There are basically two schools of thought on how to write a novel. You can start on the first page with “Once upon a time” and end on the last page with “The End.” Or you can write as scenes come to you, no matter where they are in this story.

As long as I have been writing, I have been firmly entrenched in the first camp. How can I write scene 10 if I don’t know what happens in scenes 1 – 9? Even if I outline, I might change my mind in the middle of a scene. So I wrote linearly. Of course, the inevitable writer’s block would kick in, and I’d sit and mumble to myself for a good week or month, put the story aside, and work on something else.

Now, after having read Story Engineering, I’m much more confident about my outlining abilities. Even though I still have trouble mapping out every scene, I know how I want my story to unfold, and which scenes I need to write to make that happen. And I have an idea of where the characters should be on their story arcs throughout the book.

So now, if inspiration strikes for a scene near the end of the story, I’ll write it. And I don’t need to worry about how to make it fit in with the rest of the novel, because I know it does.

Now, I’m not saying that one method is superior to the other. I’ve just finally found one that works for me. When I get stuck, as I usually do, I can move on without any worries. And that makes it much easier to keep writing.

So which school do you belong to? Anyone able to pants the non-linear one? (I’ll be super impressed if you can.)

I was asked recently whether it was better to start a novel with plot or characters? Obviously, it depends on the kind of story you’re writing, but I think it also depends on what sparked your creativity in the first place. After all, not all of us can ride a train and scribble the basis for a seven-book series on the back of a napkin, can we?

I find it’s easiest to start with your original thought, whether it be plot or characters, and grow from there. Flesh out the world as you think of obstacles. Add character arcs as you learn more about where you want to take the story.

Think of it as starting at the center of a web, and creating until you see the whole picture. It doesn’t matter where you start; it’s just a good focus point.

For last year’s NaNoWriMo, my novel The Narrator was sparked by plot: narrator hijacks a cliche story. It took years to develop the concept and come up with characters who could successfully fight him. As I developed the plot, I learned what kinds of characters I could use.

This year’s NaNoWriMo is on the entirely opposite side of the spectrum. I had four or five characters, complete with quirks and backstories, but no sensible plot. It took a recycling of three different story ideas, and an infusion of new energy, to come up with a winning combination. (Or at least, I hope it’s a winning combination.)

What about you? Do you tend to start with plot, characters, or something else entirely? Any preference to how your creative energy flows?

Ah, the age-old debate: book vs. e-book. Do we go the traditional route, smell the fresh ink, flip crisp pages through our fingers? Or gaze into lit screens with never-ending data?

I can see the pros and cons of both, so I’ve never been one to cause an uproar over e-readers and their destruction of life as we know it. It didn’t make sense. People say publishing is dying, but that doesn’t seem right either.
        Too true, Belkar.

And then in my first grad class on Monday, I realized why.

My professor talked about publishing as a tension between a cultural and business industry. As we followed the book through its long history, the pendulum was always swinging between the two, and it was possible to see certain eras as extremes of one or the other.

In the last few decades, publishing has been enjoying a business-focused model. But digitalization is pushing us back toward a culturally-focused one. We’re adapting new attitudes toward information and media and entertainment.

These business-savvy publishers are scrambling for a foothold to keep money in the industry, but they’re forgetting to simultaneously adapt their practices. So, as have many newspapers across the country, they go out of business.

The birth of new technology is driving the industry in completely new directions. And that’s why people are freaking out.

But this isn’t the end of civilization. It’s just the next step.

Technology has long driven the publishing industry. The invention of paper, the printing press, computers, all of these have revolutionized the industry. I’m sure illuminating monks feared for the end of civilization when Gutenberg invented the printing press, but civilization got over it.

I’m sure civilization can manage yet again.

In a world of rejections, are you tempted to throw in the towel on your precious Work In Progress and write to the market? To write a trashy romance or the Next Vampire Series just to get something published – and then rake in the rewards?

Then again, is it really so terrible? You’d be a published author, with best-selling books on the shelves. Isn’t that what writing’s all about?

