Advanced Fiction Writing Blog

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.

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.

Many writers get a degree in creative writing. Should you? Why or why not?

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

Hi Randy, Just wondering what your thoughts are on this. I have started to write my first novel, have all the characters, what I think is a good storyline and it’s all coming together nicely, and I’m really enjoying it too.I am considering doing an Associate degree in arts (creative writing) or a Bachelor of Arts degree. Do you think this study which will take two to three years to complete will be worth it to expand my knowledge in the creative writing field or will it be a waste of my time and energy. Looking forward to your reply, Daniel.

Randy sez: A lot depends on you and what your goals are in life. I don’t have a degree in creative writing. I’ve sometimes thought it would be fun to get an MFA (Master of Fine Arts). A few of my novelist friends have done that. I may do it someday.

Here are the reasons I haven’t done it so far:

• Time. It takes time to put into a degree program. There are plenty of low-residency MFA programs where you only have to be on campus for short periods of time every few months. But you still need to put in the hours at home. And I have lots of other things that I want to spend time doing.
• Money. This is the same as time, because time really is money for me. (Not for everyone, obviously. If you don’t need to work, then you aren’t trading your time for money.)
• I don’t need it. My impression is that most people who get an MFA are looking to write literary fiction, not commercial fiction. I don’t write literary fiction and don’t plan to, so an MFA won’t help me there. It might help me write a better grade of commercial fiction, but so would rereading any of the writing books on my shelf.

The bottom line is that I don’t want it enough to take the time and spend the money. But if I did want it, then I’d find the time and I’d scrape the money. When you want something bad enough, you do what it takes to make it happen.

Daniel, you don’t say if your aim is to write literary fiction or commercial fiction (or that rarest of all birds, the commercial literary novel). If you want to write literary fiction and if you have the time and the money, then I’d say to go get that degree.

By the way, I don’t believe there is such a thing as a useless degree. There may be useless people who get degrees, but a degree in anything, no matter how abstract, can be useful. I earned a Ph.D. in theoretical physics years ago. Quantum field theory. Non-abelian gauge theories. Schwinger-Dyson equations. Solitons. Constrained systems. All that stuff. It was fun and I enjoyed every minute of it. I don’t use any of it now, but I’d never call it wasted time. It’s part of who I am. It taught me to think analytically. It got me a running start in doing software development. My eight years of training in theoretical physics (six in a Ph.D. program, two as a postdoc) made it possible for me to write fiction with realistic scientists as characters. I got what I wanted out of my education — a pretty clear understanding of how the universe works.

Be aware that you’ll probably learn a lot more about marketing your work at a writing conference than in an MFA program. You’ll probably also learn a lot more about how to find an agent and how the publishing industry works. I base this on comments I’ve had from a friend of mine who has an MFA and is often asked to do guest lectures to MFA students.

So if you want a degree in creative writing, go get it. Education is worth having. You don’t have to justify it to anyone.

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.

Fiction writers often talk about a “character arc”. What is a character arc and how do you create one for your character?

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

How do you handle character “arc” in a novel? This seems, for me, the toughest part about writing any story. A character is supposed to change, but how can you do that believably? Not only that, how do you know your character is making the *right* change? What kind of change or arc provides a Powerful Emotional Experience? How do you fuse this change to the actual plot?

I have 1001 questions about character arc, so I’ll stop there. But really, I just don’t know how to make this work in a story. Help!!

Randy sez: I should apologize here for being off blogging lately. I work part time for a biotech company in San Diego. In August we started a new software project and it was my baby. It began consuming a lot of time in October. By November, I was working on it pretty much full time, which meant that almost everything else in my life had to give. I hate when that happens, but in that kind of situation, the only way through the swamp is to grit your teeth and plow forward. The project is now done and I’m back to normal hours. This happens to me about once every three years, so I’m hoping I won’t get swamped again for a good long time. Such as, for example, never.

In any event, I’m reading a book this week that contains the perfect answer to Rob’s question. The book is PLOT VERSUS CHARACTER, by my good friend Jeff Gerke, published by Writer’s Digest Books.

