Advanced Fiction Writing Blog

We’re wrapping up a series of guest blogs posts by novelist Susan Meissner today. Susan’s been talking about “Writing 300 Pages in 30 Days” which is a creditable goal. I think most people would be happy to do 300 pages in 60 days. Today, Susan talks about making a pact with yourself to get it done.

Susan writes:

First a question from Tami:

“Can I use an inanimate object as my protag? It’s a wonderful old house built in 1863 . . .”

My feeling is you can do whatever you want if it works. The thing about a protag is that he or she or it has to drive the plot with a quest of some kind and we have to emotionally connect with that quest; we have to understand what they want and care about whether or not they get it. In the movie The Fellowship of the Ring, the ring of power is definitely a thinking member of the Antagonist’s team. When Gandalf tells Frodo that the ring wants to be found, we believe it. What you suggest can be done, but it won’t be easy. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it a try and see how it goes, though. Now then, on to making a pact. Anytime you take on a goal that will tax you on every front, it’s a good idea to know what you will be up against. What inhibits me as a writer is my love affair with procrastination and my tolerance of outside distractions. I don’t know why writers are such good procrastinators, but I’m thinking it’s because once we begin to bleed our words onto paper, it is hard to go back to the place where there was nothing. It’s easier to look at a blank canvas than to try clean up misplaced paint strokes.

But if you really want to make the most of your writing time, if you want to accomplish a lot of writing in an abbreviated time span, you have to slay the Procrastination Monster. You need to make a pact. You need to decide how many quality pages or words you will produce each day and then you need to make a contract that is binding.  I like to produce 7-8 pages, or about 2,000 words a day when I am in write mode. And I do allow myself seasons when I am not writing. Like right now. I am not writing this month. But I will be in January.

It is not easy to write 2,000 words a day when you lead a busy life and you’ve got other responsibilities like a part-time or full-time job. I work on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Writing 2,000 words when I’ve already put in an 8 or 9-hour day is a tall order. I hardly ever do it, but I’ve made no pact with myself for those days. But by golly, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I put in the time. And if I can crank out 3,000 words on those days, I do. If you really want to write 300 pages in 30 days, and I am not suggesting you do, you will need to come up with about 2,200 words a day, every day. I am perfectly happy writing 8-10,000 words a week these days, that’s what I aim for.

When I’m in write mode, I simplify my life as much as possible. For those six to 10- weeks that I am pounding out a manuscript, I make almost every meal in the crock pot. I highly recommend “Fix it and Forget It,” a fabulous slow-cooker cookbook that contains dozens upon dozens of main dishes. No pictures, but you don’t need those. You need ease. If you want to know which recipes are the best (since you can’t see them) you just ask and I will happily write down all the favorites that have served me well over the ten books I have written.

I also eliminate distractions by turning off my email program while I am writing and save blog-reading for after I’ve met my quota. If I’ve got a good start going, I reward myself every 500 words with checking my email (no answering, just checking) and reading one blog. Email and blogs are tremendous time stealers. Use them as rewards, don’t tolerate them as distractions.

Making a pact usually requires two parties. You can make a pact with just yourself but sometimes it’s hard to enforce the agreement. I recommend you ask someone to hold you accountable. Ideally, this would be your spouse, best friend, and/or your kids. My feeling here is that you need these people on your side, maybe even on your back. Their lives will be a little different while you are creating your masterpiece and if you make them an integral part of your plan they become accomplices to your feat and not interruptions to avoid. If they are endowed with the power to hold you to your page or count quota, they won’t feel left out.  Let them enforce it.  Come up with consequences to any infractions. Make the consequences fun for them, painful for you.  And by all means, plan to reward your family for standing with you during your adventure. Save some money and time after the job is done for a day that’s all about them.

There is no perfect formula to writing a book just like there’s no formula for painting joy. There are only tools at your disposal: many colors on the palette, many kinds of brushes, many kinds of canvas. You need to decide which way fits the artist within you.

I hope what I have shown you is a formula for writing a good book, not a formula for writing fast. My way of writing a book happens to be fast, but that has always been incidental. It’s the pre-writing that enables me to pull it together faster than the average. It’s my way. But it may not be your way.

You’ve got to enjoy the journey or it’s just not worth it. Make sure you enjoy the process and the story that emerges.  Worldwide renown and accompanying mega-bucks only come to a handful of authors. You gotta love it for the journey it takes you on. The journey you choose.

It’s been my pleasure to chat with all of you. Randy, thanks for letting me lounge around on your front porch for awhile.

Randy sez: Thanks, Susan, for being with us! I’ve learned a few tricks from you, and you’ve reminded me once again of many tricks that I need reminding about. So thank you!

Wesley asked:

Thanks Susan for the excellent info. I don’t know if this question is more for Randy, but how would one “plot” a historical novel? Since we know what happend, at least “plot wise”. Randy how did you “plot” the CoG Series? Was there any difference in “plotting” CoG vs Double vision? If so what were they?

Randy have you ever heard of, or tried yWriter4? It’s a cool program, so cool in fact the it has replaced your speadsheet. Sorry Randy. And it’s totally free! Man I sound like a used car salesman. You can get it at: www.spacejock.com

Randy sez: Plotting a historical novel is just like plotting any other kind, except that you are given some of the events already when you are writing a historical novel, and you have to incorporate those into the story. In the CITY OF GOD series (set in the years A.D. 57-66 in Jerusalem), I had a number of events that I knew had happened. The challenges were:
1) To figure out what actually happened (the sources are often vague)
2) To show those events that are relevant to the storyline
3) Blend them smoothly into the storyline
4) Ignore those events not relevant to the storyline

Every story is about SOMEBODY, and your challenge as a novelist is to figure out what that SOMEBODY wants and why they can’t have it (or must delay getting it for about 300 pages). It’s a little trickier when some of your characters are historical persons, because then you have to figure out their motivations instead of make them up. But the basic problems are the same.