For some, yes.

But in case you haven’t heard – in case you’ve ignored all of the advice your Novelist Idols have spouted over the years – if you’re in this for the money, you’re in the wrong business.

I find that most writers, including myself, need to write. We need to build, to manipulate, to create. The choice to write is not truly a choice at all.

The choice is in what we write.

Tell me honestly. Would you be able to follow in a certain “saga’s” footsteps by writing a world-wide sensation that easily makes heaps of money and gets turned into movies – but is filled with rubbish writing – all to say that you’re a published author?

Or would you rather hold on to your integrity? Hold on to the hope that you’ll write the Next Great American Novel – which will only be read because it’s required high school material?

Neither sounds particularly appealing to me. I figure I don’t have to worry about the second option. Fantasy Young Adult will hardly be nominated for Next Great American Novelship. But in several years, if my toils on my Works In Progress come to nothing, will I follow the first path?

I hope not. I want people to like my books because they’re good and they speak to the reader on some level – not because they’re the latest craze.

What choice will you make?

You might not have heard, but Nick Levasseur, a member of New Hampshire’s House of Representatives, made an insensitive comment about Japanese culture on his Facebook page. He wrote that “anime is a prime example of why two nukes just wasn’t enough…”

The sad part is, that if he were an author, and this statement came from one of his characters, no one would rag him about it.

We all know that some authors like to pound their readers over the head with their own worldview, either directly in the narrative or through a character-mouthpiece. For others, their approach is more subtle. Let’s face it, it’s impossible not to impart some of your views into your brainchild.

But [blatant pounding ahead] some views are just plain wrong.

I don’t care if you’re hiding behind a character or not. People are already inclined to hate what they don’t understand. Do we really have to add fuel to the fire by spouting hateful, insensitive blather?

No. No we do not.

If this character is essential to the plot, the least you can do is make that racist/sexist/orientationist/other-factor-ist prig suffer. Do not leave it to the imagination.

That way those who agree will have no reason to doubt what will happen to them.

The bane of every aspiring author’s existence:

Writer’s Block.

Don’t look at me like that. I know you’ve used this excuse at least once in the past. Everyone else does.

Every writer – no matter how experienced – is going to stumble over their ideas at some point. Maybe you know where you want your characters to go, but you’re not sure how to get them there. Maybe you have a crucial scene up ahead, but you can’t summon the words. Or maybe you’re experiencing the classic “what novel do I write next?”

If you ask around, you’re bound to find as many different answers on how to get past writer’s block as there are plankton in the ocean. These usually range from environmental (play music to get you in the mood) to the psychological (free write for five minutes, don’t worry about what you’re writing) to the evil (here’s a writing prompt, go!).

Most of those methods are all fine and dandy – come on, prompts? Seriously?? – but how about I let you in on a secret that can save some trees, your eyeballs, your sanity, or all of the above…

Writer’s block is a sign that you’re writing the wrong thing.

Hey, I didn’t say it would be a happy secret!

Trust me. Your subconcious is balking as annoyingly as a mule for a reason. Listen to it. Something about what you’re trying to write is not meshing correctly.

Don’t get upset [yet]! Take a step back, and try to figure out the dynamics here. It might take forever to approach it from “what is wrong here?” so try “how can I make this better?”

If you’re still having trouble, take a break. Get away from your writing spot and do something distracting or calming. You’ll get hit with an epiphany sooner or later.

No matter how you solve it, your writing will benefit. And your subconcious will thank you.

I love it when everything clicks together without any proper planning. I submit that it is one of the most satisfying feelings ever.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I wanted to discuss the different ways to approach a novel from the organization side – basically, whether or not to plan out your novel.

First, we have the die-hard planners. Not only do they have a detailed outline that is almost as good as the novel itself, they have the character super-dossiers, a to-scale map of every forest or castle or closet ever, a history of their world that begins “At the dawn of time,” and probably a few alternate universes mapped out. (Obviously, I’m exaggerating. But if you know someone like this, please seek help.) These guys take hours to make sure everything is perfect, that there are no plot-holes to be seen, not even so much as a plot-dent.

