#6 So You Think You Might Wanna Write a Novel?
Being a Few Tips, Advice, and Opinions on the Endeavor
(Some of the following originally appeared in my The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing a Novel, Alpha Books, 2014)
Okay, I guess you could say I’m just a guy who likes to write—and has written a Lot of Stuff . . . including 25 novels.
I’ve spent most of my adult life writing and avoiding all the grown-up-people’s jobs. During that stretch of time, I’ve learned a lot of things—mostly self-taught—that helped me get better at what I do. Self-taught meant a lot of rumblin’-stumblin’-fumblin’ my way through the world of writing and publishing. It meant trial and error, frustration and rejection.
If you think you might want to write a novel, I hope I can help you avoid much of that sort of thing. If you want to spend you time writing a novel, I believe it should be fun, not work. If you want work, go get a gig in a pie factory or selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door.
My occasional posts on this topic will, I hope, instill in you a growing confidence that will come from familiarity with me and a belief in your own abilities. There’s no magic or secret knowledge in the writing of a novel. There are techniques, guidelines, and even a few tricks to make it a rewarding endeavor; but I submit it’s not much harder than making a six-foot model of the Statue of Liberty out of Lego blocks.
Just different.
Onward: Lots of people think it would be very cool to be a writer.
What they don't know (but probably suspect) is that not everybody can be a writer. In order for that to happen, you need a certain number of skills and attributes; and we’re gonna talk about them and provide a little analysis and advice.
And as we work our way through the list, I want to you to think about them and how they apply to you. A fair amount of honest self-assessment is needed at this initial stage of our work together. You’ll need to look at yourself in terms of these ingredients—so that you can see what’s usually necessary to be a writer in general. You’ll need to decide which ones you already possess . . . and which ones you don’t.
When you have sorted that stuff out, then you must decide which ones you can work on, and therefore develop and improve, and which ones you already have going for you in those all-important sufficient quantities and qualities.
Got it?
Good.
Now, in no particular order of importance (because they are all important), let’s talk first about:
1. Basic Writing Ability. And here I mean very basic ability. You should have at least an elementary grasp of how sentences are constructed, what grammar is (without being an English teacher or a grammarian), and how it is employed (in its most elementary ways) to make the most sense to anyone reading what you write. (This goes way beyond knowing which end of the sentence gets the period, okay?)
We’re talking a good understanding of the basics of composition and exposition that we are supposed to be taught by the eighth grade. I say “supposed” because I have my suspicions about how effective our modern public educational methods have recently been. You should be able to write clear, simple sentences which say what you mean.
We could spend plenty of time and space on the job of checking and ensuring your basic writing skills are up to speed, and then even make them better. But there’s no substitute for understanding grammar and how it is the foundation upon which everything else is built. It’s the old story of knowing the rules so you’ll know when to break them. It is also the idea of being so familiar with what good grammar is, you understand it without thinking about it. This is not a daunting as is may seem.
As possible evidence, I offer you a scribble from the late SF writer, Isaac Asimov: “I don't know anything but the simplest rules of English grammar, and I seldom consciously apply them. Nevertheless, I instinctively write correctly and, I like to think, in an interesting fashion. I know when something sounds right and when it doesn’t, and I can tell the difference without hesitation, even when writing at breakneck speed. How do I do this? I haven't the faintest idea.”
2. Natural Storyteller. People who fit this mold can usually be pegged very early on in their lives. Most of my friends are writers and they almost universally relate stories about their childhoods in which relatives and friends noticed a particular tendency to want to spin tales out of nothingness. This ability usually takes its earliest shape when we have to come up with plausible explanation for how or why we did or did not do something that would get us into Big Trouble. Some little kids are marvelously inventive when it comes to making up stories, so try to remember if you were like that or ask someone who can remember for you.
I can personally vouch for this sentiment that a knack for storytelling emerges early. When I was in the Cub Scouts, I was always the one who came up with a ghost story when it was time to sit around the campfire. I was always the one who had to come up with a name for our team, club, pets, secret hideout, or even the names of the games we would kind of invent in that wonderfully free-form kind of way kids have a knack for. You know what I mean when they can just let the play-time and play-activity just flow and evolve. No plan. No objective. No internal logic. Things kind of just happen, and they’re cool with it.