Thanks for the link to the SpaceJock site. I have not tried the yWriter4 software. Didn’t know it existed until now. I checked it out just now and it is a Windows-only program. I can run Windows on my Mac, but I prefer not to.

A little housekeeping note: The Christmas holidays are approaching, and for me that means taking a few days off. This blog will go quiet from now until roughly the New Year. Then I’ll be back for another year of blogging on organizing, creating, and marketing your fiction! See ya then!

We’re continuing with a series of guest blogs by novelist Susan Meissner on the subject of “Writing 300 Pages in 30 Days.” Today, Susan talks about Plot:

Susan writes:

Once I have a firm grip on my cast of characters and I feel very comfortable with my settings, I produce for myself a map of how I am going to get my characters from page 1 to page 300. Getting my characters from page 1 to page 300 is my plot. And the map enables me to get there. You can call it an outline if you want, but a lot of people don’t like that word. I don’t even like it. If people ask me if I outline, I have to answer that I do. But that doesn’t make me the antithesis of a seat-of-the-pants writer. When I wrote “Blue Heart Blessed” (coming out in Feb ‘08), I tried for days to come up with a scene-by-scene game plan. The thing refused to be outlined more than a couple chapters a time. So I went with the muse. I had to. My “map” was recreated every five days and I call that outlining by the seat of your pants. Outlining or mapping is simply visualizing where you will go, if not for the entire journey, then at least every few days. I need to have a map to keep me focused and writing. The map keeps me from sitting at the wheel of my writing vehicle staring at the road ahead, engine idling, and not going anywhere

I begin my map with creating one stupendous sentence that encapsulates my story in a nutshell. In Hollywood they call this the high concept. The 15-second elevator pitch. It’s the gist of the tale in one powerfully worded sentence that reveals my destination. It also suggests what felt need I will expose within the story. Creating the HC can take several days. Honestly this nut graf can be the hardest thing you will ever write.  But you will use this lovely sentence, not only to keep your bearings as you write but also to pitch this story to acquiring editors. They love it when you can tell them with one powerful hook what your story is about.

When I have this treasure, my high concept, I begin to make the map. You can use a story board, or note cards or a spreadsheet. I don’t like any of those devices to tell you the truth. I like a yellow legal pad, a mechanical pencil and a Diet Coke with lime. I number a page 1 to 40 because most of my books are told in 40 scenes or chapters, about 7-8 pages each. Then I begin to plot the 40-scene journey with the pencil while sipping the Coke.

When you begin mapping out your story’s journey, you will want to be thinking about the major turns your story must take to get you where you want to go. Most novels have several key twists and turns. These are events that change the course of the story. Readers expect them. That’s what keeps them turning pages. If we take the epic novel Gone With The Wind, we can see the major turns Margaret Mitchell mapped out for her characters. You can think of them like this: 1. War is declared and Scarlett marries a man she doesn’t love. 2. The South is defeated and Rhett kisses Scarlett while Atlanta burns. 3. Scarlett cannot pay the taxes on Tara and again marries a man she doesn’t love. 4. Rhett finally marries the widowed Scarlett, they have a child. 5. The marriage hits a terrible snag and then, the worst thing happens, their beloved child dies. 6. Scarlett realizes (Finally!) she loves Rhett, not Ashley. There are probably other key turning events in a novel of this size, but most of us will be writing 85,000-word manuscripts or less. If you can dream up four to five key turning points, (and spread them out) you’ll be in excellent shape.

Your first turning point should happen sometime in the first quarter, (for me, scene 6) a second one at half-time (scene 18) another one or two in the third quarter (scenes 25 and 34) and a life-defining turn in the fourth quarter, (scene 39) which is your climax. In GWTW, this is when Bonnie dies. It’s not the end of the book, it’s the conflict at its zenith. The other turns should all pivot on the central conflict. They should drive home what’s at stake. They should bring out your protagonist’s best and worst qualities. The escalation of your conflict, with these key plot points, is your story arc: A half circle that starts at point A heads north to a rising battle against some kind of antagonistic threat and ends at point F or G with some kind of resolution.

Like crafting a high concept, mapping out your key plot points can be difficult, because we aren’t as familiar with the story and its characters now as we will be when we are actually writing. Remember you are only making a map. You’re not buying all the land between San Diego and Houston. As you travel you can change your mind about which roads you want to take and which stops you want to make along the way. You are still the one in charge.

With “Blue Heart Blessed,” I redid the 40-scene blotter a zillion times. Okay, maybe 10. But having it kept me writing every day. I still finished the thing in 10 weeks. Outlining your plot doesn’t imprison you. Not by a long shot. It frees you to write.

So how do you know what to plot for scenes 6, 18, 25, 34 and 39? Well, just think of all the things that could possibly go wrong for your character. Then make them happen.

Randy sez: Once again, Susan and I are on the same page. Fans of the Snowflake method will note that Susan’s “high concept” is my “one-sentence summary. And her 40-line sheet of paper is very similar to my spreadsheet. (By the way, I also shoot for about 40 chapters in my novels. It’s a nice number. This usually works out to 80 to 100 scenes.) The nice thing about a spreadsheet is that you can easily copy it when you’re ready to try a new version of it.

