Advanced Fiction Writing Blog

Recently we discussed the dilemma of what to do when you don’t have a decent title for your novel. This was raised by one of my Loyal Blog Readers, Cathi. I suggested that if Cathi could tell us a bit more about her novel, we might run a contest.

Cathi emailed me over the weekend with the details. She’s writing a young-adult fantasy. Here’s the storyline:

A young man learns he is part of a family harboring knowledge of The Black Dark, a place where people exist after death.

This is a series and Cathi is reserving the title THE BLACK DARK for the last book in the series.

I hereby declare a contest to name the first book in Cathi’s series. Here are the rules:

1. The contest runs for a week and will end at midnight Pacific time on Monday night, February 7, 2011.
2. The winner will be determined by Cathi and her decision is final. If she decides that there is no winner, then there is no winner. But she can’t choose more than one winner.
3. The winner doesn’t have to be a title that Cathi will actually use. It just has to be the best idea of the lot, in Cathi’s opinion.
4. The winner gets a free critique by me of the first five pages of their novel.
5. Cathi is not eligible to win, for obvious reasons.

Some thoughts on titling a book:

Look for something emotively compelling. Or look for something that arouses curiosity. Or look for something that suggests the actual story. Or tell something about the main character. Or do something completely different.

Coming up with titles is hard. Coming up with titles about a book you’ve been laboring over for five years is really hard. Somehow, it’s easier when you don’t know that much about the story and you aren’t all that invested emotionally in it. Cathi’s given us a clear one-sentence summary of her book. That may just be enough to come up with a title. At the very least, it’ll jiggle some of Cathi’s neurons and possibly suggest a title she can use.

So have at it, Loyal Blog Readers! Post your suggested titles here as a comment and we’ll let Cathi decide if any of them can break her mental fogjam over this pesky title thing.

Ever worried that the kind of novel you’re writing will suddenly hit market saturation and you won’t have a market for it anymore?

Carrie posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

I have a number of ideas snowflaked to one degree or another. While they represent a number of genres (literary, mystery, cozy, etc.), a lot of them involve conspiracies or one kind or another and most of those are set in the near future, with the government or some arm of the government being the primary conspirator.

Perhaps it’s a sign of the times, but it seems like a lot of people are doing ‘conspiracy theory’ novels, from Joel Rosenberg to Seth. Even me.

Can as broad a topic as ‘conspiracy theories’ reach the point of saturation with readers, editors and publishers?

If so, are we anywhere near that point with conspiracies?

To rephrase it, how do I know my story will not be ‘just another kook fringe story among millions’?

Randy sez: Conspiracy stories have been around for a good long while. Robert Ludlum was writing them in the 1970s. I suspect people will still be reading this kind of novel a hundred years from now — as long as people don’t trust big corporations, big governments, big media, or big whatever.

While there are ups and downs in every category, some things just don’t go out of fashion.

Romance, the last time I looked, was still in vogue. Simple reason for that. Real people still fall in love.

Ditto for thrillers. Ditto for horror. Again, a simple reason. People like to be scared.

Likewise for mysteries. People like to figure out puzzles and admire the detectives who do it better than any real person could.

Same goes for fantasy. People like to imagine other worlds. The fantasy genre goes back a long, long way, if you remember that fantasy in the 20th century was begun as an attempt to return to what people called “fairy tales” or “myths.”

Science fiction will be around as long as there are people who like to wonder what the future is going to be like, and as long as science looks like it has the capacity to make our lives amazingly better (or amazingly worse).

It’s true that certain subcategories have dipped in popularity. I gather that westerns aren’t as popular as they used to be. Chick lit had a rapid rise in the late 1990s and has taken an equally rapid dive, but the same kind of book is still being written — they just quit calling it “chick lit” when the cutesy term quit being so cutesy.

