Advanced Fiction Writing Blog

I recently discovered that copies of my novel RETRIBUTION are currently on sale at CBD.com for only 99 cents. Many of my fans believe, as I do, that RETRIBUTION is the best novel I’ve published.

RETRIBUTION is book #3 in my City of God series, a time-travel series of novels set in first-century Jerusalem shortly before the Jewish Revolt. Two of the characters, Rivka and Ari, are visitors from the 21st century, stranded in the first century after a physics experiment gone horribly wrong.

Rivka is a nice girl from San Diego who grew up in a Messianic Jewish family and then went to work on an archaeological dig in Israel.

Ari is a nice guy who grew up in Israel and got his Ph.D. in theoretical physics and got mixed up with a not-so-nice experimental physicist and wound up on the wrong side of a wormhole with the girl of his dreams.

Both Rivka and Ari know that Jerusalem is going to burn and all her people will be killed or carted off into slavery in just a few years. So they ought to be united in doing everything they can to get out of town.

But they have a serious personal conflict. They’re married, and they’re really, truly in love with each other. But Rivka is a devout Christian girl and she’s never going to change. And Ari is a devout atheist turned devout agnostic turned loyal Jew, and he’s never going to change. So they’ve got some religious differences and there’s no way in the world to resolve those.

Plus, Ari’s got some physics skills that come in incredibly useful to his friends who are plotting to destroy the Roman overlord. Ari’s a pacifist, but he’s also a loyal Jew and he would do anything to help his people. Rivka is a historian and she knows beyond any doubt that Rome can’t be beat, and the best thing to do is run for the hills. Both of them are right and both of them are wrong, because there just isn’t any good answer.

Rome is intent on exacting retribution from the Jewish freedom fighters. And in this part of the world, at this time in history, Rome gets whatever she wants.

I’m a physicist myself, but it’s not widely known that I also have a long interest in history and I know an awful lot about Jerusalem in the first century. I spent about 20 years researching the books for my City of God series. I taught myself to read Hebrew. I follow the world of Israeli archaeology — and got myself mixed up in one the biggest archaeological fights of the decade, the debate over the alleged Jesus family tomb. Why? Because I like to. Some people are just sick, sick, sick research puppies. I’m one of them.

You can find out about all of my books on the Books page of my personal web site.

How do you find the very best critique group for you?

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

A couple months ago I celebrated my first official year as a “pre-published” writer who spent all her time learning the craft by writing and studying in isolation. Live and learn, I say, and then don’t do it again. The good news is I have recently changed all that by attending my first writing conference and by observing three writing critique groups. The conference was definitely something I will repeat time and time again. The writing groups were all exceptional and now I must pick one (or all) of these writing groups. My questions are: What advice to you have on finding the best writing critique groups? And, depending on how often it meets, would it be wise to join a couple?

Randy sez: It all depends on where you are on the road to publication. If you haven’t already read my article on this site, “Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Author!” you should probably read it right now to get yourself oriented.

If you’re a Freshman, then you need a critique group to help you figure out where you’re strong and where you’re weak. The horrifically scary thing here is that you’re probably weak in most things. That’s the nature of the beast. You don’t start out in med school being a great brain surgeon. You don’t start out in flying school being a great fighter pilot. You don’t start playing chess as a grandmaster. Writers who can’t deal with that never make it past the Freshman stage.

If you’re a Freshman, I’d recommend finding one critique group that is reasonably nurturing. You really don’t need a group that’s going to destroy your ego every month. However you also need a group that’s going to hold you accountable to writing on a schedule. You will never escape your Freshmanhood unless you get to the point where you’re writing several times per week.

If you’re a Sophomore, then you have figured out a lot of things. By now, you know if you’re plot-oriented, character-oriented, theme-oriented, or setting-oriented. You also have some sort of clue of how you work best: You know if you’re a seat-of-the-pants writer or a Snowflaker or something else.