More about Jeff: Jeff Gerke has published about half a dozen novels and has worked as an editor at three different publishing houses. He now works as a freelance editor and also runs a small independent publishing company, Marcher Lord Press.

PLOT VERSUS CHARACTER came out just recently and Jeff sent me a copy. I’ve been slow getting into it (that darned biotech project has slowed me down a lot), but I’ve been making good progress in the past week and it’s fantastic on the issue of character arcs.

Writing characters comes easy for me, whereas writing plot comes hard. So I’ve spent much more time studying how plot works. Writing plot comes easy for Jeff, and so he’s spent a lot more time studying how characters work.

Jeff identifies five different parts of the character arc:

1. Initial Condition (”including the “Knot”)
2. Inciting Incident
3. Escalation
4. Moment of Truth
5. Final State

The Initial Condition is the state of the character when he begins the story. The “Knot” is whatever problem the character has that is going to be worked out by the story’s end (or which will do in the character, if it’s an unhappy ending).

The Inciting Incident is whatever happens to get the character’s life moving in a new direction. It’s the event that takes the character out of her ordinary world into the actual story.

The Escalation is the long series of events that try to move the character to resolve her Knot, along with her reactions to those events.

The Moment of Truth is the point at which the character is forced to make a decision to change or not change. Change means a happy ending. Not changing means an unhappy ending.

The Final State is the state of the character as the story concludes.

The above parts of the character arc are tied in to the plot of the story, but generally they are not the actual plot. A fully character-oriented novel can get by with no plot if the character arc is interesting enough. Likewise, a fully plot-oriented story can get by with no character arc if the plot is good enough.

Mystery series or certain adventure series are examples of novels in which there is minimal character arc. Sherlock Holmes never changes. Neither does James Bond or Jack Reacher. Novels with these heroes are about the plot.

It’s of course possible to have a “reverse character arc” in which the character starts out without a real problem and then over the course of the novel gains one. THE GODFATHER is a good example. The protagonist of THE GODFATHER is not Vito Corleone, the “godfather.” The protagonist is Vito’s youngest son, Michael, the only kid in the family with a stitch of morality in him.

Michael begins the novel as an amused onlooker (his initial condition), trying to convince his fiancee Kay that his father and brothers are criminals. When Vito is shot and nearly killed by another gangster (the inciting incident), the family has a council to decide how to avenge the attempted murder. Michael surprises everyone by volunteering to make the hit himself. But once he’s killed the rival gangster (along with a crooked cop), Michael is committed. As the novel progresses, Michael gets further and further enmeshed in the family business (the escalation phase) until he becomes the new godfather. But is he as tough as his father? Is he ruthless enough to kill his own brother-in-law after telling his sister that he’d never think of doing such a thing? (His moment of truth.) In Michael’s final state, his wife Kay has become a Catholic and she prays for his soul every day — like Michael’s mother did for her husband.

There’s a lot more to say about character arcs, but I’d have to type a whole book to say it all, and there’s really no point because Jeff Gerke has said it all extremely well in his book PLOT VERSUS CHARACTER. If you’re looking for a good book on fiction writing to start out the new year, this is one I can highly recommend.

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.

Can your novel have more than one protagonist? If so, can they be enemies? Is doing that a no-no, a may-be, or a why-not?

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

I noticed that a lot of your advice seems to center on a novel having a single protagonist (such as when creating summaries and other parts of the snowflake method).In my WIP, however, I have two characters who are having disparate experiences and I view both of them as protagonists (who will eventually end up on opposite sides of a conflict).

How do I reconcile that with techniques such as the 5 sentence summary? Or am I setting myself up for failure and should just choose one to be the protagonist and slightly tip the scales in their favor in number of scenes showing their POV?

Randy sez: You can do anything you want in a novel. However, you can’t make a publisher buy your book and you can’t make readers care. Those pesky publishers will buy what they think the public will buy. And the public will only buy books they like.

