Building a Novel ~ One block at a time

So you want to write a novel, eh?

I’d like to throw out some tips to you to get you started:

1)     Characters - You absolutely have to have characters planned out for your novel. Either in your head waiting to be birthed, or ones you’ve written for but never really gave them a home.

2)     Define these characters - give them hair color, skin color, clothes that suit them and facial features that define them. Give them personality and a voice that can carry a novel.

3)     Environment - Okay, so now you have characters, now you’re going to need a setting in which they’ll live or a world to wander through (You never know, you might be writing a sci-fi novel and you really need to discover the worlds in which they live)

4)     Premise - This is where you’ll define what your novel will be about. The beginning, middle and how you see it ending. You don’t have to adhere to the premise entirely but this will get you started in the direction you wish to go.

5)     Outline – You can, if you want, outline each chapter; again as you wish to see the story develops. You needn’t stick to this outline like crazy glue to your fingers, you just need a basic outline of all you see happening with each chapter.

6)     Timeline – As you work on the outline, this might be where you put forth a timeline. Have you missed years’ perhaps dates? Are they consistent/inconsistent with the rest of what you wrote?

7)     Editing – Not by paragraph, not by chapter, not even by the time you reach the middle. Save all edits for after you’ve written THE END can you go back and edit.

8)     Seek feedback – This is where a writing group comes in handy if you have one. I myself don’t have one these days, so my editing is done in my spare time. I read and fix things I think I miss, I read it out loud to myself because this is how the reader is going to hear it in their minds when they read it. Fixing things means my consistency and imagery and such.

9)     Edit some more- I go through each chapter doing the above. Making sure I have my handy dandy timeline ready for viewing, then I check for any grammar mistakes I may have made and tweak them to my liking.

10)  Edit some more - After the two edits to your liking, you’re going to want to give it another trip down the reading lane.

There you have it. Your novel should be a complete novel instead of a work in progress.  I know many writers do many more edits before being satisfied with a completed work, so be sure you’ve done enough to satisfy you. Then get searching for publishers! 

Book Bites: 

 Outlining Your Novel by K.M. Weiland

 The Essential Guide to Writing a Novel by James Thayer

Character

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.”

~ Abraham Lincoln

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So you want to build a character? A great exercise in the journey of building a character is having your character describe YOU. When you put on your characters personality in introducing you to the world, something happens, you learn more about your character(s) in their voice, actions, and their readability.

A lot of the times you find out things about your characters that you never knew.

1) Are they antagonist or protagonist?

2) Does their voice sound flat?

3) Do they need to be redefined in your eyes?

4) Can this (these) characters carry a fifty-thousand word novel? A short story?

5) Are you ready to hear from your character what they dislike about you the most?

Keep in mind your characters take on a life of their own. They think for themselves, dress for themselves and are everything they need to get by. When you, the nosey writer, pokes and prods, you create things that maybe really are not in character for him or her.

This character exchange exercise really gives you a window to look through at your character to see how THEY see YOU! And they’ll be real vocal about it too. Once you begin writing you just can’t stop. You didn’t realize Rapunzel (my character) could be so vocal!

Maybe I should do my exercise here, for you all to see a writer and character at work! Well that’s a cool idea. I see too many people do this exercise allowing the ego-tripping character to go on and on about THEM, when that is not the point AT ALL in the exercise. WE, the reader, want to hear about YOU, the writer, from your characters perspective!

Introducing (drum roll please) Rapunzel

My name’s Rapunzel and my Drama Queen of a writer, Joni, wants me to tell you about her. Sure she’s going to stir my story up like stew but it is her story that I can’t wait to tell YOU about.

She went and shifted gears in the mentoring stage and is now going to be teaching you, the gracious readers of her blog. She thinks the writing sites are full of fluff and has put them in the closet, but her blog, now that is her own and where she can be free to write whatever she wants to write.

Freedom, that is what she likes and I sure hope she likes it enough to give me a taste of it too! Funny thing is, she has long flowing blond hair, like me, often feels imprisoned, like me, and she tries to be a light at the end of the tunnel, like I am for some.

I’m thinking she chose to write about me because we’re so much alike. Will she be able to pull off a story of say 1500 words about a fictional character and keep herself out of it or will we merge together. Hey, I don’t want to be a writer, after some of the things I’ve witnessed her go through, no thanks!

Freedom will be the goal for both of us and I’ll watch as she soars, now if only I could too.

Itchy and Scratchy

Talents are best nurtured in solitude. Character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world. ~Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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Character building is not something that is just a fly by night thing to do. There is some really deep thought that needs to go in the construction of a beloved character that your reader is going to latch onto and never want to let go of through many readings and many generations.

A few characters that stick out in my mind is Eleanor from The Haunting of Hill House, Gem from To Kill a Mockingbird, and most recently I think of Odd Thomas from Odd Thomas, and Max and the birdkids from Maximum Ride. Shirley Jackson, Harper Lee, Dean Koontz and James Patterson, respectively.

These characters were not just put on paper and thrown into a story. You have to have a basic idea of who that character is. After you got your premise down of the story you want to tell, you start filling it in with characters. The main character is the one you want to spend the most time with because he/she is going to not only carry the weight of the story but have the most lasting impression on the reader.

Basically you are building the person from scratch, but you might have an idea from someone you’ve met in life, maybe a person you admired and looked up to, or maybe an evil sinister man whom you loathed as child will become your antagonist. Either way the path is being laid and you need to build a strong house to get this character on board.

Does she/he have blue eyes, green eyes or purple eyes, in Odd Thomas’ case? Are they tall, short, small, big? Anything stand out to make them special? Think about that one. You’re going to want something to stand out on that character like never before written.
We have enough blond bombshells, they are more caricatures than characters. We have enough men with chiseled cheekbones and etched out abs.

We need something unique, a scar perhaps? Then you can build on it, as a scar from say a fire many years ago, an accident a few years ago, or a pimple that won’t go away from a few weeks ago? Whatever the case may be, your character needs to be unique. No cookie cutter cut-outs. Unique in the fact that he/she has not been done before. The reader wants something new!

As you can see in the TV industry, it is very hard to come up with something new. This is the reason they inundate the screens with reality tv, because they think that is what people like. So isn’t that what you like when picking up a book? A character/hero/heroine that rings true to life? Or do you read  to see the same old things over and over.

I don’t think you do. I have pretty brilliant readers and you look for something fresh every day whether it is in a blog post or a book or an online story, you’re looking for NEW and getting the same-old, same-old.  Is that how you’re going to build your character? Getting a little itchy and scratchy there are ya? You now feel the need to go and CREATE?

Don’t let me stop you! Write Right!