As I got older, I liked to draw pictures like most kids, but my pictures were not like the other kids. I would draw a series of pictures all on the same subject or scene. After a typical session with the Crayon box, I would have a stack of papers which told simple stories. Battles across the sky and landscape in which armies and planes would progressively get knocked around. Monsters ambling from dark forests would wade into towns and cities to spread their mayhem. Stuff like that. But the interesting thing is that, even at the age of 6 or 7, I was doing what the Hollywooders call “story-boarding,” which is mapping out your story in visual blocks.
My favorite kids TV show was Winky Dink, which was 40 years ahead of its time as an “interactive” program. With the help of a “magic screen” and washable marker, I was able to create parts of the cartoon that would help Winky get through his weekly adventure (like crossing a bridge I drew, or find a glass of water . . . )
As I grew a little older, after I’d learned how to write, I started writing down simple stories. I had gotten addicted to comic books early on, and I recall the first stories I wrote were basically just rip-offs of stuff I’d seen in a particular comic and couldn't get out of my head, which was just fine.
Because at least I was writing.
When I turned 12 or so, I realized one day that all the stuff I like to read had been written by actual people. I mean, I’d known it before on a less-than-conscious level, but suddenly it hit me hard, and I knew in that one Zen moment why I’d always liked drawing and writing—because I knew at that moment in my life I wanted to be a writer—like those people who actually wrote the stories I Loved. I bought my first typewriter soon after that.
Interesting, eh?
Now, at the risk of saying some people are just “born” storytellers, I am left with the conclusion that maybe some of us are—myself included. If that is indeed what’s going on, then it’s up for discussion whether this particular trait can be trained or taught.
What I mean is this: the idea of story can certainly be imparted to every one of you. The concepts of hero, anti-hero, villain, moral, resolution, and all that good stuff that became so well established all the way back with the creation of the Greek dramas. What might be harder to define and nurture is that inner drive, that thrumming turbine in the imagination’s engine room that kind of just makes some of us need to tell stories.
That’s the part that gets real interesting. And that’s where you come in. You need to develop the ability to peer down deep inside yourself (I know, I know, it’s dark in there . . .!) and see what’s pushing you, what is making you want to be a writer, and more specifically, a novelist—a writer of novels.
My Best Buddy, Paul Wilson wrote somewhere or other: “The only reason for being a writer, a storyteller, is that you just can’t help it. You have to do it.”
I agree.
3. A Mind for the Job. What we’re talking about here can be called temperament, spirit, or constitution. But when you distill off all the unnecessary elements, and you see what’s left in the bottom of the collecting jar, what you find is massive quantities of toughness, resilience, and ego. Because it's obviously important stuff, we need to examine these aspects of a writer’s make-up a little more thoroughly.
A writer has to be tough—especially a writer of novels because of the sheer amount of time they need to invest in actually creating a manuscript of such length. The average novel can be from 300-600 pages long, and some may end up being more than a 1,000. To spend the time and energy to outlast the pressures to simply stop requires an inner strength to merely keep pushing onward even when you don't feel like, when you feel like you’d rather be doing anything but writing, even watching re-runs of the weather channel. It is at those times you need to be tough on yourself.
But an even greater toughness is a requirement when you face rejection in the marketplace. Get used to this idea: being a writer means you will face a lot of rejection. What makes a story or a novel “good,” is a highly subjective set of criteria, and some people are going to really like what you write, and some people are probably not going to like it very much at all. It is a simple fact of life, stonecut into the wall of you writing compound in big, block letters: Rejection Comes with the Territory.
An old writing compadre, Ron Goulart once told me: “You gotta convince yourself that a rejection of your work is not a rejection of you. Every time they ever rejected something, I’d bounce something right back to them. If I’d used a similar method in college, I’d have had a lot more dates.”
You must be prepared for rejection. In fact, you gotta learn to eat it for breakfast and go on to the business at hand. Which is: writing your story or your book.
When I was first getting started, that is—seriously writing everyday and sending my stories out to every market I could find, I was only a few months out of college. I would finish a short story and send it out with an SASE to a mystery, SF, horror, or adventure magazine, and start right in on another one. After I did this enough times, I had probably 15 or 20 stories circulating among all the possible markets for them. And every few weeks, I’d get one of them back with a form-letter or small notepad sized rejection paper-clipped to the first page.
