If
you’re an author or someone who has at least made a valiant attempt at
writing a full-length novel, you know it’s not a piece of cake. Still,
I’ve met plenty of people who think writing a novel is as simple as
sitting down at a computer and just typing out one’s story, letting it
flow out page by page until it’s finished. Wouldn’t that be great?
The
truth is that writing fiction is a complex task, even if you’re just
banging out a short story. And if you’re shooting for a full-length
novel, your storyline will get complicated, and your book will turn into
a mind-numbing, convoluted mess if you don’t keep it under control. So,
while creating stories is an art that most certainly utilizes your
creative right brain, you must integrate the left to bring it all
together. That’s why people who are equally strong in both brain
hemispheres (not clearly dominant in one or the other) are often the
most successful creative writers.
The
task of writing by itself entails a lot of technical components.
There’s grammar, spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure just to
name a few. Then there’s the art of phrasing and word utilization to
help make one’s writing “interesting” to the reader. Most writers have a
distinctive “voice”, but it is their clever manipulation of words (both
right and left-brained) that make it sing.
When
you add the dynamics of novel-writing, those technical items multiply,
as there are industry standards to adhere to, and they must be at the
forefront of our consciousness as we write. For example, the point of
view (POV) must remain consistent in each section or chapter, even when
writing in third-person. That means every thought or opinion originates
from a single character, and nothing about any other person may be
revealed outside of what the primary character already knows or
observes. In addition, the tense (past or present) must be consistent
throughout the book, and there are hundreds of rules and guidelines
about things like what should be italicized, where hyphens or ellipses
should be used, when colloquialisms trump proper grammar, crafting
active versus passive writing, and how to structure dialogue so it
maintains a faced pace without making it hard to determine which
character is talking.
Still,
the hardest part about writing a novel is keeping the storyline
straight, and I’ve always used an outline to help with that. At first,
it gives me an initial road map to work from. But as great new ideas and
changes pop up along the way, as they always do, a domino effect
occurs, potentially affecting numerous other chapters. Perhaps an
earlier event can’t happen anymore, or something different needs to
happen instead to make the new scene possible. Maybe a character can’t
say or do something because they weren’t part of an earlier incident, or
something you planned for them to do later doesn’t make sense anymore.
But
what do most of us do? We scribble down notes to go back and fix those
conflicts later because we don’t want to squash the new momentum we’re
riding. Then those notes start to multiply, and we end up with a
colossal mess. Not only that, but we can’t keep things straight anymore,
which leads to even more mistakes and storyline corruption.
My
solution? Let the left brain take over and fix everything right now, as
hard as that may be to do. Then edit your outline so it ties perfectly
with the new story including all future outlined chapters that may have
been impacted. That way, your outline will always be an accurate
reference for where you are in the story including what’s happened up
until now and where things are going. If you can’t work on your book for
a period of time, you’ll know exactly where you are when you get back,
and you’ll hit the ground running rather than spending hours going
through notes and reading past chapters, trying to figure out what the
blazes is going on. It may actually prevent you from walking away and
never working on the book again.
Believe me. I’ve been there. And I don’t ever want to back myself in a corner like that again!
Happy writing!
"James Bond Meets Fifty Shades of Grey"
Immerse yourself in the world class novels that combine action, mystery & suspense with tantalizing and tastefully written erotica. You’ll find all your sensibilities roused at once with Kevin Sterling’s ultra-sexy, action-packed Jack Lazar Series.
In
this fourth action-packed thriller, Jack travels to Denmark for a
business venture, but what seems to be a textbook transaction turns into
a nightmare after he gets involved with Katarina, a vivacious Danish
girl who apparently lacks a moral compass, not to mention an off button.
After naively believing their liaison was just a random encounter, Jack
discovers she’s connected to his business deal, and there’s a dangerous
political group with skin in the game, too.
Katarina makes a convincing case of being a victim, not part of the conspiracy, but can Jack really trust her?
The
firestorm gets out of control as Jack digs deeper, unearths the
convoluted plot behind it all, and discovers that innocent people are
being heartlessly killed. He’s not only horrified by the reason why it’s
happening, but how it’s being done, and there appears to be no way to
stop it from occurring again.
Then
the scheme’s real objective emerges, launching Jack into action with
intelligence operatives to prevent it. But that’s not so easy with
assassins on Jack’s tail, forcing him to struggle for survival while
trying to prevent Katarina from getting caught in the crossfire.
Buy Now @ Amazon
Genre – Action, Mystery, Suspense
Rating – R
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