As for those pesky conspiracy thrillers, I’m pretty sure we’ll have them as long as people don’t trust the government. Of course, if They ever do actually take over, They will probably crush the authors who write conspiracy novels, and then this genre will suddenly disappear. So the existence of conspiracy thrillers is actually pretty good evidence that they’re overstating the case. (Unless They decide to allow conspiracy thrillers to still be written, as a way of keeping us in ignorance that They have already taken control. In which case, the existence of conspiracy thrillers is very subtle evidence that They are already pulling all the strings.)

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer them in the order they come in.

Is it OK to write in present tense? And what do you do if you don’t have a title for the novel you’re writing? I tackle both questions today.

Grace posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

I have a question regarding the tense used in writing fiction. I write in third person present tense. I was told this style of writing makes it harder for the reader to follow.

Randy sez: It’s no harder for a reader to follow present tense than past tense, unless she thinks it is. Unfortunately, some readers really dislike present tense, which means that if you choose to use it, you’re going to alienate these readers.

Personally, I like present tense when it’s done well. Some examples of books where it’s done very well are THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE by Audrey Niffenegger, THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins, and THE SPEED OF DARK by Elizabeth Moon. If you want to see how it’s done well, check out these books.

That was a short answer, so I’ll take on another question today.

Cathi asked:

Hi! I have a follow-up to the question about publishers changing book titles. How bad is it is you don’t have a title in mind at all? That is my situation…five years in to a nearly completed manuscript ready to be thrown into the market, and a title evades me. Thanks!

Randy sez: Five years is a long time to go without a title. I’d start working on that, because it’s going to be a lot harder to sell your novel without a title. It sounds like you’re blocked on this title thing, Cathi, so maybe it’s time to enlist some help.

I’m assuming you know the category of your novel (your genre and sub-genre) and your target audience. I also assume you can summarize your novel in 25 words or less. If all of the above is true, then it’s time to start asking your writer friends for some ideas. Tell them your category, your target audience, your one-sentence summary and then ask or beg or threaten people for ideas on titles.

Cathi, if you’re feeling brave, you can even send the above information to me and we can run a “Name Cathi’s Book” contest here on this blog. That could be fun.

One reason writers get blocked sometimes is their perfectionist streak. It’s easy to refuse to take any title except the absolute best one on the planet. Unfortunately, there can be at most only one of those. Even more unfortunately, nobody agrees what it is. So you aren’t going to get perfection. Pick a title that fits your book. Even if it’s not perfect.

Odds are fifty-fifty that your publisher is going to want to change it anyway. As soon as they start telling you the title their geniuses dreamed up in committee, trust me, you’ll suddenly be Xtremely motivated to come up with a better one.

Some thoughts on titles, in random order:

Don’t tell the ending. SAMANTHA GETS THE GUY is a terrible title for a romance. RAMBO SHOOTS UP 200 COPS is also not so great.

You don’t need a gimmick. HARRY POTTER AND THE X works pretty well for just about any value of X. No gimmicks there. Good writing trumps gimmicky titles every day of the week.

One word titles can work well. Some of my titles have been OXYGEN, TRANSGRESSION, PREMONITION, and RETRIBUTION. The first three of those were not my original titles. The original title of OXYGEN was O2. (Our editor showed good sense in changing that one). The original title of TRANSGRESSION was AVATAR. (I still think AVATAR was better, but I have no idea what I’d have named the sequels if my publisher had kept that title. It took me a while to realize that using similar words as titles for a series can make a lot of sense.)

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer them in the order they come in.

The Three-Act Structure works well for single books. But how does it work in a series of novels that functions as a single story?

Amadeus posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

I’ve got a question about the Three Act Structure. I’m about 29-30,000 words into my first serious attempt at writing fiction (I write fantasy), but it will be the first book in a series. Of course, a whole series would be way too big for one Three Act Structure, but should every book in the series follow it? The Three Act Structure isn’t necessary, of course, but do writers of fantasy series usually use it? Is there a Three Act Structure in Inheritance, Lord of the Rings, or any series that must be taken as a whole?

Randy sez: I’m not a huge consumer of fantasy, so I don’t know exactly how it’s done in most series. However, we can look at a few series that I know well and see how the Three-Act Structure is handled.