Unlike Susan, I would never admit to “outlining.” I don’t outline. I think one reason novelists hate “outlines” is that they conjure up images of Mean Mrs. Murphy from the sixth grade, who made us write outlines using Roman numerals, then capital letters, then Arabic numbers, then lower-case letters, etc. Half the battle was remembering which labels to use. The other half was figuring out what to do when you suddenly realized you needed to move a whole “tree” up a level.

I design my novels, but no Roman numerals are killed in order to create my stories. So if someone asked me. if I “outline,” I’d have to say no.

Here, I must take issue with Susan. Diet Coke? No way! I don’t drink “Diet” anything. I want the real-sugar deal. Maybe next time I’m working on my Snowflake, I’ll try a Classic Coke.

You will note that Susan likes about 5 major turning points whereas I like 3. Suit yourself, folks. The idea is to have a story structure that your reader can keep inside her head. The average person can keep about 7 things in their mind at once. After that, they have to start “chunking” things together. I like 3 because the Rule of Three is a major design pattern that is imprinted on our brains. Goldilocks and the Three Bears is a classic example. Any number of fairy tales have 3 brothers who must make their way in the world, or 3 suitors for the princess, etc. It’s a nice number.

By the way, Susan has said nothing about writing those pesky synopses. We talked quite a bit about those last summer. Most writers hate synopses, partly because they confuse them with outlines and partly because synopses are boring. They are boring because they are narrative summary, so we have a tendency to want to “show, not tell” and then the synopsis starts getting long and we wonder why we need the blasted thing. Since we covered all this long ago, I’ll say only that Susan’s 40 lines is a good start to writing a synopsis.

If I’m not mistaken, Susan has one more step in her process. If so, she’ll write a post on it tomorrow. In the meantime, feel free to ask her any questions you might have! I will be taking time off from blogging for a few days around Christmas, so we’ll be wrapping up this discussion shortly.

We’re continuing a discussion of “Writing 300 Pages in 30 Days” with novelist Susan Meissner. Yesterday, Susan talked about setting, and that prompted me to ask more about how setting is like a character, something I’ve touched on in my e-zine this past year.

Susan writes today:

ML Eqatin (from yesterday’s post) makes a good point when she says that for her, setting is plot, not character. Plots are ideas in flux; they move, they change, they nearly breathe. I can get behind that. The important thing to keep in mind, and what these two concepts have in common, is that setting is more than simple geography. It should matter to your story. A rich setting is what makes a story memorable. Remember, too, that there is one over-arching setting but dozens of secondary settings within a book

I am including a few excerpts from a couple favorite reads and one from one of my own books to show you what I mean by making your setting a character; a driver of your plot. “How is it done?” was a popular response to yesterday’s post (and I appreciate your comments, by the way). So here we go.

Allowing your setting to speak or influence your characters’ actions is accomplished best when no one can tell that’s what you’re doing. It’s all about being subtle. Done right, it shouts its meaning, but so beautifully no one thinks to cover their ears. Here’s an example from “Ahab’s Wife,” a terrific book by Sena Jeter Naslund. In this scene, a number of people are in a lifeboat after their whaling ship has sunk. They are quickly running out of water and food and there is no land in sight and no other ships. The outlook is dire. And the sparkling sea on which they will soon perish is completely disinterested, not a care in the world:

“Our days were spent in glitter, dazzle. Sometime the cups of light were small as thimbles, sometimes big as bowls. They rocked, they danced, they could not stand still. Not when I thought so loudly as I could Be still! did they cease their clapping of hands, their kicking up of heels. Ceaselessly moving, endlessly spreading water. Colors: green, blue, slate, gold. Pink at sunset. Us: groaning. Feeble. Angry with a smoldering more malignant than try-pots.”

The sea is mocking this hopeless predicament, but Naslund never says that. She lets the descriptive words communicate the truth that the sea doesn’t care one iota what happens to these unlucky travelers

In Leif Enger’s “Peace Like a River,” Reuben’s gifted father, who is mourning the loss of innocence at home, arrives to his menial janitorial job to a sewer system that has gone on strike. Brace yourself. Reuben narrates:

“How much detail do you need? How much can you stand? I’ll spare you beyond saying that when Dad got to school Monday morning he encountered a basement shin deep in evil, a swamp of soft terrors afloat and submerged: a furnace choked and dead, a smell to poise your wits to fight.”

The setting here is as bad as it gets. This horrible little interlude has nothing to do with the obvious plot, but it subtly suggests things are about to get really bad for this family. Really bad.

This next one is from “A Map of the World” by Jane Hamilton. In this scene, Alice the protagonist is at the hospital waiting to hear if the neighbor girl, who was in her care and who fell into her pond while Alice was inside pondering lost dreams, is dead or alive.

“The morning Lizzy fell into the pond stretched through three calendar days. In the hospital, in the lounge that had no windows, there was no signal to distinguish day from night except the sound of the meal carts coming and going, the smell of eggs or broth or breaded veal cutlets. . .  Time and seasons were for others, for bankers and bus drivers, teachers and storekeepers. We would wait. We would wait, hour after hour, in the subzero maroon-and-blue enclosure with a rubber plant for oxygen.”

Can you already tell that the setting, this hospital waiting room, is telling us Lizzy is gone?