I would do what any real writer does—yanked off the rejection slip, put the story in a new envelope, with a new SASE, and sent it off again. It's the only thing I could do. Never take it personally. Never get mad. Just tell yourself you will eventually show them the error in their judgment of your work.
I sent off stories and harvested rejection slips like that for about two and half years. Close to two hundred of them. But I never gave up. I told myself I would simply keep writing. I told myself I would eventually start selling my stories.
And I did.
But the reason I was able to do it is because I was mentally tough, I always had enough moxie inside to bounce forward from yet another failure in the marketplace, and I had a big enough ego to not only absorb the impacts, but also to believe I was good enough to make it someday.
So the simple line here is never take “no” for your final answer. Always recover from rejection with a renewed will to succeed. If you can do that—no matter how long it takes—you will succeed. There’s a possibly apocryphal story about a writer named Robert M. Pirsig getting his book rejected by 121 publishers before getting accepted and sold and eventually selling more than 3 million copies (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance)
4. A Natural and Unabiding Curiosity. This is a no-brainer, really. It will definitely help if you're the type who goes out into the backyard after nightfall every once in a while, takes a look up at the endless scatter of stars, and is struck by the sheer immensity and wonder of it all. Or how about this one: you’re watching The History Channel or The Learning Channel and something you see there makes you wonder wow, what if . . . ?
These are just two of many examples of how your imagination should be working if you want to write novels. You have to be like one of those sentinels along the watchtowers. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to be totally plugged into the world around you. Ever vigilant.
Which means you are not like most people. Which means you are immediately curious when you hear a neighbor mention a weird noise or a strange light; or when you read an article which notes an increase in hung juries; or when you see a whacko-looking character running the Tilt-A-Whirl at the summer carnival that just set-up on the outskirts of your town. Or . . .
You fill in the blanks.
The point I’m trying to make here is that it doesn’t matter what fires your curiosity and gets your imagination burning like a coal furnace into which somebody tossed some paint thinner. What does matter is that something does.
There’s an old axiom among the SF writers that you gotta have what they call a “sense of wonder” to write science fiction, and I’d extrapolate on that sentiment and say, what the heck, you need it to write anything.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the world around you has got to strike you as interesting as hell . . . even if you live in a farmhouse in Indiana and the empty land around you is a plain and featureless as a freshly-sanded table-top.
When my parents, in their infinite wisdom, decided to send me to a Jesuit high school outside of Baltimore, I entered a world of disciplined learning. The curriculum was tough—four years of Latin, two years of French or German, a year of Greek, four years of English grammar and composition, algebra and calculus, plus all the sciences, history, theology, philosophy, and music.
Yeah, I learned a lot. But one of the most important things I learned was the following little piece of advice. It was one of those techniques for which the Jesuits have become infamous among their more staid and traditional colleagues in the Church. More than one of them in the course of their lectures and lessons warned us to always Ask The Next Question.
Think about it.
Never be satisfied with anything you hear, see, or read. That’s the secret of not only being an informed human being, but also being a good writer. I’ve always tried to use that advice—look at things from every aspect, by turning it and twisting it and stretching it and squeezing it. Never being satisfied with just a single answer, I always bug and noodge my sources to give up everything they know.
Because this where your imagination kicks in. This is where your idea-engine and your plot-machine get their fuel when you have them chugging and clanking through the long hours of the night.
Another thing we should mention is something lots of writers rely on (even they have no idea what it is or how it works). It’s that strange only vaguely understood part of our minds the psychiatrists call The Subconscious.
And I should mention here that not everybody is on the same page with this one. You can find plenty of people who will swear the subconscious mind doesn't even exist . . . much less help you be a great writer. But you’ll find a lot more writers who swear by it.
And it works something like this: you’re writing your novel and you’re having problems figuring out a plot-complication or how to explain a character’s motivation for doing something you just made him do . . . or whatever. The point being you have a problem, and you have no clue how to solve it, how to fix it.
So what do you do?
If you’re stalled, sometimes the best thing to do is drop it for a day or so. Leave it alone and go work on something else . . . some other scene, a new chapter, maybe even an idea for short story. The cool thing is this—even though you don't think you’re working on solving your creativity problem, believe me . . . you are.