Here’s the thing: Readers want to know who to root for. When you give them two people to root for, you cut the emotional impact in half.

This is a case where 1 + 1 = 1/2.

When you give your reader two people to root for, and they’re enemies, then things are even worse. Now your reader is confused. Is it good that the bomb blew up Reginald’s helicopter, or is it bad? Is it bad that Reginald wasn’t in it, or is it good?

This is a case where 1 - 1 = 0.

It’s like trying to drive with your foot jammed down hard on both the gas and the brakes.

If you’re reading a novel or watching a movie, you want to root for one character or at least one group of characters who are all on the same side. Treat your reader like you want to be treated. Choose one protagonist. Choose one antagonist. Make them duke it out. Make them keep duking until there’s a clear winner.

The alternative is to have no readers and get no publishing contracts.

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.

Some links that may be of interest to use:

My friend Carla Williams asked me to let my Loyal Blog Readers know about a cruise she’s organizing for Christian writers. The cruise is February 27 to March 6 and will be mostly in Mexican waters. Sounds nice and warm during the chilly winter. If you’re interested, check out Carla’s cruise here.

One of my Loyal Blog Readers, Basil Munroe Godevenos, has started a blog on which he’s writing a fantasy novel in public, using my well-known Snowflake method. He calls this blog TheSnowflakeProject and you might be interested in following him on his writing adventures.

What if you can’t seem to finish writing your novel? What if you’re afraid that you’ll just have to rewrite it?

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

I’m only 14, but I’ve wanted to be a writer since first grade. I used to just write random mini-stories whenever I felt like it (which was pretty much every other day), and I only just started getting serious about writing a novel. But I have a problem finishing stories. I come up with an idea, I do my best to develope it, and I start writing… but something happens and either I’m too lazy or I get frustrated or the story isn’t developed… I don’t know what to do to actually finish it. I think my biggest fear is that there will be too many things wrong with the first draft, and I have heard ‘Writing is rewriting’ but I think I’m scared. How can I get over it? I’m never going to finish a novel if I don’t get over this.

Randy sez: A lot of published novelists started writing in first grade and got serious about their writing when they were in their teens. So Michelle, you’re in good company.

As for how to get over the fear of having to rewrite, there are several solutions:

• Quit writing. If you do that, then you’ll never have to rewrite. But if writing is in your blood, this isn’t an option.
• Write it right the first time. I know a number of writers who get the book right the first time and never do any major rewriting — at least not until their editor gives them their revision letter. Some of these writers are best-selling authors; others are award-winning authors; I suspect some of them are both. But I’m pretty sure all of them do a lot of preparation up front — either they write outlines or they work through my Snowflake method or they do some sort of story development before they start writing.
• Grit your teeth and just do it. This is the Nike solution, and if the other options aren’t for you, then you’re going to need to learn to do this. Michelle, you’re only 14, so you have plenty of time to develop good strong teeth-gritting muscles. Don’t beat yourself up about this. Focus on the fun of writing. If writing isn’t fun, then it seems to me to be hardly worth doing. And if it is fun, then it’s worth doing well.

What do my Loyal Blog Readers think? Do you prefer writing the first draft or rewriting? Leave a comment here and let us know your opinion! Personally, the first draft is my favorite part of writing and editing comes in a distant second. So I belong to the “do it right the first time” school of thought.

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 if you get a better idea for a novel while you’re writing the one you’re on? Should you go write the new one, or should you show a little persistence and finish the old?

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

After months of research and Snowflaking I started writing my first novel, an action oriented spy story based on true events with a lot of twists in the plot. I enjoy writing it, but a new story has emerged in my head and it really wants to get out. It’s about a recently divorced father trying to get a grip on his life, but falling in love with his teenage son’s girlfriend. No exploding helicopters here.

Though I’m neither teenage nor divorced, I really enjoy snowflaking this new story and all the Powerful Emotional Experiences I can put into it.

My dilemma and question for you is: should I finish my spy story first or should I go for the second, possibly more inspired story?