The last one is from my fall 2008 release, “The Shape of Mercy.” Lauren, my protagonist, is a sophomore literature major who has been hired to transcribe a 400-year-old diary (Mercy Hayworth’s if you’ve been reading these posts the last few days) for a reclusive octogenarian named Abigail.

“Abigail’s library was overly-furnished, exploding with paintings, tiered candles, vases of flowers, pillows and cushions, and bursting, bursting, bursting with books. While the sitting room appeared as if no one had sat there in years, the library looked as though Abigail spent every waking moment in it, surrounded on all sides by piles and stacks and cases of books. It was the first time in my life I was surrounded by books and felt uneasy. Only half of them were housed on shelves. The rest were loose, unfettered, poised as if to attack. Abigail pointed to an armchair that sat among towers of pages stacked around the chair like scaffolding. I walked to the chair, sat down, and minded my ankles as if the books closest to me might nip at my feet. Abigail sat across from me in a chair like mine, surrounded by Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer and Socrates.”

I wanted the library to convey what Abigail is like. I wanted her piles of books to appear like yapping dogs that are suspicious of everyone, fiercely loyal to their owner, and are not to be trusted blindly. I wanted the library to be the narrator, to illustrate with words what we can expect from Abigail.

To write these scenes you would need to know how the ocean undulates in the summer months, how a backed-up sewer smells, what a hospital waiting room without windows is like and how an over-furnished room with too many books in it will make you feel. Knowing these fine details upfront and then using them to your advantage lets you create unforgettable scenes but without losing your writing momentum

Better stop for now. But to quickly answer Cathy’s question: “Can my places have fictional names? Can I make up a small town set in a specific part of a state?” Yes, if you must. I did with my first book, “Why the Sky is Blue.”  I made up a rural Minnesota town called Blue Prairie so that I could control everything about the setting, but I made it like all the other towns in southwest Minnesota, right down to the corn and soybean fields that lined the horizon.

Randy sez: Yes, I agree. You can make up fictional names for places, if you don’t feel like using real ones. I know lots of authors who do that, and it’s perfectly OK.

Tune in again tomorrow when Susan will move on to discuss Plot . . .

We’re continuing a series on “Writing 300 Pages in 30 Days” with Susan Meissner, who has generously given us a LOT of insight into the process. Susan has written a new installment today on setting:

Susan writes:

Okay, so you’ve got this great family of characters swimming laps in your head. You know their greatest hopes and dreams, you know what inspires them, infuriates them, energizes them, and immobilizes them. You know whether they like jazz or country western, coffee or tea, paper or plastic. Now you’re ready to create for them a setting that will capitalize on their strengths and weaknesses.

Before I write a word, I envision the world my characters live in. I want to know the environment that will be the backdrop for everything that happens to my fictional people. I like to make my setting a character, to endow it with character-like qualities that give my tale dimension. The setting you choose for your story should matter. It should make a difference. It should communicate something.

There are two good reasons why nearly all my novels take place in either San Diego or the Twin Cities. I know these cities. I know the weather, the lingo, the hot spots, the scary streets, how the sky looks at sunset and how far you can see on a clear day. Knowing my setting ahead of time frees me to concentrate on plucking out of it plot-driving details. If I don’t already know the setting I’ve chosen, I spend pre-writing time Googling the heck out of it. I read that city’s newspaper online, I check out the real estate ads, the society pages, the obituaries, the restaurant guide. I look at satellite photos on Google Earth, noting its streets, its topography, its airport and shopping malls. This kind of research doesn’t take as long as you might think. Once you know the anatomy of a city, and the time in which you place your characters in it, well then you can put that knowledge to work for you in adding depth to your prose without spending week after week after week at it.

For my Rachael Flynn mystery series, I placed my lawyer-nursing mother in the Twin Cities. One, because I know the Twin Cities and two, because Rachael lives two lives. She is a dedicated prosecuting attorney working on child protection cases but she is also a wife and mother. I placed her at the Ramsey County Attorney’s office in St. Paul for her job, but she lives her wife-and-mother home life across the river in the reinvented warehouse district of Minneapolis. In A Seahorse in the Thames, which I set in San Diego, I used the ocean as a metaphor for God being both vast and unknowable as well as unchanging and reliable. When you know your setting, you can use it; you can shop from it like it’s a grocery store. And please remind yourself that there is much more to the physical setting than the weather. We love to use the weather (it was a dark and stormy night) to set our stages but there are so many other very vivid scene setters at your disposal. Make use of all your senses. Every scene should include a setting that is dimensional and purposeful. And it’s not hard to do when you know your settings upfront.

I make lots of note cards about setting when I’m in pre-write mode so that when I began to actually write and the creative engine is cruising along, I don’t have to stop (which always yanks me out of character) to study the place where my characters find themselves in. Sure, there will be times you can’t always foresee where the story will go. But it’s been my experience that you know more than you think you do.

I have read Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible three times, simply because the prose is breathtaking and the setting, haunting. It’s a tough read. But I admire how Kingsolver makes the Congo seem like a living breathing thing; sometimes a friend, and sometimes an enemy. It’s very powerful. I imagine she knew quite a bit about the Congo before she wrote a word. And I think her prose shows it.

Getting a firm handle on your setting will help you craft a masterful novel. And it also just happens to help you do it in less time than if you just learn as you go. When you don’t have to stop to ask for directions, it really is a nicer ride and by golly, you get to where you’re going a heck of a lot faster.

Randy sez: Great stuff, Susan! I also set one of my novels (DOUBLE VISION) in San Diego, because I lived there for 18 years and knew the geography. I had a small high-tech company in the building right next door to the office I worked in for three years. It just saved research time to write a book in a place I knew well.