If you’re a Sophomore, your biggest need is probably a constant reminder that you still have a long way to go and you really aren’t J.K. Rowling just yet. A little knowledge, as they say, is a dangerous thing. Sophomores need to bear this in mind. You need a group that can help you strengthen your strengths and shore up your weaknesses. You also need at least one published author who can give you a bit of guidance in your career development and your marketing.

If you’re a Junior, you desperately need a mentor who is going to help you polish your goods to greatness. These are hard to find. The kind of mentor you need doesn’t necessarily hang out in critique groups much. It’s possible you won’t be able to find a critique group that can fill this need and you may need a critique buddy who is at your level and really gets your writing or you may need someone you can pay to do a freelance edit.

If you’re a Junior, you may very well be the best writer in your critique group, and that means your group is not helping you all that much. That doesn’t mean you should abandon your group. It just means that most of what you learn in the group will be in those “Aha!” moments when you’re critiquing someone else and you suddenly have an insight that’s good for you. Do remember at this stage that even the lowliest writer in your group may well be a great reader who has a key insight on what’s missing in your writing. They most likely won’t have a key insight on how to fix it, unfortunately.

If you’re a Senior, much the same goes for you. Seniors these days generally have an agent, and your agent is going to play the same role that your critique group played when you were a Freshman.

Now Rebecca’s question was partly on how to find a critique group. I can’t answer that easily. There are a lot of places to look for critique groups, but you find them wherever you find them. If you belong to an online organization, it may have a bunch of online groups.

The organization I belong to, ACFW, just recently had a whole class on how to do critiques, and now it’s forming online critique groups. (My daughter Carolyn took the class and is now doing critiques. She’s not a fiction writer; she wants to be an editor someday.)

If you have a community college that has writing classes, you’ll probably find a bulletin board somewhere near the creative writing department that lists critique groups.

I found my first critique group after going to a writing conference that was put on by a regional writing guild in San Diego. The guild had a number of critique groups and I joined one. This group lasted for several years and took me from green Freshman to frustrated Junior. It couldn’t take me beyond that, because nobody in the group was published.

When I finally realized that, I started going to large national writing conferences. At one of those, I met John Olson, who has been my writing buddy ever since. At another, I met Meredith Efken, who has been my freelance editor ever since. At other conferences, I’ve met other key people in my life: Tracy Higley, Jeff Gerke, Jim Rubart, Tosca Lee, Mary DeMuth, and many others. I also met editors and agents who’ve been my guides along the way: Steve Laube, Chip MacGregor, Lee Hough, Wendy Lawton, and many others.

So the moral here is that a critique group will get you rolling, but eventually you’ll need more than that. You will meet many friends at writing conferences, but you only keep them by maintaining contact (usually by e-mail).

One last comment: One good critique group is better than two weak ones. You really want people who know you and understand what you’re writing. You get that by continuity. You should pick a group that meets as often as you need, but no oftener. For a freshman, once a month is probably fine. If you’re really intense, you may be able to meet every two weeks or even weekly, but that’s a tough pace. You have to have time to write.

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.

As many of my Loyal Blog Readers know, I write a monthly humor column featuring a fictitious plumber named Sam, who has a unique perspective on the world of fiction writing.

In the most recent column, posted a few weeks ago, Sam finally discovers that he is fictitious. Or as he says it, he is “fictionary.” You can read the Fictionary column here.

With a heavy heart, I must announce that Sam is retiring. Or more correctly, I am retiring from my monthly column, at least for a while. I hope to bring Sam back someday. He’s been a strange friend, but always loyal. Right now, and for the next few months, I’m stressed for time, and something had to give. That “something” was Sam. He will be missed.

Literary agent and blogger extraordinaire Rachelle Gardner is running a contest now for the best one-sentence summary of a novel. Check it out! This contest has some nice prizes. By the way, if you don’t regularly read Rachelle’s blog, then I highly recommend it.