Randy sez: There are a couple of factors you should consider here before you abandon Story #1 for Story #2:

• Author readiness. Just how close to getting published are you? (You might want to read my article on the publishing roadmap before you answer.) If you’re a Freshman or a Sophomore, then your first novel is very unlikely to get published. So there’s no real point in switching to a new novel. Save it for later and finish the one you’re on now.
• Story quality. Just how much better is this new idea than the one you’re working on? It sounds like an interesting idea, with shades of American Beauty and various other movies and novels thrown in, but unless it is staggeringly better than the story you’re writing now, I’d say you should stick with the one you’re on. You don’t want to get into the habit of abandoning every good idea you ever have as soon as a new one comes along. If you do, then you’ll never finish anything. Finishing is always a good idea unless you’re working on a story that you already know is hopeless.

So Ron, unless you’re an advanced writer AND this new idea is amazingly better than the old one, I’d say to put it in the bank and save it for your next story. That’ll give you some motivation to finish the one you’re on.

I have an “idea file” that has several different ideas for books in various stages of composting. This guarantees that I’ll never run out of ideas.

What do my Loyal Blog Readers think? Have any of you ever abandoned one novel for another? Why did you decide to switch? What was the result? Post a comment here and tells us all about it.

I’ve been out of town twice in the last two weeks. The first time I went to Houston to teach a one-day conference for the Northwest Houston RWA. The second time I went to Denver to do a similar one-day conference for the Heart of Denver Romance Writers. Both weekends were great fun and I met a lot of new people. I got to hang out with my friend Margie Lawson and I met several of my Loyal Blog Readers. So it was wonderful, but also exhausting.

I’m glad to be home now for the rest of the year. I don’t foresee much travel during the next several months. Which means I’ll have a bit more time to blog. August through October are always my busy season.

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 characters who are older than you are? More mature? Characters who’ve gone through life experiences you haven’t?

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

Hello, Randy- I happened across your blog about three weeks ago, and it has really encouraged and challenged me- so thank you!

I read your blog yesterday about 15 year-old Colby, and in reading your response I happened across the dilemma that had been growing in my mind.

You see, I’ve been working on and writing a novel for about eight months, and I’ve nearly finished the first draft and have been going back giving everything more detail, more background, etc. As I’ve gone back and read it, I realized that my characters lacked “pop”. Part of this problem was the fact that I wrote most of the novel for the NaNoWriMo challenge in November, and planning/writing at high speed is not conducive to fleshing out characters. I am 17, and I am writing about adult characters in their late-twenties and on, and I’m worried that my lack of experience of being that old is inhibiting my ability to portray characters of that age.

Should I hold off for a few years on this novel, and work on something that has younger characters? Or should I just continue working on and rewriting this novel, and at the worst treat it as a cringe-worthy, but necessary part of my journey as writer?

Randy sez: A lot depends on where your heart is. If your heart is in writing this story, then write the story, whether or not you’ve got the life experience to write the characters credibly.

As I’ve said in previous posts on this blog, you don’t have to be like your characters to write them. You don’t have to be a man to write male characters; you don’t have to be Jewish to write Jewish characters; you don’t have to be a Martian to write Martian characters.

The more unlike yourself your characters are, the more research you need to do. Monica, your characters are about ten years older than you. If you know a lot of twenty-somethings, then you might very well do just fine with writing people that age. Or not.

The easy way to find out is to get a critique from a few people in that age group. If they think you nailed your characters, then you probably did. If they don’t, then you probably didn’t.

One advantage that any outsider has in writing about characters is that the outsider sees things that the insiders take for granted. So you may be able to put some new insights into your characters. Or you might end up, as you suggested, with a piece of cringe-worthy shlock. There’s no way to know until you try.

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating. There’s no way to be a great writer unless you’re first ready to be a horrible, wretched, shlocky, cliche-ridden, miserably bad writer. You get good by starting out bad. Some people can’t handle that. Some people can.

There’s a word for people who can: “Authors.”

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.