Writing Fiction For Dummies

Randy Ingermanson is the award-winning author of six novels. He is known around the world as "the Snowflake Guy," thanks to his Web site article on the Snowflake method, which has been viewed more than a million times. Before venturing into fiction, Randy earned a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of California at Berkeley. Randy has taught fiction at numerous writing conferences and sits on the advisory board of American Christian Fiction Writers. He also publishes the world’s largest e-zine on how to write fiction, The Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine. Randy’s first two novels won Christy awards, and his second novel Oxygen, coauthored with John B. Olson, earned a spot on the New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age list. Visit Randy’s personal Web site at www.ingermanson.com and his Web site for fiction writers at www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com. Peter Economy of La Jolla, California, is a bestselling author with 11 For Dummies titles under his belt, including two second editions and one third edition. Peter is coauthor of Writing Children’s Books For Dummies, Home-Based Business For Dummies, Consulting For Dummies, Why Aren’t You Your Own Boss?, The Management Bible, and many more books. Peter also serves as Associate Editor of Leader to Leader, the Apex Award-winning journal of the Leader to Leader Institute. Check out Peter’s Web site at www.petereconomy.com.

• Introduction 1About This Book 1Conventions Used In This Book 2What You’re Not to Read 2Foolish Assumptions 3How This Book is Organized 3Part I: Getting Ready to Write Fiction 4Part II: Creating Compelling Fiction 4Part III: Editing and Polishing Your Story and Characters 4Part IV: Getting Published 4Part V: The Part of Tens 5Icons Used in This Book 5Where to Go from Here 5Part I: Getting Ready to Write Fiction 7Chapter 1: Fiction Writing Basics 9Setting Your Ultimate Goal as a Writer 11Pinpointing Where You are as a Writer 13Freshmen: Concentrating on craft 13Sophomores: Tackling the proposal 14Juniors: Perfecting their pitches 15Seniors: Preparing to become authors 16Getting Yourself Organized 17Mastering Characterization, Plotting, and Other Skills 18Editing Your Fiction 18Chapter 2: What Makes a Great Story? 21Choosing What to Give Your Readers 22Creating a powerful emotional experience: What your readers desperately want 22Educating your reader 23Practicing the gentle art of persuasion 24Making Life Hard on Your Characters: Conflict Plus Change Equals Story 25The Five Pillars of Fiction 26Setting the stage: Your story world 27Creating characters 28Constructing the plot 28Formulating a theme 30Expressing your style 31Seven Ways to Deliver the Goods 31The here and now: Action 32Giving your characters a voice: Dialogue 33Revealing thoughts: Interior monologue 33Feeling with your character: Interior emotion 34Seeing what your character sees: Description 34Taking a trip to the past: Flashback 35Supplying narrative summary 35Chapter 3: Finding Your Audience and Category 37Identifying Your Ideal Novel 38Looking at what you love to read 38Thinking about what you love to write 39Defining Your Ideal Reader 40Considering worldview and interests 41Looking at gender 42Writing for readers of a certain age 43Defining your niche 43Understanding Your Category 43Genres: Surveying categories based on content 45Understanding audience-based categories 50Picking your category and subcategory 52Finding Your Category’s Requirements 53Targeting your word count 54Accounting for major characters 54Determining levels of action, romance, and all that 55Identifying your story’s emotional driver 58Chapter 4: Four Ways to Write a Great Novel 59Giving Yourself Permission to Write Badly 59Creative Paradigms: Investigating Various Writing Methods 61Writing without planning or editing 61Editing as you go 62Planning a little, writing a little 63Outlining before you write 64Finding a Creative Paradigm that Works for You 65Understanding why method matters 66Developing your creative paradigm 67Using Your Creative Paradigm to Find Your Story Structure 69Chapter 5: Managing Your Time and Yourself 71Finding Time to Write 71Establishing and sticking to a writing goal — for this week and this year 72Organizing your time 74Setting Up Your Ideal Writing Space 75Securing the best writing surface 76Finding the right chair 76Choosing a computer (if you want to use one) 77Putting everything in place 78Dealing with Distractions 79Looking at Money Matters 80Budgeting