If you’re not familiar with the Three-Act Structure, I’ll refer you to my book Writing Fiction For Dummies for the details. In a nutshell the first Act (the beginning) introduces the characters and the conflict and ends in a disaster that forces the leading character to commit to the story. The long second Act (the middle) takes the lead character through a long series of adventures, typically with a major disaster at about the midpoint that takes the story in a new direction. The second Act ends with a third disaster (the worst so far) which forces the lead character to commit to a final showdown. The third Act brings our lead character safely (or unsafely) through the final showdown to a climax, then winds down.

In THE LORD OF THE RINGS, a three book series which was intended by Tolkien to be a single large book, there is a single structure for the entire series, but it’s not a very typical Three-Act Structure. There is a clear first disaster, which comes at the Council of Elrond when Frodo realizes that he can’t give the ring to Gandalf or Elrond or anyone else to destroy in Mordor — he must go himself. This commits him to the rest of the story. There follows a long series of adventures. It’s a bit unclear what one would call the second disaster, because the middle of the book is uncommonly long. However, in my mind, the third disaster is clear — Frodo is poisoned by Shelob and then carried away by orcs, leaving Sam alone with the Ring. Sam commits to following his master to rescue him, if possible. Since Frodo is unconscious at this point, Sam’s commitment is Frodo’s commitment.

In the Harry Potter series, each book stands alone as a story with a well-defined Three-Act Structure. Yet the books all work together to form a larger story. I suspect that you could organize these into some sort of a larger Three-Act Structure if you tried. Let’s take a stab at it:

Act 1: This is all of Book 1 and Book 2, where we get to know Harry and his magical world. At the end of Book 2, Harry destroys the diary of Tom Riddle, which he later learns is one of Riddle’s horcruxes by which he clings to life. This qualifies as the “first disaster” of the series, since it really commits Harry and Riddle to an all-out war for the rest of the series.

Act 2a: During Books 3 and 4, Harry is becoming a powerful wizard and maturing rapidly. He makes a decision at the end of Book 3 to show mercy in a situation where most people would take vengeance. At the end of Book 4, Lord Voldemort returns to life by taking the blood of his enemy Harry in an epic scene in a cemetery. This is the second disaster for Harry, and now the story takes an entirely new turn because for the rest of the series, Voldemort is alive and is doing his best to kill Harry.

Act 2b: In Books 5 and 6, Harry continues to be drawn into more and more difficult confrontations with the minions of Voldemort. At the end of Book 6, Harry’s mentor Dumbledore is killed, leaving Harry with the unfinished task of finding and destroying Voldemort’s horcruxes — which keep him from being killed. I’d call Dumbledore’s death the third major disaster for Harry, and it’s the end of Act 2.

Act 3: In Book 7, Harry (with substantial help from his friends) is on his own to complete the job; he’s committed to the task in a way he never could be when he had Dumbledore to depend on. He no longer has any adults who can give effective help. Harry has grown up and is ready to do battle as an adult. The final book brings us to the final confrontation between Harry and Voldemort — which only one of them can survive.

So I’d say that the Harry Potter series not only has a clear Three-Act Structure in each book, but the series as a whole has a larger Three-Act Structure.

The Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer also has a clear Three-Act Structure for each book. It’s not clear to me that the series as a whole really functions as a Three-Act Structure.

What do my Loyal Blog Readers think? Does the Twilight series have a Three-Act Structure or are the books really just separate episodes? Leave a comment and tell us what you think.

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer them in the order they come in.

How do you develop your voice for writing fiction?

Fiona posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

I’m not a writer or anything, though I wanna be when I’ve finished school. But anyway, around 2 years ago I had this awesome idea for a story, but it was only recently (about 3 months ago) I became serious about writing it as a full blown novel. I planned the plot (written down)and have the characters (a very detailed disciption of each)I also know the ‘voice’. I’ve changed it many times and settled on writing from my main character’s perspective. It sounds great and it really shows what the character is like, but I find it almost a chore to write as. So, I am now in the dilema of going with the terrible ‘voice’ I used to use (before I became ’serious’) that just doesn’t work and makes the plot kind of sluggish or this new one that does work beyond my expectations but is really hard to write in…um, help…please?