Now, I’ve got a question for Susan: Can you elaborate on this thing about making your setting a character? I’ve been thinking about doing that for my next novel, and even went so far as to write an entry from the personal journal of the city where my story will be set. What do you do exactly, Susan, to make your setting live as a character in your own mind?

We’ve been having novelist Susan Meissner on as a guest blogger for the last several days to talk about “Writing 300 Pages in 30 Days.” Yesterday, I invited you all to submit questions for Susan. You did–enough so that she’s taking today just to answer your questions before plunging in again tomorrow on her next installment.

Susan wrote:

Thanks to all for your kind words. If I have helped you at all, I am thrilled. Before I launch into my next tip on how to make the most of your writing time, I’ll answer your questions.

Randy asked: “Susan, can you post an example of part of an interview with one of your characters?”

Since my character interviews rarely become any part of the text of the story, I don’t always keep them on file electronically. In fact, I usually write them on legal pads because this is done during pre-writing time, when I’m involved with a lot of other things. I often do my interviewing while waiting for something. A flight. A kid. A doctor’s appointment.

But I do have one that is from the book I finished writing a few weeks ago, The Shape of Mercy, which WaterBrook Press will release in the fall of 2008.  I have included some excerpts below. This interview is with a teenage girl named Mercy Hayworth who lived in the time of the Salem witch trials. My fictional Mercy was accused of witchcraft but was innocent, as so many real people were back then. Her diary is part of this novel, and though the book is set in contemporary times, she is nonetheless a character. My questions are in bold. When I answered for her, I stepped into her character and answered the questions as if I really was Mercy Hayworth.

What are you afraid of? Pain, loss, being alone

What makes you mad? False pretenses, haughtiness, unkindness

Who did you admire most growing up? Mother. She was gentle, soft, she sang to me. All the time. She made up her own songs.

Who did you fear most? The men in the village. They are always gloomy.

Are you an extrovert or an introvert? I keep to myself. I am not unfriendly, but I don’t expose my thoughts to people. I am transparent only in my writing.

Pessimist or optimist? I believe in hope.

How easy is it for you to trust people? It is hard to trust people right now. People who are afraid don’t make smart decisions. It seems like everyone is afraid.

Do you have any secrets? What are they? I am in love with John Peter Whitlow. Sometimes I think I can hear angels. I think I see their brightness sometimes. No one knows about this but me.

Do you like taking risks? What purposes serve risk-taking? To show off? To have what isn’t yours? I am called to obedience and love. If obedience or love bids me take a risk, that it is what I must do whether I like it or not.

What stands in the way of your happiness right now? How will you get past it? Fear. The village is wrapped in fear. It is strangling the good sense of people who know better. I cannot get past what is larger than me.

What will happen if you fail? God will take care of me. Even if I hang, God will take care of me.

Christophe asked:

Susan, have you ever written about people you knew? Or wrote characters based on people you knew? And if you did, how did you do your pre-writing in those cases?

Most of my characters are amalgamations of people I know. And you’re right about the benefits of borrowing character traits from people you know well. Crafting characters that resemble people you already know does help you supercharge your writing momentum. I have never cloned an exact replica of anyone I know, they’ve all been pieced together like Frankenstein’s monster (which also makes them unrecognizable and that keeps me from getting into trouble!) so I still use the interview process.

Robert asked two questions:

1. Would a publisher look askance at you if you told them it took you 2 or 3 years to write your first book-even if it is good?  2. I am assuming the speed you are talking about is for the 1st draft. How long does it take you to edit it into presentable material?

Question 1: I seriously doubt a publisher would be put off with any book written in a two-to-three year time frame. That’s quite the average. I don’t really know if a 7-8 year time frame would bother them, either. ‘Cause it’s not about time. It’s about talent. A good book is a good book. Still, rumor has it that publishers aren’t looking for one-hit wonders since they don’t usually make money with an author’s first book and only break even with the second.  If it will always take you eight years to write a book, they may shy away from you only because you cannot maintain a reader base with eight years in between your releases. Someone correct me if I am wrong here.

Question 2: I only write one draft. About eighty percent of what I write stays. That leaves about twenty percent that is edited, changed, supplemented, or excised.  When I write I edit as I go. For example, I write Chapter One on Monday. On Tuesday, before I sit down to write Chapter Two, I read what I wrote on Monday and I approach it like an editor, not a writer. I spend an hour with it. And then I move on to write Chapter Two. I repeat the process the next day with Chapter Three. When the book is done, it takes a little nap. I leave it for a week or two or three depending on my deadline and then I read the thing with editor’s eyes. I polish the prose, tighten the transitions, remove my pet words and go on a ly-adverb hunt. But it’s all the same draft.

Anna asked two questions, too:

1. So how do you find the voice of your character? 2. What kind of questions do you ask to non-Earth people?

Question 1: For me, my main character’s voice emerges as I spend time with her, asking her questions, plying her for information, imagining her experiencing my day or imagining her experiencing the day of anyone who made the front page of the paper. I have to be vigilant about making sure my characters’ responses don’t morph into mirror copies of my own responses. A great way to make sure your personality stays separate is to take a personality test like Myers-Briggs, and make sure you know YOU. Then have your character take the test. The results should be different. Unless you want your character to be just like you.