Then, we have the seat-of-the-pants writers. Planning? What is this planning you speak of? They never know what’s going to happen from one sentence to the next. They could be writing about a schoolyard bully one second, and purple polka-dotted bunnies the next. It’s, quite frankly, a crapshoot.

Of course, this works for some people. I don’t begrudge them for it (don’t envy them either, though). Like most of my fellow writers, I fall somewhere in the middle.

As you might remember, I used the Snowflake Method to help plan out my novel’s plot. I didn’t use all the steps, meaning I didn’t go as in-depth in the method as I could have. I didn’t take a page or so to describe one quarter of the book; I did it in a paragraph. I didn’t write dossiers for my main characters; I marked down their wants and conflicts and called it a day.

As you can imagine, that left a lot of wriggle room. I have the big picture, but almost none of the small details. Which brings me back to my original statement.

I absolutely love it when story elements click together with no planning.

Allow me to show you why I’m gushing. If you’ve read my project summary, you’ll know that demons are chasing my protagonist. The plan was to have her make her first friends by them teaming up and fighting/beating the demons. That’s what my Snowflake says.

But how to get there? The following was all written by a semi-seat-of-the-pants model (i.e. off the top of my head, but with some larger goal in mind):

I start the novel with her breaking school rules by leaving the grounds. She gets chased by a demon. Then, instead of telling her sister what happened, she says she’s upset because a professor gave her detention. I thought, wouldn’t it be amusing if the professor approaches the group to really give her detention? So she did. Then I wondered, what detention should I give her? I gave her something that put her back where she was breaking the rules because I was too lazy to think of any real punishments. I mean, I didn’t think I’d need to show any of it! But now she has a week’s worth of chances to get chased by demons, and for her future friends to figure it out and decide to help her get rid of them.

The cherry on top? Where she’s doing detention will, I soon discovered, actually help move the plot!

Click-click-click-click!

One of the most difficult things about writing a story is figuring out where it starts. Saying “right before the action” isn’t exactly helpful. In my story, the action pretty much starts two months before my main character starts at her new (awesome) school.

I thought I couldn’t go wrong starting my story when my main character arrives at her this school. Turns out, I could.

I found myself getting sucked into touring a school I hadn’t completely thought up yet, introducing my main character seven times over to dozens of characters that needed to be made up on the spot, and – long story short, I wasn’t comfortable creating a world by going from zero to sixty in negative five seconds flat.

It was also soporific to write. Pop Quiz: how many ways can you have people say, “Oh, you’re the new student?”

So I need to find a new starting point a little “further” into the story, after all these introductions are over. I can always cover important introductions in flashbacks, I suppose. When I don’t have a plan, I like to learn about my characters as my readers do. (That’s probably why I would be terrible at writing mysteries.) It might be weird, but that’s how I work.

One choice every writer must make: should I write this novel from first or third person?

I used to write in first-person. My parents and teachers said I needed to branch out, try different perspectives. I tried third-person and never looked back.

I’m not saying that first-person is an inferior point of view. It has many advantages. The reader is firmly placed inside the main character’s head. It can work very well to mislead the reader, to keep them from solving the mystery of the plot too quickly. But sometimes, it simply can’t do what you need it to.

I’m a fan of third-person omniscient. You can bounce around (sparingly) to other characters, which is particularly useful when the good guys are separated and fulfilling their own crucial missions. You can see what the bad guy is up to without using ridiculously over-used dream sequences.

If you’re just not sure what to go with, try third-person limited. A good example of this is Harry Potter. The reader is privy to his thoughts, and no-one else’s, but we aren’t stuck inside his head either.

I’m not sure why people argue about this. You simply should choose the point of view that works best for the story you’re writing now. However, if you find yourself always sticking with one point of view, like I used to do, try to vary it up. Experiment with other viewpoints. You might find another point of view works better for your story than you had originally thought.