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

I like your take on Dwight Swain’s scene and sequel breakdown. What is your take on his mentor at the U of Oklahoma, Foster Harris and his ideas of “reversal” and “moral equations”? Could you use your scientific mind and explain it more clearly with examples. Thanks for a great blog.

Randy sez: I wish I could comment on this, but I can’t. I know almost nothing about Foster Harris, except that I vaguely remember Dwight Swain mentioning him in his book, Techniques of the Selling Writer, one of my favorite books on writing fiction.

TJ asked this question:

Fantasy novels and series marketed towards children and teens seems to be all the rage today–it also seems to be how authors are becoming immensely famous and wealthy. What can’t be done in a youth fantasy novel, and what cliches and archetypes should be avoided?

Randy sez: That’s a good question. I don’t know if there are any limits on YA fiction. I’m pretty sure you can’t have a sex scene in a children’s novel, but it wouldn’t surprise me if somebody somewhere has done it. YA is fairly hot right now, with numerous authors doing very well. J.K. Rowling is the most obvious YA author, but James Patterson is doing YA and he’s one of the biggest of the big in current fiction.

I would avoid all cliches in any fiction, YA or not, except in dialogue. Showing a character using cliches in dialogue tells the reader something interesting about that character. Archetypes are by definition not cliches, and I can’t think of any to avoid. Archetypes are good starting places for characters. Obviously, they are not a complete character, and you want to build out unique characters starting from any archetype.

Rob asked:

Is every scene always reactive or proactive. While reading other writers, I’m looking for these things and sometimes finding them hard to spot. Many scenes don’t seem to fit either paradigm, but still make for compelling reading.

I know you’ve probably beat this subject to death, but I’m a slow learner.

Not every scene in fiction is either reactive or proactive. (”Reactive scenes” and “Proactive scenes” are explained in my book Writing Fiction For Dummies. I’m not entirely sure who coined these terms. I don’t believe I was the first to use them, but I can’t quite think who did.) I am reading through Sense and Sensibility right now with my family, and there are a few scenes that just sit there on the page, neither proactive nor reactive, and frankly quite boring.

The real question is whether every scene in fiction would be better if it were revised so as to be either reactive or proactive. I don’t know the answer to that question for certain, since mathematically, the space of all possible scenes is just about infinite, and since there is no objective way to measure how good a scene is. But my gut instinct is that the vast majority of scenes would be improved if they were edited to be either proactive or reactive.

A Proactive Scene begins with a Goal, continues through most of the scene with Conflict, and concludes with a Setback.

A Reactive Scene begins with a Reaction, continues through most of the scene with a Dilemma, and concludes with a Decision.

In my view, it never hurts to look at a scene and ask whether it fits one of these patterns. If it does, how well does it fit the pattern? If not, will it be improved by editing it to fit the pattern?

Note that I am very much against a “paint-by-numbers” scheme of writing fiction. However, I do believe in using design patterns to help edit fiction, and the Proactive Scene and Reactive Scene are two powerful design patterns.

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.

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

My question concerns how to pick a story topic or story line. I never feel like any of my one sentence summaries are worth expanding to a story. I think this frustration is the biggest thing holding me back from trying to write. I don’t have any confidence in my story ideas. I feel like they are either too boring or too similar to novels/movies/TV show that have already been done. Any advice?

Randy sez: Yikes, that’s a tough one. I think it’s a mistake to write a novel about a story you don’t care about. But it’s also a mistake to have your standards set so high that you never work on anything because it’s not original enough.

Without knowing you, Jon, I’d be hard pressed to pinpoint the problem. One thing to bear in mind is that there are very, very few truly original story ideas. Most stories are similar in some way to stories that have already been told. So why tell them? That’s simple: because those stories have never been told by YOU. If you’re a real writer with something to say, then telling ANY story will automatically make it original.