Question 2: Whenever we place non humans into a story where they have motivations that drive the plot, we bestow on them human attributes. Disney was a whiz at this. Who didn’t cry when Bambi lost his mother? Of course we cried. We were meant to.  I would ask the same questions to a non-human character that I would ask a human character.  You want your human reader to identify with your non-human character even if he’s as appealing as Saruman. We have to meet him at some emotional level or we won’t care about him. And as for spending time with a main character with multiple personalities, well, I’d say clear your calendar and meet them all. One by one. Read the book Sybil or watch the movie on DVD. I’d say it’s more than okay for each personality layer to shine through. It’s essential.

I do believe we’ve run out of space, Randy. What sez you?

Randy sez: These are all good questions, but yeah, that’s enough for today. Thanks, Susan, and we’ll look forward to your next installment tomorrow. In the meantime, a couple of those questions were also for me:

Cate asked if Susan’s method is like what I call composting.

Randy sez: Some of what Susan is doing is what I call composting, but my composting is less formal than that. I often get an idea for a novel and then don’t write it till several years later. In the interim, I capture ideas on paper as I think of them. And I let the whole thing compost in my mind. When I’m ready to write, I take a month or two and work through the Snowflake process, which is a bit more formal than what Susan is describing, because I do both character and plot work there. But a lot of what Susan is describing is identical to things I do. I have never interviewed a character, though.

D.E. Hale wrote:

What’s frustrating is when I get to know them, and then find out that they are completely wrong for the story. One time, I needed my MC to have a love-interest, so I started forming a girl for him. Well, once I got to know her better, I found out that she was completely wrong for him. He would not even give this girl the time of day…ha!

Randy sez: This has happened to me. It’s not a bad thing. I’ve had characters I intended to kill who simply wouldn’t die. I’ve had a guy refuse the girl I created just for him and choose a different one. (He made the right choice–she was really The One for him.) You can’t always dictate what your characters are going to do. They are ornery cusses and will do what they want, whether you like it or not. This is good.

All right, enough for today. Tune in again tomorrow, when Susan will continue with more. I will note that, like Susan, I edit the previous day’s work before I write new stuff. So when I finish the “first draft” it is actually a pretty clean second draft. I have my freelance editor go over it and then I do revisions. Because I do a lot of work up front, there is usually not a lot of editing necessary out the back end. I typically do 5 or 6 drafts and send it in. Then my editor asks for revisions and I do another couple and that’s it.

We began a series of guest blog entries last week with Susan Meissner on “Writing 300 Pages in 30 Days.” Susan and I have both done that, and it’s hard, but it can be done if you’ve done your legwork first. In today’s entry, Susan talks about what she does BEFORE she starts writing.

Susan writes:

I loved the comment by Shruti (in the last post) which I will paraphrase here: Writing a good book in 3 years beats writing a bad one in 6 weeks. I wholeheartedly agree. In fact, writing a good book always beats writing a bad one. Always, always. If you’re going to write a bad book in six weeks or bad one in three years, may I suggest you save yourself the time and trouble and do the thing you are good at instead.

You can indeed spend years tirelessly massaging your novel and end up with a great book but I don’t think it’s a given that a slow write always produces a good book. It’s not use of time that guarantees the best book; it’s use of talent. I don’t strive to write a book in six weeks.  I strive to write a good book. I think we all want to do that. You’ve got to write at the speed that allows your story to flow out of you. Speeding it up for the sake of speed alone is not a good idea. And neither is slowing it down for sake of speed alone.

Because of the amount of pre-writing I do, (and quite a bit of it is mental preparation, which is fabulous because that means I can pre-write while I am doing other things) I’ve found that I very quickly gain momentum once I begin the actual writing. The words just fly out. To insist on slowing them down would be like shifting my car into second gear when I’m flying down the highway at 65 miles an hour. Not a good idea. If the destination is the same (writing a good book!), it’s conceivable that you can get there in a fast car in six weeks or on roller skates in three years. It’s getting there that matters, not how long it takes.

I promised to tell you how I become intimately familiar with my story (the people, the place, the plot) before I begin writing. The key for me is creating fully fleshed-out characters that already have layers of personality before I start writing. Here’s what I do when I’m in pre-write mode.

First, I create a biographical sketch for each of the main characters. It’s like an expanded resume or CV for each character. I include all personal data like birth date, parents’ names and occupations, siblings’ names, schools attended, jobs held, favorite food, music, books, movies and the least favorite of each of these. I include the kind of car they drive, the name of the street where they live, the style of house they live in, their pet peeves, their favorite color, and who they hung out with in high school.

Once I have all the superficial stuff down, I interview my characters. I pretend I am sitting across from them, I pull out my reporter’s notebook and I ask them about the stuff that really matters. What do they fear more than anything else? Do they have trouble trusting people? Why or why not? Who is their hero? Who has let them down the most? If they could change one thing about their past, what would it be? I have a list of questions I ask; and I sometimes add to the list depending on where our “conversation” goes. I also “invite” my characters to hang out with me for the day, one character a day, making them experience everything I am experiencing, so that I can decide how they would react and peek even deeper inside their mind.

Every minute I spend with my characters adds to my familiarity with them, which in turn enables me to write about these people like I already know them. Because I do. And the great thing is, I can do this character-building while I am going about my day-to-day life. I use my thinking time when I’m driving to work, making meals, cleaning a bathroom, and errand-running to build my characters, to give them dimension and depth. I mentally engage them in conversation with me all throughout the day so that I can pick their brain, so that I can decide what brings them pleasure, what motivates them, what inspires them and what drive them to their knees.