At least part of you is doing it, and that part is your subconscious mind. The part that doesn't need to pay attention when you’re eating, breathing, mowing the lawn, driving the car, sorting out the junk mail, all the other stuff you do. Yeah, that part of your mind, which for most people (who are not creative types) has very little to do except crank up some hellaciously weird and detailed dreams, has been working on your novel’s problems.
So what you do is learn to trust your subconscious.
It’s weird, because when you least expect to find the answer to a troublesome character or a needed plot-twist, it will jump up and startle you with its freshness and utter applicability. I can’t explain it any better than that, but if any of you have, in your grown-up people’s jobs, been in positions which require intensive analysis and problem-solving, you’ve probably already experienced the power of the subconscious. Some people even have dreams in which they see themselves figuring out the answer. Some people just wake in the middle of the night, ad wham!, they’ve got something totally worked out. If any of this has happened to you . . . well, then, you know what I’m talking about.
The rest of you? Until you feel it firsthand, you’re just going to have to trust me on this one.
5. Sense of Humor. This is important in ways you may not suspect. I don't primarily mean you should be thinking “funny” when you write, although a little levity can often nudge your material to places it would not otherwise go. No, what I’m suggesting here is far more basic to what a writer needs, and that is this: don't take yourself and your work too seriously.
What do I mean by this?
In order for you be a good writer, you have to like writing. There has to be some part of the process you enjoy. In other words, writing your novel has to be fun.
Over the years I’ve met plenty of people who are struggling novelists and one of the prime reasons many of them have not yet succeeded is because they insist on making the writing of their novel such a grim task, like a forced march through an earth-scorched battlefield. In many instances, these would-be novelists have been poisoned by the largely academic attitude that writing a novel is such a noble and intellectually tedious struggle that it should be regarded as a labor. . and most definitely not a joy.
Friends, I can tell you—this kind of attitude ultimately saps a writer’s lifeblood away better than any b-movie vampire.
Over the years, I’ve attended lots of conventions and workshops full of writers and editors, and I’ve have been invited to my share of seminars and symposia in the groves of academe, which means I’ve done a lot of public speaking about writing and literature (with a lower case “l”). In case you haven’t noticed by now, my style is very informal. I want you to feel like you just pulled up a chair on the front porch where I’ve been already sitting, waiting for you, and we just lean back and have a nice easy talk about writing a novel.
Well, that's pretty much the way I present my material from the stage or the lectern, too. Although I have to tell you—I hate lecterns and podia because they tend to transform speakers into statues, and I like to be very animated and in motion when I talk to big crowds. Wherein I basically tell them writing a novel needs to be an enjoyable endeavor.
And you would be amazed at the reaction my attitude elicits from the professorial types in the audience. Many of them see me as a “commercial” writer (which I am, of course), and that is, in many English Departments, a bad thing. Many PhDs believe that writing purchased in any quantity by the public must be, by its very nature, inferior and common when contrasted to what they have decided is Literature. These same professors tend to get a little cranky with me, you might well expect, when I talk about novels and the writing of them without a lot of phony pomp and circumstance. And I speak from inside the castle walls. I have a master’s degree in English and went all-but-dissertation for my PhD (before I walked away and wrote and sold my first [albeit not-so-good] first novel.)
I have, on some of those occasions, been accused by such poseurs of not taking my work “seriously,” of having an attitude far too cavalier to be able to produce any work of merit or staying power. But I want to tell you, don’t get seduced by that kind of thinking. There is something ultimately bizarre about making up stories and getting paid for them. If you never discover that simple kernel of humor and wonder about writing, you’re in for a long, arduous journey of your own making.
Believe me, the longer you remain in the world of writing, the more publishing people you’re going to meet. And if any of them ever start to paint that silly portrait of the writer as a struggling, tortured soul, tell them you know better.
Raymond Carver once wrote: “Writing’s not terrible, it’s wonderful. I keep my own hours, do what I please. When I want to travel, I can. But mainly, I’m doing what I most wanted to do all my life. I’m not into the agonies of creation.”
6. A Support Group. At first glance, this one may not seem all that necessary because you, like most people, may imagine that writing is pretty much a task. You do it alone. You don't need a lot of people around while you’re doing it, and it’s not much of a stretch to figure you’re more comfortable when you’re just hangin’ out with your best friend—which is you.