Randy sez: The most common thing that editors and agents tell me when I ask what they’re looking for is, “I’m looking for a writer with a great voice.”

So what is that pesky voice, anyway? And how do you develop it?

Larry Brooks deals with that very question in his forthcoming book, STORY ENGINEERING: Mastering The 6 Core Competencies of Successful Writing. (Publisher: Writer’s Digest Books). According to Amazon, this book will release on February 24, 2011. Larry sent me a copy a couple of months ago to read for endorsement, and I really liked the book.

Larry identifies six core competencies:

1. Concept
2. Character
3. Theme
4. Story Structure
5. Scene Execution
6. Voice

Voice is your particular way of putting words together. It’s your attitude. It’s your personality, turned into words.

That’s what voice is. How do you develop it? That’s a harder question, one I’ve been thinking about for years.

In his book, Larry notes that in sports, they say that “You can’t coach speed.” Speed is a genetic gift. You can coach an athlete and help him fix things that get in the way of his natural speed, but if he hasn’t got it, you can’t give it to him.

Larry argues that voice is similar: “You can’t coach voice.” I agree with him.

And yet there are things you can do to build your voice. If you want to develop your speed, then run. And learn how to avoid doing the things that slow you down. If you want to develop your voice, then write. And learn how to avoid doing the things that kill your story. Study the craft of fiction.

The key thing is that you probably are going to need to write quite a lot to really start finding your voice. I think mine took at least 2 or 3 years to start coming out in my writing. During those 2 or 3 years, I learned the fundamentals of the craft of fiction writing and quit doing things that were killing my story. In the process, my voice emerged naturally.

Fiona, yours will too. Write fiction. Write a lot of it. Develop those other core competencies. I divide them a little differently than Larry does. In my teaching, I’ve always focused on what I call the “Five Pillars of Fiction” which are StoryWorld, Character, Plot, Theme, and Style. These have a lot of overlap with Larry’s categories. (What I call “Plot” includes Larry’s categories of Concept, Story Structure, and Scene Execution.)

By the way, let me make a plug for Larry and his book: I don’t think anybody on the planet teaches story structure better than Larry Brooks. If you want the state of the art in story structure (his Core Competency #4), then check out his web site at www.StoryFix.com.

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer them in the order they come in.

How do you keep from writing a novel that is going to be the same old thing as everybody else writes?

Jonathan posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

Here’s a long winded statement/question: All my life, I think I have known that I wanted to create fiction, and have accordingly spent my time reading and writing, and watching movies, all in the hopes that I will learn how to create powerful emotional experiences for my future readers.

I have a problem, and I think that it is keeping me from being able to finish any of my story ideas. I have been thinking about it really hard, and recently, I think I have stumbled upon what it is that is causing my block: I don’t want my book to become a Kate Hudson Movie.

What I mean by that is that I don’t want my readers to read a few words of my book, and say “Ah-ha! It’s this story again! Boy meets Girl (Gasp! Sometimes boy already knew Girl!), Boy and Girl are thrust into an awkward/interesting situation, a moment of truth comes which breaks them apart, but at the last possible moment, they realize their love for each other and live happier ever after.”

How do I write without doing this? If fiction is really just a collection of archetypes tied together in such a way so as to make a cohesive story, how can I stand out or possibly ever be different from the next guy?

It seems like books that do break this mold- Infinite Jest, House of Leaves, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close do exist, but often times play games with so much stuff that it’s difficult to (with all do respect to these authors, extremely loud is a favorite book of mine) really call them classics of fiction.

How do I add cohesive structure to what I write without being just like the last guy who wrote about exactly what I plan to write about?

Randy sez: Jonathan, I hear you. Nobody wants to write a cliche novel. Nobody wants to be mediocre. Nobody wants to be an also-ran.

But believe me, writing a cliche novel is a whole heck of a lot harder than it looks. If that’s all you ever do, that’ll be an achievement.

