Where Do You Get Your Ideas? A Basic Primer of a Novelist's Writing Process

One of my online students, new to writing fiction, brought up a couple of good and very important questions in class this week.

1.  How do you start writing a novel?  What are the steps?
2.  Where do you get your ideas?

In this blog I'm going to tackle the second question--about idea gathering--because it's really the first step to writing a book of any kind.  But I'd love to refer my student, and all of you, to Elizabeth George's wonderful writing-craft book, Write Away, where she details her writing process. 

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Three Tricks to Keep Your Book Warm (or Even Hot) This Winter

Here in New England of the U.S., we're getting dire news.  Winter is going to be long and intense again, like last year.   After the holidays, we may be socked in for a while, if the predictions are correct.  I'm hoping they're not, but I'm also hedging my bets.

I want to keep my book cooking--even hot--despite frightful weather outside.  Three motivation tricks I've practiced these past winters, shared below, really work for me.  Maybe they'll inspire you too.

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Omission--The Art and Craft of What to Delete

This week I removed a page from my novel's opening chapter. I'd worked on that page for two years, off and on, and workshopped that chapter maybe a dozen times. It was as good as I could make it. But I hadn't seen that there was material I didn't need, and I couldn't see that in even the eleventh draft, just because the shape was still evolving in my mind.

 

This week, I had a new perspective, thanks to some feedback from an agent. Opening chapters need to do two things, she said. Introduce the character and put them into some immediate action. I had the action, no problem. But I spent too long introducing the character. Now, what I've omitted, makes room for more tension in the storyline.

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Building Your Writing Routine--What Will Keep You Going This Winter?

What's the difference between a writer who gets a book finished and a writer who never does?  A writing routine.  Believe it--there's nothing more important.  Not talent, not a great idea.  It's down to basics:  putting self in chair, putting hands on keyboard or taking up the pen.

I recently finished Elizabeth Gilbert's new book on creativity:  Big Magic.  Gilbert has produced well in her writing career.  She has had huge successes (Eat, Pray, Love) and lesser ones.  Gilbert's no stranger to the magic of the Muse, but she defines it differently. 

It's what happens when you are listening.  And when you have a writing routine.

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Story Told from Then, Story Told from Now--Getting Clear about Your Narrative Point of View

Deciding who is telling your story--that's a big moment in writing a book.  But even more important is deciding where your narrator will be standing, as he or she tells the tale.  Is the narrator speaking in real time, as the story is happening?  Or from what's called the "retrospective" point of view, looking back from the distance of years?

Which narrative point of view will best serve your story?  Can you move back and forth between them?  And if so, how do you weave them together to make a cohesive book?

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Saying No to Everything Else--How Much Can You Realistically Give to Your Book?

When we happily begin our books, we really don't know what kind of time they will take. Such naivete is a good plan, in a way. Ignorance of what we've signed up for keeps us enthusiastic for quite a while. We write, accumulate pages, stay high on the process.

Until we compare notes with another writer.

"I write every day," our new writing friend says. "My instructor/mentor/favorite famous writer days you have to, if you want to really finish your book."

We slink back to our writing desk, wondering what to do now. It doesn't help that our new friend (pick one): (a) is single, no kids; (b) doesn't have to work; (c) is retired and looking for stuff to do; or (d) works at home and can write anytime.

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Why False Agreements Make Strong Chapters

The inner story of a book is the transformation of a person, the main character or narrator, through a series of outer events.  This is called a narrative arc.  Without this narrative arc, a book is just like reading a list of crises.  

Readers want to witness growth.  The narrative arc is the journey of growth. A clear narrative arc makes a book feel cohesive. 

But since narrative arcs are about change, the character's journey often starts with something they don't understand.  Something they are challenged by.  Another way to look at this:  it starts with a false agreement.

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Big Fights and Little Fights--How Conflict Drives Your Story's Success

This week I am teaching about fighting--at a serene writer's retreat on beautiful Madeline Island in Lake Superior.  An odd topic for a retreat, maybe, but conflict seems to always be in the driver's seat in successful books.

We began our first lesson with a brainstorming session about big fights and little fights.  I wrote the word fighting on the whiteboard and asked the group of thirteen writers to call out different ways fighting can appear in life--and in stories.  We came up with dozens of ways.  Everything from jihads and riots to hate mail and stony silences.  We also explored the subtler kinds of fighting that happen inside a character or narrator in a story--or even a reader trying out a new idea by reading a nonfiction book.  What does a person have to give up to grow?  And how does this internal resistance to surrender cause conflict in their outer lives?

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What Thriller Writers Can Teach You about Stellar Dialogue: Learning about Beats, Tags, Interruptions and Other Techniques to Increase Tension

I'm not a thriller writer.  I've edited thrillers, I've read them, I've taught thriller writers how to structure and refine their books.  But writing that high-tension stuff doesn't come naturally to me. 

But I've learned a LOT from working on thrillers.  One skill that's translated over into my own memoir and fiction is the thriller style of dialogue.  It's tense, it builds, it can take a mundane subject and create undercurrent that makes the reader shiver.  Best of all, it's aces at revealing character.

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Taking a Break from Your Book: When It's a Good Idea . . . and How to Know

I just spent ten days at a cabin on a lake, high in the mountains, and I didn't work on my novel.  I intended to.  I brought my laptop, the files all updated in Scrivener.  I brought the latest feedback from my writing partners, the comments and changes I was considering.  I brought a bag of inspirational books on writing and creativity.

But I didn't write.

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