I may spend several weeks getting to know these people before I actually begin telling their story, so I suppose I have to then expand the amount of time I say it takes me to write a book, even though I haven’t started writing it yet. But the great thing is I am able to do this bit of pre-writing while going about the real world, where I have responsibilities that have nothing to do with writing. I haven’t had to make sacrifices yet. That time is coming, but not yet.

And still I have more to tell you. . . .

Randy sez: Yes, we’ll want to hear more tomorrow. Thanks for all you’ve told us so far, Susan! I agree that getting to know your characters is essential to fast writing. In my current book, one of the tools I’ve been using is to write a few pages from the journal of each character. The character is allowed to disagree with me and even criticize me, so long as he or she is in character in doing so.

The great thing about writing journal entries is that you quickly find your character’s voice, and once you find it, you can’t lose it. Once you get it, you’ll be hearing that voice in your head. Fiction writers are the only people who believe that it’s GOOD when you hear voices in your head.

Those of you with questions for Susan, feel free to post them as comments. She can then incorporate her answers into her next entry.

I’ll start with a question of my own: Susan, can you post an example of part of an interview with one of your characters? (Doesn’t have to be for your current project. It could be for one of your published novels.)

Yesterday, Susan Meissner piqued our curiosity by talking about how she writes a 300 page book in 30 days. She closed by saying that her secret begins with the letter P, and challenged us to guess what P stands for. Several of you left comments making your guesses.

Today, Susan picks up where she left off yesterday:

My hat goes off to all who postulated what the P stands for. Never mind that I never wear a hat. A writer who is getting something done surely is pathologically passionate and an expert at perspiration. But pedantic perfectionists probably can’t write 300 pages in 30 days and be happy about it.

I want everyone to be happy.

I want world peace.

If you are a pedantic perfectionist, you’re going to have to snap out of it. Garrett gets the prize if there was a prize. His answer is the closest to that dynamic that enables me to write fast. His word is Planning. Mine is Pre-Writing. Both suggest there is something you do before you start to write, but mine is more specific. Lots of people can plan a party or a vegetable garden or a ground assault. But only writers pre-write.

Before you haters-of-outlining pack it up and leave, pre-writing is not about outlining. It’s not about taking something that evolves with an energy that is wildly kaleidoscopic and turning it into something that is static, tedious and smells of manacles.

It’s about the blessedness of familiarity.

Familiarity with your project — at every angle — is the Great Enabler.  Pre-writing is all about tutoring yourself on the intimate details of your project. It’s knowing your book on the inside before you release it to the outside.

I write fiction. I invent people for whom something has gone very wrong, I plop them into a time and place that matters, and I make these people wrestle with that wrong thing until it changes or until they are changed.

And the best way for me to do all that is from the point of intimate knowledge. I must know these people. Not just what they look like or when they were born or what they do for a living, I need to know what they are afraid of, what they value most in other people, what they can’t get enough of. I need to know where they live. Not the street address or the color of their bedroom curtains. I need to know their environment like I know the setting of my own life story. The setting should matter. And I need to know why it matters.

If I’m going to write 300 pages in 30 days I must know the major plot pivots of my story arc up front. Any good story is a succession of plot turns that raises the stakes (as Donald Maass would say) and accelerates the story’s pace. Within the span of those 300 pages, I need to have four or five really meaty plot pivots; moments on which everything shifts. And the last one has to be stellar and it can’t happen on page 147. Timing is everything. My plot pivots have to be strategically placed (not perfectly or pedantically placed). How am I going to get from Plot Pivot 1 to Plot Pivot 2? I need to know that. Perhaps this smacks of outlining. It’s not outlining. If you let me keep at this, I’ll eventually tell you why.

Lastly, I need to know me. I need to know wherein lurk my greatest weaknesses. Writers are notoriously adept at procrastination. I need to know how to slay the procrastination monster that hovers at my elbow and has hungry eyes for my muse.

It all comes down to a lovely selection of P words: People, Place, Plot, Preparation and Pact. I plan to elaborate if you let me. It took me less than an hour to write this blog post. Why? I already knew what I was going to say. And no, I didn’t copy and paste this from previous workshop material. I wrote it all new just for you.

But it took less than 60 minutes because I am intensely familiar with this topic. I know it. When you are familiar with the subject matter, you can write 650 words in 60 minutes. I just did.

Hey, did you know if you wrote 650 words in 60 minutes, you could conceivably write 1300 words in two hours, and 2,600 words in four hours? Do you know how many words are in 10 pages? About 2,800 give or take. And did you know if you wrote 2,800 words a day, which would be 10 pages a day, why, you’d have 300 pages in 30 days?

Now you’re probably wondering how I can know all the intimate details of my story before I start to write it.

I thought you’d never ask . . .

Randy sez: I’m glad to hear someone besides me talk about pre-planning a novel. I whole-heartedly agree. Knowing your story before you start writing it is key to writing fast. My typical hourly rate is around 1000 words per hour, though I have been known to write 1500 words in 40 minutes when the story was really ripping along. I don’t have to try to make this happen. I just sit down and write. But I spend a lot of time thinking out my story before I ever start writing. I know a few people who write substantially faster than I do and a lot who write substantially slower.

By the way, life is not a contest to see who writes the fastest. Speed is really not that big a deal. What matters is getting your story written as well as you’re able to do it. If you write best by writing relatively fast, then don’t try to slow yourself down unnecessarily in a vain attempt to write better by writing slower. Likewise, if you write best by writing relatively slowly, don’t try to speed up just to get it done quicker. Find the speed that works best for you. Writing fiction should be fun, not drudge-work.

