's emotional driver 58
Chapter 4: Four Ways to Write a Great Novel 59
Giving Yourself Permission to Write Badly 59
Creative Paradigms: Investigating Various Writing Methods 61
Writing without planning or editing 61
Editing as you go 62
Planning a little, writing a little 63
Outlining before you write 64
Finding a Creative Paradigm that Works for You 65
Understanding why method matters 66
Developing your creative paradigm 67
Using Your Creative Paradigm to Find Your Story Structure 69
Chapter 5: Managing Your Time and Yourself 71
Finding Time to Write 71
Establishing and sticking to a writing goal - for this week and this year 72
Organizing your time 74
Setting Up Your Ideal Writing Space 75
Securing the best writing surface 76
Finding the right chair 76
Choosing a computer (if you want to use one) 77
Putting everything in place 78
Dealing with Distractions 79
Looking at Money Matters 80
Budgeting money for writing 81
Making your living as a writer: Don't expect this to be your day job (yet) 82
Part II: Creating Compelling Fiction 85
Chapter 6: Building Your Story World: The Setting for Your Story 87
Identifying the Parts of a Story World 88
Creating a Sense of Place 89
Making description do double duty 90
Fitting description in the story 91
Weaving emotive force into your descriptions 92
Deciding What Drives Your Cultural Groups 93
Revealing cultural drivers with immediate scene 93
Exposition: Explaining cultural drivers through narrative summary 94
Combining various elements to show cultural drivers 95
Choosing the Backdrop for Conflict 95
Defining your backdrop 95
Defining your story question 98
Story World Examples from Four Well-Known Novels 98
Pride and Prejudice 98
The Pillars of the Earth 99
Patriot Games 100
Ender's Game101
Researching Your Story World 102
Identifying what you need to know about your story world 102
Knowing how much research is enough 104
Being Able to Explain Your Story World to Sell Your Book 106
Chapter 7: Creating Compelling Characters 107
Defining Roles: Deciding Who Goes in Your Novel 107
Backstory: Giving Each Character a Past 109
Understanding why backstory matters 109
Creating your character's backstory 110
Avoiding stereotypes 111
Motivation: Looking to Your Character's Future 112
Values: Core truths for your character 113
Ambitions: Getting abstract, or why Miss America wants "world peace" 115
Story goals: Your story's ultimate driver 115
Establishing your character's motivation 117
Point of View (POV): Getting Some Perspective on Character 121
First-person POV 122
Third-person POV 124
Objective third-person POV 125
Head-hopping POV.126
Omniscient POV 127
Second-person POV 128
Choosing between Past and Present Tense 129
Revealing Your Characters to the Reader 131
Chapter 8: Storyline and Three-Act Structure: The Top Layers of Your Plot 135
Giving the Big Picture of Story Structure: Your Storyline 135
Understanding the value of a storyline 136
Writing a great storyline 137
Examples: Looking at storylines for 20 best-selling novels 140
Three-Act Structure: Setting Up Three Disasters 145
Looking at the value of a three-act structure 145
Timing the acts and disasters 147
Introducing a great beginning 148
The end of the beginning: Getting commitment with the first disaster 148
Supporting the middle with a second major disaster 149
Leading to the end: Tackling the third disaster 150
Wrapping up: Why endings work - or don't 151
Summarizing Your Three-Act Structure for Interested Parties 153
Examples: Summarizing the Matarese Circle and Pride and Prejudice 153
Describing your own three-act structure 155
Chapter 9: Synopsis, Scene List, and Scene: Your Middle Layers of Plot 157
Deciding Which Order to Work In 157
Writing the Synopsis 158
Taking it from the top: Fleshing out your three-act structure 159
Bottoms up! Building around sequences of scenes 160
Knowing how much detail you need 161
Example: A synopsis of Ender's Game 161
Developing Your Scene List 163
Top-down: Fleshing out your synopsis 163
Bottom-up: Summarizing your manuscript 164
Example: A scene list of Ender's Game 165
Extending your scene list 167
Setting Up the Structure of Individual Scenes 167
Setting the proactive scene 168
Following up with the reactive scene 170
Coming full circle with your scenes 173
Scene structure in Gone with the Wind 173
Scene structure in Patriot Games 174
Chapter 10: Action, Dialogue, and More: The Lowest Layer of Your Plot 177
Using Seven Core Tools for Showing and Telling 178
Action 179
Dialogue 180
Interior emotion 183
Interior monologue 184
Description 186
Flashback 189
Narrative summary and other forms of telling 192
The Secret of Showing 194
Sorting it all out 194
Understanding the two kinds of clips 196
Writing public clips 197
Writing private clips 197
Putting cause and effect together 199
Chapter 11: Thinking Through Your Theme 203
Understanding Why Your Theme Matters 203
Looking at why writers include themes in their novels 204
Examining the features of a theme 205
Example themes for 20 novels 205
Deciding When to Identify Your Theme 209
Finding Your Theme 210
Faking it till you make it 210
Reading your own novel for the first time 211
