How to Write a Brilliant Novel: The Easy Step-By-Step Method of Crafting a Powerful Story (Go! Write Something Brilliant) (2 page)

If you’re a writer, this book is for you.

I remember the day when I decided to write a novel. I was in Siberia, in the middle of a solemn and icy winter. I had four children, all under the age of six, and my husband was gone, again, planting a church. I had read everything in the house at least twice, and I decided that my imagination could do at least as well as one of the books I’d devoured in a day. (Boy, did I have much to learn!) I sat down at the computer and said, “I’m writing a book.”

That’s about as far as I got. Once I actually sat down and stared at the computer, I had not idea how a book was put together. Where did I start? How did I develop characters? What was my point? And most importantly—how did I get the story from my brain to the computer and into print?

It took me a year of writing, first on Saturdays, and then every day. But I finished my first book. To all who think that I then ran out and found a publisher—not! Four books later . . . .

1. Writing a good novel was harder than I thought, and I needed a lot of work.
   
2. I love to write, and was willing to make the journey, whatever it took.
   
3. Even if I never got published, God could use my writing journey for good in my
   life.
   

A writer’s life is solitary, hard work, fraught with rejection, frustration, and even envy.
But
, if you look at the journey as another way that you will grow and experience your world, then it’s a journey that is ripe with rewards.

This is the book I wish I had when I first started. It’s because of those years of angst and study that I started
My Book Therapy
, a blog about how to write and a fiction editing service to help writers along the way. When I first started writing, I was in
Siberia
. As in
Russia
. Alone. Just me, some novels, and my imagination. I wished I had a reference guide, something to organize all the information I needed in one place, maybe a step by step and a companion/encourager to help me complete my dream. Sure, I had writing books, but they made the process so
complicated
. I knew it had to be easier.
How to Write a Brilliant Novel
is my writing manual—what I developed and now use to create stories. It’s my successes, my systems . . . and my secrets. And, as a bonus, you also get the perspective of Rachel Hauck, my pal and
My Book Therapy
partner, thrown in to add another rich perspective. It’s our manual of writing the books we know how to write.

How to use this book:

There are three steps to your writing journey:

1. Discovering the story you want to write. There’s a lot of talking to yourself during this process, so if you have an office with a lock on the door, that helps!
   
2. Creating the story. This is the long part, so arm yourself with coffee, a notepad, a computer, and chocolate chips, not necessarily in that order.
   
3. Publishing the story. This is understanding the nuts and bolts of the industry.
   

I divided it into these three sections, with step by step instruction on how to complete each of these legs of the journey. If you spend one hour a week reading and doing the exercises at the end of each lesson, you’ll slowly create that novel stirring in your heart (or head), and you’ll finish it in a year.

Along the way, you’ll learn everything from writing life management, story structure, characterization, and some easy plotting methods, including how to create the perfect Black Moment and life-changing Epiphany. You’ll learn how to build a novel scene by scene, and how to create those scenes. You’ll get editing hints, and learn how to package your manuscript into a proposal that will catch the eye of an agent or editor. And, if you stick with this book to the very end, maybe you’ll even see your novel on a bookshelf at Barnes and Noble. I hope so! I’m blessed to be able to share the stories inside me with the world out there. I hope they inspire and encourage, delight and challenge others.

I pray this book helps you discover the writer in you.

You CAN write something
Brilliant!

The Writer’s Life

No one starts a journey without gathering their supplies, stretching out, and getting into shape. At least, you shouldn’t! Before you write one word, one hint of “Once Upon a Time”— and I know you’re itching to do so, but I promise it’ll be worth the wait!—let’s spend a few moments packing our gear.

I met my husband in the boundary waters canoe area of Minnesota. I was a camp director. He was a trail guide. We both loved the outdoors. I knew we were headed for a lifetime of camping and outdoor fun. Then our four children came along, time passed, and our oldest was fifteen by the time we realized they had never been on a canoe trip. So after we’d moved home from Russia, we decided to pack them up and take them out into the wilderness.

We planned a simple trip—six to eight miles of canoeing a day, three portages a day (a few uphill, but we were tough), and plenty of food and fun. We even decided to take my parents. We had three canoes, ten packs, and a lot of enthusiasm.

We left early on a Saturday morning, our paddles dipping into a pristine lake that mirrored the fat, happy clouds above. We sang a little song. A loon sang back. My children smiled, and I laughed in the face of our adventure.

Two days, three lakes, a rainstorm, and four million-mile portages later, I wasn’t laughing any longer. Whose stupid idea was it anyway to go out and fight with the bugs and the mud? Who said I could carry a canoe, huh?

We were out of shape, overburdened, hot, tired, hungry, smelly, and there may have been a few ugly attitudes. I had to face the truth: I’d turned into a wimp. I simply didn’t have the staying power to finish our trip. I wanted to sprawl on the rooted ground until the forest service guys found me and choppered me home. The good news is, after a granola bar and a pep talk, I shouldered my canoe and pressed on, singing “Amazing Grace,” believing someday the portages would end. They did, and we have the pictures of happy, grimy campers gracing our kitchen wall to prove it.

Writing a book is like that canoe trip. Your first chapter is beautiful and fun. You write it and read it aloud, laughing with joy at your magnificent prose. But by chapter seven, your character is uncooperative, hopelessly lost—or worse, has already solved his problem. Your head hurts from all the red and green squiggly lines (for those who use Microsoft Word), and there are storm clouds brewing in your head. You just want to turn back. (Please, please don’t hit delete!) You think:
What made me believe I could write a novel, anyway?

