How to Write a Brilliant Novel: The Easy Step-By-Step Method of Crafting a Powerful Story (Go! Write Something Brilliant) (11 page)

ACT
1

• Life
  
• Inciting Incident
  
• The Big Debate
  
• Noble Quest
  

So, your hero is going along with his life, taking the cow to market, and suddenly . . . something happens. You now recognize Life and the Inciting Incident. But now we’re going to throw in The Big Debate. See, he’s been given an invitation to change his life, to go on a journey of change, to discover new strengths in himself . . . to save the world. Will he take it? The Great Debate is all about your character standing at a crossroads and looking both ways. Which way should he choose? Forward, into Peril, or back, to Safe World? Both choices need to have sufficient motivation. Both need to offer sufficient risk. Eventually, it’ll be the hero’s overriding PURPOSE that will propel him forward into his Noble Quest, but make sure you build in a sufficient debate before you move him forward.

ACT
2

• Launch Noble Quest
  (Subplot Story
  begins)
  
• Disappointment 1
  
• Y in the Road Disappointment 2
  
• Y in the Road
  

Whether you’re writing a romance or not, you still need to have a hint of romance in your books. Whether it’s a traditional romance, or simply the “romance of a friendship”— between women, buddies (many war movies use this device), a father and son, a mother and daughter— every story is deepened by a “romance” subplot. Often, it’s in this subplot that your hero will learn the themes of the main plot: forgiveness, trust, hope—whatever you’ve chosen for your theme. This “love” relationship gives your hero someone else to interact with on the journey, to bounce ideas off of, and eventually learn from. Introduce your Subplot romance shortly after embarking on the Noble Quest, and you’ll have a deeper story.

ACT
3

• Disappointment 3
  
• Taste of
  Death
  
• Help! – Point of No return
  
• Overhaul/Epiphany
  
• Storm the
  Castle
  
• Perfect Ending!
  

So, your character makes the final bad decision, and suddenly all is lost. His fortunes have been reversed, his worst fears are on the horizon. Now, make him lose something close to their hearts. His job, his home, his dog, his best friend. You don’t have to actually
kill
someone (although that’s a strong device!), but at least kill that something figuratively.

You want to bring your character to their lowest point so you can get them on their knees, asking for help. Give them a Taste of Death.

Now, remember, your character will need to have sufficient motivation to move forward with each of these new steps. Don’t forget to tell us
why
he makes the choices he does!

So now you’ve discovered the basic structure of your story. Let’s put the framework together and then move on to creating the scenes that will fill in the empty spaces and give you your novel!

Step Two: Create

Oh, this is the fun part! All those hours wandering around your house, or locked in your office talking to yourself, consuming countless cups of coffee and eating chocolate chips (okay, so maybe that’s only me) are going to pay off. You’re going to sit down and write this book. Bring life to your characters.. Finesse your plot. See the magic happen on the page.

Really
. I promise.

But here is where you again raise your
write
hand and say: “I am a writer. And I promise not to quit until I’ve written ‘The End.’”

Ready now? Okay, then here’s my . . .

How to write a book in three months, in three hours a day!

(using my organization and book development secrets!)

Write a book in three months? In three hours a day? And have a family lifetoo? Bah!

You laugh, but it can be done. Now, I’m not saying it’s easy. But the fact is, with a little “nose to the grindstone,” as my father used to say, it’s possible.

Here’s how:

If you’ve read the four keys to a successful writer’s life, made the Writer’s Pledge, committed to the task, found your writing space, wheedled out time from your schedule, and determined to keep a running game plan, talked to your characters, figured out how to torture them, redeem them and let them live happily ever after, then it’s time to talk strategy. How are you going to get those words on the page?

Let’s assume you have twelve weeks to write a thirty chapter book, with approximately 3000 words per chapter. That’s 1500 words per scene. That’s six pages per writing session, 180 minutes per scene. That’s thirty minutes a page.

Calm down.
Breathe
. Think about it. Can you sit down and write a blog in thirty minutes? What if you already had the idea, already had the words brewing inside you? Probably most of you can. Maybe you can even do it faster than that, but we want to leave room for editing, and revisions, and notes.

Now, you’re going to pad both ends of your three months with two weeks of character development, and two weeks for rewriting and editing, synopsis and a query letter. So, yes, we’re talking four months, but really, the concentrated, “under the thought blanket” time (as my kids call it) is three months.

Pre-Week 1:
Research of idea and Premise, preliminary characterization, and rough brainstorming of plot. You’ve already done this!

Pre-Week 2
: Further research, the cementing of characterization and Premise writing. Sometimes, a chapter–by-chapter summary of the book helps at this time. We’ll be talking about this in the “Publish” section.

Note: There are people who take months in prewriting, and I don’t count that as actual novel writing time. They live with their characters in their minds for a while, having conversations, trying on names and attire until they have them just so, and then they embark. During this time, do enough research to get your story plausible and outline the major plot twists in the story. I always write a synopsis at this point, as a guideline.

Then I write my first chapter
.

Week 1:
Starting day. First, gather your research material around you. Use lots of those big, brightly-colored paper clips so you can bookmark pages. Have a notebook handy. Open up a new file and call it something terrific like “Susie’s Super Suspense Book One.” Okay, you don’t
have
to use my name, butI suppose if you want to . . . . Then, open up a new doc and title it: Chapter 1.