A group of my novelist friends did an experiment a few years ago. They all agreed to write a short story based on the same idea. The story had to have a number of elements all the same. Everybody wrote a story from that same starting point. Every story was different. The result was a book titled WHAT THE WIND PICKED UP. The subtitle is “Proof that a single idea can launch a thousand stories.”

Jon, I’d suggest you just pick the idea you like best and see if maybe it’ll grow into something unique and original and interesting as you work on it. The mark of a good writer is that he or she can turn an ordinary thing into an extraordinary story.

What do you all think, O loyal blog readers? What’s your advice for Jon? Post a comment telling him what you’d do.

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.

I’m working on my May issue of my Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine right now, but thought I should make a quick note here that one of my ever-popular 50% Discount Sales is going on right now. Until midnight on Friday, May 7, 2010, I’ve got every electronic product in my store discounted by 50%. To get the discount, you need to know the coupon code, which is given on the page linked above.

If you got a tax refund this year, you might consider investing a small fraction of that refund in your writing career — an investment that could have an impact for the rest of your life.

All of these are on sale:

• “Fiction 101″ lecture series is 50% off
• “Fiction 201″ lecture series is 50% off
• “Writing in the Shadows” lecture series by John Olson is 50% off
• “Clean Up Your Act” teleseminar series by Allison Bottke is 50% off
• “Promote Your Writing by Speaking” teleseminar series by Mary Byers is 50% off
• “Writing the SuperArticle” e-book is 50% off
• “Writer’s Conference Survival Guide” e-book by Meredith Efken is 50% off
• “Snowflake Pro” software is 50% off

All of these products work on Macs, Windows, and Linux.

For all the gory details, visit my product info page, where you’ll find the coupon code that you need to know in order to get the 50% savings.

I usually run a sale like this a couple of times per year. The last one was in December of last year.

OK, back to working on my e-zine . . .

The second half of March was consumed with traveling. I was out of town for a total of about 12 days. I’ve been back home for more than a week now, but am still digging out from all the work that piled up while I was having fun hanging out with writers.

While I was gone, I did just barely get my monthly humor column done.

The latest column is titled “Sue the Nymph.” In it, my plumber Sam goes into the “vampire remuval” business in hopes of doing background research on his new novel. Can I talk him out of this plan before he damages his good name beyond all repair? Find out!

I was going to critique some more of the one-sentence Storylines that my loyal blog readers have submitted for critique over the last couple of weeks. However, I thought today I’d just take the opportunity to congratulate a young woman who came to this web site a few years ago, read about the Snowflake method, and then did the hard work of writing a novel, getting an agent, and finding a publisher.

Her name is Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, and her debut novel, I DO NOT COME TO YOU BY CHANCE, was just named the winner of the Commonwealth Africa Prize in the first novel category. You can read all about it on the Book South Africa blog.

Congratulations Adaobi! I’m delighted to hear it!

Let’s be clear about one thing. The Snowflake method (or any method) will not magically get you published or win you writing awards. It focuses your efforts and helps you manage your creativity. That’s all. That’s enough. Getting published and winning awards requires talent, dedication, training and hard work. Tools are just tools — they make the hard work go a bit easier, better, and faster.

Tomorrow, we’ll return to our regularly scheduled critique of your one-sentence Storylines, which is of course the first step in that pesky Snowflake method.

You may remember that I interviewed Adaobi here on this blog a few months ago. If you’d like to congratulate her, leave a comment here. I’ve emailed her just now, so she’ll be dropping by shortly, and I’m sure she’d be happy to see any comments you write her.

A quick note to say that my monthly humor column was posted more than a week ago. Sam the Plumber is continuing his attempts to provide novelists with services they don’t want or need. His latest foray into the world of publishing takes him into the murky world of book trailers. Take a look here.

What’s your opinion? Do book trailers work? What does it mean to “work?” How do you know if a trailer works?