Being “just another lineman in the NFL” is a whole heck of a lot harder than it looks too. So is being “just another astronaut on the Space Station.” So is being “just another member of the House of Representatives.”

It may look like all of the above are mediocre folks who don’t have what it takes. Baloney. These are all people who happen to be “average” in a crowd of incredibly high achievers.

Same deal with fiction writers who write yet another novel that gets published by a major publisher and gets made into a movie. If you do that, you’ll be somebody in the fiction world, whether or not you achieve J.K. Rowling or Stieg Larsson numbers. Yes, we all would love to be megabestselling authors, but just making it to the ranks of the published is a pretty darned remarkable feat.

Jonathan, go write your book and see what comes out. Maybe you’ll quit before you finish. Maybe you’ll try for years and years and never get it published. Maybe, (if you have talent and you work hard) you’ll become that thing you dread. Maybe, (if you’re one of the insanely lucky and talented few) you may achieve what you really want, which is to be utterly brilliant, mold-breaking, unique. Go ahead and aspire to that and use it to motivate yourself.

But if you wind up writing a novel that becomes a Kate Hudson movie, that ain’t failure, my friend. That’s success. And if you’d rather not chance yourself to that kind of fate, there are always easier professions where success is more assured.

Such as pro football, the astronaut corps, or national politics.

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer them in the order they come in.

How does writing a short story differ from writing a novel?

Teddy posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

Does a short story have the same three act structure (three disasters, plus climax)as a novel?

Randy sez: A short story has a beginning, a middle, and an end, like a novel. However, you simply don’t have the space to build up to three major disasters and then work through a full-resolution ending, as you would in a novel.

I’m no master of the art of short story writing, but I’d say that you have a lot more latitude for structuring a short story than you do with a novel. As you go up the length scale for short stories, you’ll have room to put in more of the large-scale features of a novel.

However, the lowest level structure of the story (what Dwight Swain calls “Motivation-Reaction Units” — MRUs for short) is identical in a short story and in a novel. The reason is that this is where you “show, don’t tell.” And you only have a very few tools for “showing” — Action, Dialogue, Interior Monologue, Interior Emotion, and Description. Those tools are the same, whether you’re writing short or writing long.

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer them in the order they come in.

Must you follow the Scene-and-Sequel pattern of Dwight Swain without ever breaking it up? Or can you break the pattern and still do well in your fiction writing?

Philomena posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

In the scenes and sequels pattern in a book would it work to have the sequel done passively eg. if the hero’s reaction-dilemma-decision results in his deciding to make a phone call to someone, will it work if you show that person receiving the call from your hero and then to resume your hero’s story with a new scene.

Randy sez: First let me bring everyone up to speed on the context of this question. The Scene-and-Sequel pattern is described in chapter 4 of Dwight Swain’s outstanding book Techniques of the Selling Writer. I summarize this in the first half of my article on this site, Writing the Perfect Scene. And I spend parts of Chapter 9 and Chapter 14 explaining them in my book Writing Fiction for Dummies (where I call them “proactive scenes” and “reactive scenes.)”

A Scene (what I call a “proactive scene”) begins with a goal, continues for most of the scene with conflict, and ends with a setback.

A Sequel (what I call a “reactive scene”) begins with a reaction, continues for most of the scene with a dilemma, and ends with a decision.

Scenes lead naturally to Sequels and Sequels lead naturally to Scenes. It’s a neat, clean theory, and it’s tempting to follow this pattern slavishly forever. Don’t do that.

Patterns are there to guide you, to suggest ideas, and to adapt. Unlike formulas, which are imposed on you by somebody and which you do have to follow slavishly. That’s probably my best definition of the difference between a pattern and a formula.

It’s important that you know what the Scene and Sequel structure of your storyline is. HOWEVER, just because you know it, you don’t have to show it to your reader.

Your goal as a novelist is to give your reader a Powerful Emotional Experience. If you can do that best by skipping Sequels, summarizing them, showing them as Scenes in the point of view of some other character, or whatever else you need to do to make the story move your reader, then do so. Of course, if you can best achieve a Powerful Emotional Experience by following the wise guidance of the pattern, then do so.