Listening to your characters 212
Using test readers 212
Must you have a theme? 212
Refining Your Theme 213
Part III: Editing and Polishing Your Story and Characters 215
Chapter 12: Analyzing Your Characters 217
The High-Level Read-Through: Preparing Yourself to Edit 218
Developing a Bible for Each Character 219
Physical traits 221
Emotional and family life 221
Intellectual and work life.222
Backstory and motivation.222
Psychoanalyzing Your Characters 223
Are values in conflict? 223
Do the values make sense from the backstory? 224
Does ambition follow from values? 226
Will the story goal satisfy the ambition? 227
The Narrator: Fine-Tuning Point-of-View and Voice 228
Does your POV strategy work? 228
Have you chosen the right POV character? 232
Is your POV consistent? 233
Does your character have a unique voice? 233
Fixing Broken Characters 234
Boring characters 234
Shallow characters 234
Unbelievable characters 235
Unlikeable characters 236
Chapter 13: Scrutinizing Your Story Structure 239
Editing Your Storyline 240
Removing all unnecessary weight 240
Keeping your characters anonymous 241
Staying focused 241
Cutting down some example storylines 241
Testing Your Three-Act Structure 244
What are your three disasters? 246
Are your acts balanced in length? 247
The beginning: Does it accelerate the story? 248
The first disaster: Is the call to action clear? 249
The second disaster: Does it support the long middle? 250
The third disaster: Does it force the ending? 252
The ending: Does it leave your reader wanting to tell others? 253
Scene List: Analyzing the Flow of Scenes 255
Rearranging your scenes 255
Foreshadowing: Planting clues to prepare readers 256
Putting it all together as a second draft 257
Chapter 14: Editing Your Scenes for Structure 259
Triage: Deciding Whether to Fix, Kill, or Leave a Scene Alone 260
Identifying ailing scenes 260
Evaluating a scene's chances of recovery 261
Fixing Proactive Scenes 262
Imagining a proactive scene: The Day of the Jackal 262
Checking for change 263
Choosing a powerful goal 263
Stretching out the conflict 264
Desperately seeking setbacks 265
Examining the final result 266
Fixing Reactive Scenes 267
Imagining a reactive scene: Outlander 267
Checking for change (again) 268
Fitting the reaction to the setback 268
Working through the dilemma 269
Coming to a decision 270
Coming to the final result 270
Killing an Incurable Scene 271
Chapter 15: Editing Your Scenes for Content 273
Deciding Whether to Show or Tell 274
Knowing when clips, flashbacks, or telling techniques are most appropriate 274
Following an example of decision-making 275
A Good Show: Editing Clips 277
Guidelines for editing clips 278
Fixing mixed clips 279
Fixing unintentional head-hopping 280
Fixing out-of-body experiences 282
Fixing cause-effect problems 283
Fixing time-scale problems 284
Getting In and Out of Flashbacks 286
Editing Telling 287
Tightening text and adding color 288
Knowing when to kill a segment of telling 289
Part IV: Getting Published 291
Chapter 16: Getting Ready to Sell Your Book: Polishing and Submitting 293
Polishing Your Manuscript 294
Teaming with critique buddies 294
Joining critique groups 295
Working with freelance editors 296
Hiring freelance proofreaders 297
Looking at Three Common Legal Questions 298
Deciding between Traditional Publishing and Self-Publishing 299
Understanding how traditional publishers work 299
Understanding how self-publishing works 301
Beware the vanity publishers! 302
Our recommendation 303
First Contact: Writing a Query Letter 303
Piecing Together a Proposal 306
Deciding what to include 306
Your cover letter: Reminding the agent who you are 307
Your title page 307
The executive summary page 308
Market analysis: Analyzing your competition 309
Your author bio 309
Character sketches 310
The dreaded synopsis 311
Your marketing plan 311
Your writing, including sample chapters (or whole manuscripts!) 312
Chapter 17: Approaching Agents and Editors 315
Defining the Roles of Agents and Editors 315
Finding the Best Agent for You 316
Deciding whether you need an agent 316
Doing your homework on agents first 317
Contacting agents to pitch your work 320
Editors, the Center of Your Writing Universe 322
Targeting a publishing house 323
Choosing which editor to contact 324
Contacting editors directly 324
Part V: The Part of Tens 327
Chapter 18: Ten Steps to Analyzing Your Story 329
Step 1: Write Your Storyline 330
Step 2: Write Your Three-Act Structure 330
Step 3: Define Your Characters 331
Step 4: Write a Short Synopsis 332
Step 5: Write Character Sketches 332
Step 6: Write a Long Synopsis 332
Step 7: Create Your Character Bible 333
Step 8: Make Your Scene List 333
Step 9: Analyze Your Scenes 334
Step 10: Write and Edit Your Story 335
Chapter 19: Ten Reasons Novels are Rejected 337
The Category is Wrong 338
Bad Mechanics and Lackluster Writing 339
The Target Reader Isn't Defined 339
The Story World is Boring 340
The Storyline is Weak 340
The Characters Aren't Unique and Interesting 341
The Author Lacks a Strong Voice 341
The Plot is Predictable 342
The Theme is Overbearing 343
The Book Fails to Deliver a Powerful Emotional Experience 343
Index 345
