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Warning: These books and websites are writer's tools, not works of a Christian nature. A few of them contain some profanity. Nonetheless, all have been helpful guides and I am certain the knowledge they contain will be invaluable to you as well.
Start With
· The Complete Guide to Writing and Selling the Christian Novel by Penelope J. Stokes
· How to Write and Sell a Christian Novel by Gilbert Morris
· Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
· The Plot Thickens by Noah Lukeman
Then Read
· Creating Character Emotions by Ann Hood
· Stein On Writing by Sol Stein
· Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain
(If you want to know how to accomplish something, plotting or character, pacing or motivation, this book will tell you. It is well worth the effort expended to read it, though the print is small and it flows like an Algebra text book.)
· Writing The Breakout Novel by Donald Maass
· Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass
Finally
· The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes by Jack M. Bickham
· The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman
· 78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published and 14 Reasons Why It Just Might by Pat Walsh
· Woe Is I—The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English by Patricia T. O'Conner
· Self-Editing For Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King
*One of the lessons I regretfully learned the hard way: Don't read editing books before you complete your rough draft!!! I was stifled by editing concerns during much of my rough draft's construction and did a good deal of rewriting because of it. Make a good plan. Write your first draft wrapped in the delight of creation. Then and only then prime your mind for that critical endeavor called revision. Things will go much smoother if you do.
October 1, 2008—What if
One of my favorite books is A View From the Zoo by Gary Richmond. This wonderful selection of real life zoo tales contains a chapter on “what if-ing.” Mr. Richmond claims that zoo keepers are “what if-ers” of champion caliber.
What if-ing is an essential skill that every writer should cultivate. You know that you need tension in your story and so you set out to create danger, trouble, and massive mental trepidation for your main character. This is where what if-ing comes into play.
When Gary Richmond's zoo keepers “what if-ed” they would cluster around the lunch table imagining what horrors would occur if various animals of differing degrees of deadliness were to suddenly escape. But the writer's “what if-ing” is by no means confined to the realm of animal attacks. But then again animal attacks are always a good place to start. Let's say we have an ordinary teen visiting Yellowstone national park.
What if: She gets separated from her family?
What if: This is not the first time she has gotten separated from her family and her parents have recently stated that the next time she wanders off and they have to spend a terrifying hour looking her up, she will loose her privileges to the family's horrid beige Honda for a month?
What if: It is no ordinary day, but a day when her father has a meeting with some big wigs and he has promised them that he will introduce his family?
What if: She has a dangerous encounter with an enormous and enraged American Bison?
What if: There is something not quite right about this particular bison?
What if: Her father works at Yellowstone National Park and would be put in danger by this abnormal herd animal.
What if: The big wigs that he is meeting with on our fateful day are actually manipulating park bison on the molecular level so that they can be spies for the American government in the snowy mountains of China?
What if: The Chinese government has gained control of our experimental bison and plans to wreak havoc in the park and cause our stock market to plummet so that the introduction of their new rubber beef patties will be favorably received?
What if: The abnormally altered double agent bison happen to rampage near where the girl's innocent family is taking photos of a passing family of grizzlies?
What if: The bison attack the grizzlies and the ensuing battle flattens the family camper leaving them without a means of escape?
What if: A helicopter swoops to their rescue only to load them up and fly them to a remote Chinese prison because they have seen too much?
I think you get the picture. Although there is no requirement for your “what if-ing” to be quite as dramatic as mine, one can “what if” about perfectly normal daily occurrences as well. Who knows what will happen to your hapless characters when you are caught in the wonderful web of “what if-ing”. Someone could get a hangnail for all we know!
October of 2007—Getting Started Part 2—
You need a place to write. It doesn't need to be fancy, but should have these three luxuries. It must be quiet, it must have sufficient lighting, and you must be able to sit down comfortably.
My writing space is in our living room. I have a small desk and bookshelf pushed up against a wall on which I hung a whiteboard, corkboard, and pictures of ancient Assyria. Needless to say I only write when my boys are asleep because writing in the living room at any other time is a fruitless endeavor. But it works well for me.
You need some basic equipment. You should have a computer, a dictionary, thesaurus, some place to hang up your goals, and a notebook. If you don't have a printer, get a thumb drive and then take your work to a printer whenever you need a hard copy. And actually, many fine tomes have been written with pen and paper as well as on typewriters, so a computer is not absolutely necessary. But it goes without saying that your story needs to be typed before you submit it to an editor or agent.