So there’s a simple answer to Philomena’s question: Yes.

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer them in the order they come in.

What do you do when you’ve lost confidence in your own fiction writing? What if somebody has told you that what you write is “crap” — and you believed them? How do you pick yourself up and get going again?

Duncan posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

A few years ago ,a colleague saw the following opening for a piece of fiction I had scribbled in my note book.

When i asked him why he was reading my notebook, he retorted sharply:
“Wish I’d not exposed myself to such a crap.”

And sure a crap i became. Since then every time i set out to write fiction I find it very difficult to compose more than a few sentences before i see a crap of sentences staring me.

Question:How can i gather enough courage to write?

Randy sez: Sooner or later, every fiction writer faces this question. It’s a common saying among novelists that ninety percent of a first draft is crap. The trick is to figure out which is the golden ten percent and then to have the guts to fix the other ninety percent.

There isn’t any easy answer for this. Maybe the best thing to do is to realize that all authors everywhere get told that their stuff is crap.

Go visit the Amazon page that lists the top 20 bestsellers. This page is updated hourly, so it’s never going to be the same for long. Pick any book on this page and read the 1-star reviews. (I can almost guarantee that any Amazon bestseller has a pile of 1-star reviews.) There is always going to be somebody with a load of bile in their brain who hates your book and isn’t shy about telling you that it’s full of crap.

Now check out agent Steve Laube’s blog for today, which includes some memorable rejection lines, such as, “I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.” Steve includes a sentence he wrote (when he was an editor some years ago) telling a certain wannabe writer that he was a good writer, but his characters weren’t really memorable enough. That wannabe writer was Ted Dekker, now a New York Times bestselling author whose books have sold millions of copies.

Duncan, if writing fiction is in your blood, then write fiction. Maybe it really is crap and maybe it isn’t, but write it anyway and get it out there and let the professionals figure out if it’s got merit. If it does, then you’re gold. If it doesn’t, then work on your writing to make it better, and get it out there again.

After all, when Shakespeare’s play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream came out, one reviewer wrote: “September 29: The most insipid, ridiculous play that I ever saw in my life.”

If that can happy to Billy, it can happen to you. That’s the nature of the beast.

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer them in the order they come in.

Do the techniques of writing novels also apply to short stories?

Angie posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

First of all, I love the “perfect scene” article. It really opened my eyes. My question is: does the MRU and Scene-Sequel method apply to writing short stories as well? It seems like most of the publications that publish short stories are literary journals. Given that, would you encourage short story writers to use the MRU and Scene-Sequel methods? Thank you so much!

Randy sez: The article Angie is referring to is “Writing the Perfect Scene” here on my web site. In that article, I focus on the structure of scenes (using Dwight Swain’s theory of Scenes and Sequels) and then on the paragraph-by-paragraph structure of the story at its lowest level (what Dwight Swain calls MRUs — short for “Motivation Reaction Units”).

Do these methods apply to writing short stories? Yes, they do. The fundamental unit of fiction writing is the scene. A scene can stand alone as a literary unit. A typical novel will have 50 to 100 scenes or even more in a long novel. A short story might have only a handful of scenes. A short-short might have only one scene.

I think you simply can’t go wrong by applying the “perfect scene” tools to the scenes in a short story. If you’re writing for a literary journal, you’ll also want to pay close attention to the character arc in your story and to the theme and style. But you still need to tell a good story, and that means writing strong scenes.

Readers read fiction in order to have a Powerful Emotional Experience.

One of the very best ways to provide that experience is to use either a Scene or Sequel structure. (These are Dwight Swain’s terms. I prefer to call them either “proactive scenes” or “reactive scenes.”)

One of the other very best ways to provide a Powerful Emotional Experience are to use Swain’s Motivation Reaction Units, which guarantee that you are showing your story in a way that your reader can identify with the focal character — get inside the skin of that character and experience the story vicariously.

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer them in the order they come in.