But actually, the exact opposite is usually the case. You’ll find that you spend so much time alone that when you’re not writing, it does your soul a lot of good to be around other people.
The trick is to surround yourself with the right kinds of people. And that means people who understand your desire, need, and intention to write your novel and who are not going to give you a hard time about it. Let’s take a look at who these people might be and how you deal with each of them.
a.)Your immediate family. Number one in this group is usually your spouse or what the politically correct crowd had decreed we should call your “significant other.” And I’m going to tell you right now, if this person is not in your corner regarding your novel project, then you’re up a fairly famous creek without that equally famous paddle. I say this because your spouse/S.O. is the one who’s going to with you the most and who is going to have to re-adjust his or her schedule and thinking more than anyone else you’re in contact with.
They’re going to need to respect your need for privacy and a modicum of quiet (unless you like to write with a lot of music on). They’re going to have to realize they will probably be the first person (and for a while, the only person) reading your chapters as the come whispering out of the printer. And going along with this, they’ll have to learn how to be honest with you regarding your work. They need to be able to tell when it’s bad as well as when it’s good, and it would help if they could tell you why. They also need to understand when you’re sitting at your keyboard or typewriter or notepad, it's probably not a good time to ask you to switch the clothes from the washer to the dryer or feed the dog.
Some couples have more trouble with getting this riff down than others. Lots of factors here. Education. Amount of other reading they do. Amount of time spent alone. Jealousy. Lack of respect. Or . . . . fill in the blank. If people are involved, the dynamic can create problems and stresses even I may not be able to foresee.
b.) Your Friends. This is your inner circle of associates ranging from your best friend all the way down to the distant neighbor you wave at across the hedges and talk lawn-stuff. Lots of factors only you know will determine how much of your dreams and actual writing you share with this group. If you trust their opinions and knowledge of what makes a “good read,” then you might chivvy them up for honest criticism. If they really like you, they might be reluctant to tell you they don't like what you’re writing. Noble and heartfelt, maybe. But not the real feedback you need.
So make sure you select those among your friends who, again, understand what you’re trying to and why. Impress upon them that you need them to believe in you, but you also need them to be honest with you.
c.) Academics. What I mean by this is basically anyone you may know from a college English Department, the local high school teacher, or even people who teach floating writer’s workshops and stuff like that. (We’re might to spend more time on the whole workshop-thing in another post.) This is a good pool from which you can drag some very supportive people. Many college professors I’ve known “have been working on a novel” for many, many years (which means: they haven’t been working very hard . . . but that’s another story for another time) and they may be able to give the standard grad school riff on the Structure and Purpose of the novel, which may or may not appeal to you. Local teachers and workshop mentors are also helpful for getting your manuscript edited and critiqued.
The important thing to keep in mind about these all folks is that they’re all in synch with what you want to do. They are all most likely active readers who wouldn't mind having a few publications listed in their resumes as well. They are, in that sense, with you.
So inform them of your project and take what they tell you with a grain of salt and the Real Wisdom you’re getting from me right here.
Mark Twain said it best quite some time ago: “Keep away from the people who belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
d.) Other Writers. These people are theoretically the most important support group you can assemble—for obvious reasons. These are the guys who’ve walked in your shoes. They shared the same dreams, the same rejections and harsh criticisms, and maybe even similar successes.
How do you meet other writers?
It depends on a lot of factors: the size of your town, your circle of friends, your profession, and your own interest in finding them. There are clubs which advertise at libraries; there are ads in the back of writers’ magazines; and there is the internet, where you can find just about anything, anywhere . . . so finding writers who want to talk about writing is a piece of cake.
But here’s the neat part, if you stay in the writing game, you will meet writers without even trying. You will meet editors at your publishing house. Editors mostly know Other Writers. You’ll meet them, trust me. If you decide to get an agent, you will meet the agent’s other clients. You will correspond with other writers and you will like it. It's just one of those processes that happens.
You may even join a writers’ “group” that meets every once in while to do Writer Stuff like readings, critiques, workshops, cook-outs, library benefits, or whatever.
Try it. You’ll dig it.
And that pretty much wraps up my thoughts on what you should be thinking about if you want to write your novel. If you’ve lasted this long, I suspect you are serious about this writing thing.
As far as what I’ve laid out here . . . Make of it what you will.