You need a writer's notebook or computer equivalent. I started out with an actual notebook, but have moved my notes to the computer. If you choose to go this route you will need something small to carry around for making notes in until you can transfer them to your computer. I have a writing section in my day planner. I make note of the area that it will be filed under in my computer and then transfer the notes later. Ideas tend to loose their luster unless you write them down immediately.
My writer's notebook file has these sections in it: New Story Ideas, Characterization, Dialogue, Faith in Fiction, Intriguing Facts, Kid Sketches, Plot Twists, Random Scenes, Settings and Descriptions, Stories: funny or otherwise, Themes, Unique Phrases and Words, Voice, Ways to Create Tension, and a few other random files that I had to create to fit in a particular idea. You will want to tailor your notebook to your unique needs.
You need some immediate, intermediate, and long term goals. Learning the craft of writing is a long process and can be quite discouraging. Set goals so that you can look back and realize that you are indeed making progress. How can you succeed if you don't have goals? Currently my short term goal is to finish three writing tips for this section in my website. This is something that I may be able to accomplish today. My intermediate goal is the finish the content of my website so that we can begin construction. This will take me a couple of weeks. My long term goal is to be completely ready to submit my manuscript to an agent by December 1, 2007 (Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...). Hopefully this will take two months or less. My third baby is due in December and I hope to have a query in the mail before our trip to the hospital.
On my corkboard I keep a list of my intermediate goals. I highlight each goal as I finish it. These are things that will take me anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to complete. I also keep a calendar where I write down the amount of time I spend writing each day and keep track of short term goals for each week. If you break down your dreams into small attainable steps you will be able accomplish an overwhelming amount of work because you took the time to cut it into bite sized pieces. Goals also give you a forward direction. When you're not sure what to write next you can just do the next thing on your list instead of sitting and staring at the blank computer screen for inspiration.
So there it is. Set up a writing space, get a computer or typewriter or enormous stack of papers, purchase a dictionary and thesaurus, make a writer's notebook, and write down your goals. Now you're ready to write.
September 29, 2007—Getting Started Part 1—
When I began my first serious writing course they assigned a reading chapter on getting started. I of course read it. It was part of the class work and I love to read. Then I promptly went on with my writing assignments ignoring everything I had just stuffed into my brain. I didn't set up a writing space, I didn't set short, mid, and long term goals, I didn't keep track of my writing hours. I simply wrote my assignments and turned them in. I did this for a year.
Sadly, a good deal of my reasoning stemmed from fear. If I didn't give it everything I had, this small creative hope. If I held back some of my abilities and time, some of my best effort and whole heart, then if I happened to fail, I wouldn't really truly have failed would I?
But after a year of regular assignments, regular doses of critique and encouragement, I was a tiny bit stronger inside. My husband saw a small desk at a yard sale and insisted that I have it for my writing. Despite my deep seeded loathing (I have been trying to de-clutter for years) for adding random articles to our home simply because the price is 75% lower than expected, we bought the desk. First I set it up on the landing of our stairway. Then it moved to a corner of our living room where people might (gulp) see it and guess that I was attempting some foolish creative endeavor. I bought a corkboard, a whiteboard, a writer's notebook, a tiny Wal-Mart bookshelf, and put up a chart to keep track of my writing hours. Boldly I put them next to my garage sale desk and proclaimed the corner “my office”. Despite my fear that every entrant to our home would suddenly realize what I was doing, very few people even noticed my office even though it took up an entire wall of our living room.
But I was finally striding forward, despite the many emotional risks. I chose to invest my whole heart and utmost effort into a childhood dream, even with the overwhelming chance of failure. Now jump forward four years. I had been writing most every day with no tangible successes, though I was improving. It became clear that writing during my two sons' naptime was no longer an option. They weren't sleeping regularly anymore and the rest of my day was full and brimming with trucks and bugs and attempting to keep them from licking the toilet (yes I'm afraid that toilets have some sort of magnetic draw for toddler tongues). I made a decision that has totally changed my writing world. I am a night person, not and I repeat not a morning person. And I swear if the opportunity presented itself I would sleep eleven hours a night. But nonetheless I began to get up at 5:00am to write. Everything was different after that. I knew that I was a writer, that I would continue writing until I keeled over stiff and dead, published or not.
So what is my writing tip? Try. If writing is the desire of your heart, simply set aside a few minutes of each day and try with the whole of your being.
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