OK, Sooz, hit us with the next installment. What’s your process for learning your story before you write it? You get extra credit if you use the word “snow” in your answer.

Christmas is coming and I feel like running one of my famous 48-hour specials. Usually, I do this for one selected product. This time is different.

This time, everything in the store is discounted. Fiction 101. Fiction 201. My two teleseminar series with Allison Bottke and with Mary Byers. And everything else.

Everything is 25% off. There is only one way to get this discount, and that’s to click the secret link here. No other link will get you this discount.

This special runs for 48 hours only, no exceptions. It runs from midnight to midnight, California time, all day December 13 and all day December 14. After that, it’s back to business as usual. If you want to do something for yourself as a writer this holiday season, here’s your chance.

I’d like to switch gears to a new topic, one which is of high interest to many readers of this blog. I know, because you told me in the survey I ran several weeks ago. One of the most-wanted topics was the question of “How do I write faster?”

Today, we’re going to start talking about that. I’d like to begin with a guest blog from a friend of mine, Susan Meissner, who has several books under her belt. First, a little about Susan:

Susan Meissner, who began writing novels in 2004, is the author of eight published works, with two more to be released in 2008. When she’s not writing at breakneck speed, she is directing the small groups ministry at her church, mothering her four kids, and enjoying good coffee and great books with her husband, Bob. You can find out more about her at her web site at www.SusanMeissner.com.

I asked Susan to write a short article about one of her favorite topics, “300 Pages in 30 Days.” This seems very apropo, in light of the recent National Novel Writing Month, where budding writers are challenged to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That works out to about 200 pages, so Susan is upping the ante by about 50%! Here’s what Susan wrote:

300 Pages in 30 Days

I’ll be honest here from the get-go. I never intended to write 300 pages in 30 days. It was never a plan of mine to do such a thing. I also never planned to write ten novels in five years, though that’s what I’ve done. None of these books were old Works-in-Regress; I didn’t have any half-finished projects sitting in drawers turning maizey with age. All the concepts were new at the time I began writing.

There was no bold plan to pump ‘em out at lightning speed to make a point. I wasn’t in a race, and I wasn’t trying to prove anything to anyone.  It just happened.

After my fourth novel in less than two years was published, people began asking me how I write so fast. The answer I first came up with was short and to the point: “I don’t know.”

Because in the beginning, I didn’t. It was just the way I wrote. But because wide-eyed people kept asking, I decided to analyze the way I churn out a book from inception to the last page. And this is what I now share with people and workshop audiences and inquiring minds who want to know. This is how I write 300 pages in 30 days. My way isn’t the easy way to write a book. It’s not the best way to write a book. I don’t even recommend it over another way. But if you want to know how a novel can be written in less time than it takes to grow a mullet, I can tell how it can be done. If you want to know how to make the most of your writing time, how to remove distractions, how to let the story flow, how to avoid those deathly “Now what?” writing scares, I can tell you that, too.

I wrote my first novel in 10 weeks, my second in eleven, the third in eight and the fourth, in 30 days. No, I wasn’t working a fulltime job at the time, just part-time hours. Yes, I still had kids at home who wanted dinner and clean socks everyday. And no, it wasn’t a walk in the park. It was hard work, as is the writing of any book in any time frame.

Because my books were written so quickly, they must be fluff reading; sixth-grade level prose that is incapable of leaving a lasting impression, right? I won’t be the judge of that, but I will say my second novel, A Window to the World, was named to Booklist’s Top Ten Christian Novels for 2005. Two were finalists in the American Christian Fiction Writers Book of the Year contest, and my ninth, Blue Heart Blessed, which releases in Feb ‘08, was just reviewed by the hard-to-please folks at Publisher’s Weekly, and it received a moderately enthusiastic thumb’s up. I think they very nearly liked it.

I am not a champion of writing at microwave-oven speed, nor do I pooh-pooh crock pot writers who let a book marinate and stew for years before they declare it’s finished. I am however a champion of writing at the speed that fits your style. This one fits mine. And if you are frustrated with your writing speed not meshing with your writing style, then maybe you’ll want to consider my way and see if it’s for you.

The secret to producing 300 pages of quality stuff in 30 days is really no secret. It’s the same dynamic that makes any big project that comes together in an abbreviated time span a success. It starts with a “P.” Want to hear more?

Randy sez: Yes, we’re dying to hear more! Tell us, Speedy Susie!

I’ve been driving most of the day and packing and unpacking the rest of it, so I’m a little thrashed today.

Rather than the long blog I had planned to do today, I thought it would be easier on me and fun for you to do something else. I’ve discovered what has to be a strong candidate for the World’s Funniest Title. I got this from Chip MacGregor’s blog. Here’s an exact quote of the title:

“How to Good-Bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way?”

No, I didn’t make that up. I’m nowhere near clever enough to think up that great title. I haven’t read the book, but I verified its existence and read some of the reviews on Amazon.

Check it out! This guy has 39 reviews, an average 4-star rating, and his Amazon rank right now is #38,010. No kidding. The reviewers generally say it is the most unintentionally hilarious book they have ever read. After reading the book description on Amazon, I can well believe this. I’ll quote you the first two sentences of the book description:

I think constricting anus 100 times and denting navel 100 times in succession everyday is effective to good-bye depression and take back youth. You can do so at a boring meeting or in a subway.

This, I would guess, is the Christmas gift you get for the guy who really does have everything. Because you can bet good money he hasn’t got this, and he’ll love it.