At this point, you’re going to turn off your nasty internal editor, the one that tells you things are not grammatically correct, or that you’re using a word no one has heard of before.
You’re just going to write
. Splash the words onto the page. Ignore the red and green squiggles.
Just write
. A cup of hot cocoa helps, and I’m a big fan of mood music. If you get to a point where you need to do more research, put in something plausible, and denote it with an asterisk (*), which is shorthand for
I’ll get back to it
. Don’t disrupt your writing flow. If you have a word you hate, yet can’t find the right one, asterisk it! If you can’t remember a character’s name or eye color, asterisk it! When you’re done with your manuscript, you’ll read through each chapter, do a search for the asterisks, and change them when you’re mind isn’t cluttered with story.

But what if I come up with a great story thread half way through the scene? Should I stop and go back and fix it?

NO! Did you hear me? NO! Make a what?
Asterick
! Start writing the story from this point on with your new story thread. Make a note in your notebook to go back and add in or tweak that story thread
after
you’ve finished the book. Seriously. It’s your story. No one will read it until it’s done.

Right now you want to is just keep writing, just keep writing . . . .

Once you’ve finished your scene,
Save
. And then open a new Word document, label it CHAPTER 2 (or maybe Chapter 1, scene 2), and make a few notes about how you’d like to open this scene, or what you want to accomplish. The strategy is to jumpstart your mind the next time you sit down.

Then close the computer. Stand up. Stretch. Dance through the house shouting, “I finished Chapter 1! I finished Chapter 1!” Go to bed, and pray for words for Chapter 2.

If you want, you can spend the weekends doing more research, or going back and rereading any points you wanted to refine.

Weeks 2-12:
Keep doing this for the next twelve weeks. You’ll be surprised at how disciplined you get, and how fast the words flow out. How empowering it feels to say, “I’ll get back to all those asterisks later!”

When you write the final chapter, take a weekend break. Take your poor family out for dinner, for Pete’s sake! You’ll spend the next two weeks adding in those astounding story threads, re-writing, fixing all the green and red squiggles, and doing a rough edit, then a thorough edit, and then a polish. Okay, it might take you longer than two weeks. But your story is
done
. It’s out of your brain. And you can say, … “Hey! I wrote a book in three months!

Don’t panic. I don’t expect you to go through
How to Write a Brilliant Novel
and
write your own in twelve weeks. I’m just showing you
how
it could happen.

Take it at your own pace. But look up occasionally. See that light? It’s the end of the tunnel.

Here's a
hint:

Often your first chapter isn't one you wíll really use. It ís the "finding your character's voice" chapter and really, it contains WAY too much back story to use in the book.

But it ís helpful as a warm up to the big event.

Let’s Make a SCENE!

Okay, so we have created our hero and have some framework to put him into a story. As you begin to interact with your character, it will become clearer how to plug him into the story. I want you to know that writers spend a lot of time on the big picture. So much of writing is the thinking stage.

But eventually, you need to sit down and write the scene. Every book should be made up of a collection of SCENES. Live action we can observe, like a movie. In fact, for me, writing is not unlike viewing a movie. I close my eyes, see the scene, and walk through it with the reader.

There are two types of scenes, according to Dwight Swain, in the
Techniques of the Selling Writer
.

1. Scenes –contain story action
   
2. Sequels –contain story response
   

I’m going to give you a brief overview, then we’ll get into the nitty-gritty of the flow and structure of each type of scene. As I’ve taught these concepts I’ve discovered a great deal of confusion between the two concepts, mostly because of the word “scene.”

So, I’ve taken the wild liberty of renaming them:
Action
scene and
Re
Action
scene. The Action Scene is the strength of your book. It’s the onstage activity.

An
Action
Scene
contains:
Goal.
Conflict.
Disaster.

1. Goal
   – We talked about our character’s big-picture goals for the book, aka his
   PURPOSE. But inside those goals are smaller goals, which are goals derived by the situation,
   or
   the
   character’s
   motivation,
   or
   the
   events
   happening
   around
   him.
   For every Action Scene, the POV character will have a goal, as will the other
   characters. The goal must be specific and clearly definable, and it must be a proactive goal, something
   that
   makes
   our
   character
   alive
   and
   interesting.
   A
   character
   who
   wants something desperately is an interesting character—someone we want to know or
   emulate. And this goal helps a reader bond with the
   character.
   
2. Conflict
   –
   These
   are
   the
   obstacles
   your
   POV
   character
   faces
   on
   the
   way
   to
   reaching
   his
   goal.
   You
   must
   have
   conflict
   in
   order
   to
   make
   the
   scene
   interesting,
   and
   to
   help
   your
   character
   grow.
   A
   scene
   without
   conflict
   is
   a
   boring
   scene.
   The
   conflict
   can
   be internal, (competing values), or external, either in interpersonal relationships, or against
   an
   external
   force.
   But
   it
   should
   be
   something
   visible
   to
   the
   reader,
   and
   equal
   in
   strength
   to
   the
   character’s
   motivation
   for
   completing
   the
   goal.
   A
   conflict
   that
   is
   too easily overcome isn’t a real conflict. That’s why bad guys are stronger than good guys—because if they weren’t there wouldn’t be a story. That’s why there is
   always
   kryptonite in a Superman story. Your story must have conflict.
   
3. Disaster
   –
   Don’t
   let
   your
   character
   reach
   his
   goal.
   Winning
   is
   boring,
   except
   at
   the end.
   If
   a
   scene
   ends
   with
   victory,
   then
   there
   is
   no
   reason
   to
   turn
   the
   page.
   Even
   if
   there
   is
   a
   small
   victory
   with
   the
   goal,
   this
   victory
   must
   launch
   a
   new
   set
   of
   obstacles,
   even
   worse
   than
   before.
   So
   in
   the
   end,
   your
   character
   is
   in
   a
   worse
   place.
   Don’t ever end a scene with all the ends tied up. Leave the reader tense and
   worried!