Today, while the skies are still blue and clear, and the lake pristine, I want you to take a deep look inside yourself and decide. Do you have the resolve to say, “Hey, I’m a writer. I’m on a journey. And I’m not going to quit until I get there, regardless of the pitfalls, the frustrations, and the fact that somewhere down the road, even my family may look at me and say, ‘
Are you sure
?’”

It’s in the easy times that you need to resolve not to quit in the hard times. Writing a book is, well, like a canoe portage. One foot in front of the other, swatting away the bugs, enduring the pain and the sweat, believing that, eventually, you’ll get to the blue skies at the end. I promise, it’s worth it.

Raise your “write” hand and repeat after m
e:
I am a writer. And I promise not to quit
until I’ve
written
“The
End.”

Now you may proceed.

As you prep for your journey, I want you to start exercising! You’re going to get in shape! Work off the dust of your minds and tighten the flab of your daily schedules so you can utilize the writing time you have in your days.

Writing is much like every other discipline. It takes
commitment.
After all, as much as we'd like it to happen, those books don't just download from our brains automatically! It takes
nurturing.
Did you know that your brain has a well of words for each day, and you need to replenish those words after you use them? It takes
time
(something we're going to figure out how to get!), and it takes a
game plan
.

Commitment
: The fact is, writing will take you away from your family, your health club, your church, your social groups, your online gaming, your Sudoku, your television . . . you get my drift. There are costs. The keys to keeping those costs in line are:

• Priorities
  
• Balance
  
• Perspective
  

Writing should
always
come after spending time with God (that's also the nurturing part!) and rarely before family and church, but sometimes writing does come before workouts and social life.

My friend Judy Baer, writing coach extraordinaire, shared this illustration with me: “Stand on one foot and balance. You can’t stand perfectly still, but rather, you have to lean to different sides to keep your balance.”

Writing and life should be like this—different sides require attention in different waves. If you are to invest in writing, then know that you might have to give up other things. Don’t worry—it’s not forever! Just for a while. If you were training for the Olympics, you'd have a training schedule, and it would ramp up when you had specific events to meet. Take a look at your life and see if you can carve out one hour per day, or three days per week to invest in writing. Then, put that on your calendar in
red
. Writing is an appointment. Be there.

Nurturing
: Your brain needs a steady supply of new words, spiritual nourishment, research facts, and good writing to keep it fresh and ready to put prose on the page.

Spiritual Nourishment:
Writing is largely a spiritual event. You are connecting on a thematic level with your reader, and that happens in the spiritual realm. Sure, we access many of these metaphors through emotion, but looking past feelings to their deeper meaning and sources helps broaden your understanding of your book, your character’s journey, and, most importantly,
why
you are spending time writing this book. Make a habit of spending time soaking in God's Word, or a devotional book like
Streams in the Desert
, or whatever form of spiritual food you need for your diet. I like to read theology books, but sometimes a great devotional book puts my spirit into the right frame to see beyond myself, to tap into the bigger picture, and inspires me to write.

Research:
Make it your goal to keep up with the world. Technology. Medicine. Trends. Don't be afraid to use the Discovery Channel for interesting plot ideas! Know what’s happening in culture and politics. Read biographies, current and past—you’ll be inspired with new story ideas. Subscribe to
Reader’s Digest
and
National Geographic
. (At least TiVo the channel!) To communicate to our world, you need to understand it.

Read Up:
Fill your mind with great writing. Start your writing time reading the Psalms, or perhaps a book of poetry. Read the classics, yes, but also make it your goal to read in your genre! Most importantly, find authors that are better than you and soak in their words, analysing why they are fabulous writers. Feeding your mind and your soul will give you materials you can draw from as you create.

Time:
This is one of the hardest areas for new writers to manage. Most of us don’t have hours in the day to wait for the muse to find us. We have thirty minutes after supper, or perhaps three hours on a Saturday morning.

Here are a few strategies for maximizing that time:

• Plan ahead for your writing time and get your family to help you protect it
  . I have a sign on my door that reads, “Cry Me a River.” In other words, my family better have a good reason to come through that door when it’s closed. Only if there’s blood or fire is the general rule. When my children were young, I always had an open door policy. However, I asked them to respect my time, just like I respected theirs. That meant that I spent time with them first—reading, helping with homework, fixing dinner—whatever they needed. I also involved them in the writing process. If they allowed me to finish a chapter, we’d celebrate with something fun. Yes, there was a lot of ice cream in those early days. And I promised that when my first book got published, I’d take them to Disney World. I kept that promise. Enlisting your family’s help will free you from guilt
  and
  give them an opportunity to share in your victories as you write. Make your family your partners.
  
• Keep a notebook of ideas.
  Dialogue, new characters, plot twists will invariably come to you as you wash dishes, walk the dog, clean the bathroom, drive to work, sit in a boring meeting, or even in the middle of the night. Sometimes you can't dash to your computer to put in that perfect sentence, so put it in your notebook. You'll have a collection of words and sentences
  
• Don't clean up your writing space mid-project.
  Okay, I know, that sounds like a messy person's excuse. But if you simply walk away from your computer after you finish a scene, you'll be able to slip right back into the scene when you come back.
  

Have a special room to write in so you can close the door, even if it's a section of your bedroom—something I did for years. I had a little garage-sale chair with a pile of books on the opposite side of the bed—my little alcove. But, if you can't find a separate space, invest in a little basket to throw all your writing gear in (research books, books on writing), and then set it in a place where it won't be “reorganized,” as my husband calls it. Keeping your research handy helps you maximize your time when you sit down and dive back into your story.