money for writing 81Making your living as a writer: Don’t expect this to be your day job (yet) 82Part II: Creating Compelling Fiction 85Chapter 6: Building Your Story World: The Setting for Your Story 87Identifying the Parts of a Story World 88Creating a Sense of Place 89Making description do double duty 90Fitting description in the story 91Weaving emotive force into your descriptions 92Deciding What Drives Your Cultural Groups 93Revealing cultural drivers with immediate scene 93Exposition: Explaining cultural drivers through narrative summary 94Combining various elements to show cultural drivers 95Choosing the Backdrop for Conflict 95Defining your backdrop 95Defining your story question 98Story World Examples from Four Well-Known Novels 98Pride and Prejudice 98The Pillars of the Earth 99Patriot Games 100Ender’s Game101Researching Your Story World 102Identifying what you need to know about your story world 102Knowing how much research is enough 104Being Able to Explain Your Story World to Sell Your Book 106Chapter 7: Creating Compelling Characters 107Defining Roles: Deciding Who Goes in Your Novel 107Backstory: Giving Each Character a Past 109Understanding why backstory matters 109Creating your character’s backstory 110Avoiding stereotypes 111Motivation: Looking to Your Character’s Future 112Values: Core truths for your character 113Ambitions: Getting abstract, or why Miss America wants “world peace” 115Story goals: Your story’s ultimate driver 115Establishing your character’s motivation 117Point of View (POV): Getting Some Perspective on Character 121First-person POV 122Third-person POV 124Objective third-person POV 125Head-hopping POV.126Omniscient POV 127Second-person POV 128Choosing between Past and Present Tense 129Revealing Your Characters to the Reader 131Chapter 8: Storyline and Three-Act Structure: The Top Layers of Your Plot 135Giving the Big Picture of Story Structure: Your Storyline 135Understanding the value of a storyline 136Writing a great storyline 137Examples: Looking at storylines for 20 best-selling novels 140Three-Act Structure: Setting Up Three Disasters 145Looking at the value of a three-act structure 145Timing the acts and disasters 147Introducing a great beginning 148The end of the beginning: Getting commitment with the first disaster 148Supporting the middle with a second major disaster 149Leading to the end: Tackling the third disaster 150Wrapping up: Why endings work — or don’t 151Summarizing Your Three-Act Structure for Interested Parties 153Examples: Summarizing the Matarese Circle and Pride and Prejudice 153Describing your own three-act structure 155Chapter 9: Synopsis, Scene List, and Scene: Your Middle Layers of Plot 157Deciding Which Order to Work In 157Writing the Synopsis 158Taking it from the top: Fleshing out your three-act structure 159Bottoms up! Building around sequences of scenes 160Knowing how much detail you need 161Example: A synopsis of Ender’s Game 161Developing Your Scene List 163Top-down: Fleshing out your synopsis 163Bottom-up: Summarizing your manuscript 164Example: A scene list of Ender’s Game 165Extending your scene list 167Setting Up the Structure of Individual Scenes 167Setting the proactive scene 168Following up with the reactive scene 170Coming full circle with your scenes 173Scene structure in Gone with the Wind 173Scene structure in Patriot Games 174Chapter 10: Action, Dialogue, and More: The Lowest Layer of Your Plot 177Using Seven Core Tools for Showing and Telling 178Action 179Dialogue 180Interior emotion 183Interior monologue 184Description 186Flashback 189Narrative summary and other forms of telling 192The Secret of Showing 194Sorting it all out 194Understanding the two kinds of clips 196Writing public clips 197Writing private clips 197Putting cause and effect together 199Chapter 11: Thinking Through Your Theme 203Understanding Why Your Theme Matters 203Looking at why writers include themes in their novels 204Examining the features of a theme 205Example themes for 20 novels 205Deciding When to Identify Your Theme 209Finding Your Theme 210Faking it till you make it 210Reading your own novel for the first time 211Listening to your characters 212Using test readers 212Must you have a theme? 212Refining Your Theme 213Part III: Editing and Polishing Your Story and Characters 215Chapter 12: Analyzing Your Characters 217The High-Level Read-Through: Preparing Yourself to Edit 218Developing a Bible for Each Character 219Physical traits 221Emotional and family life 221Intellectual and work life.222Backstory and motivation.222Psychoanalyzing Your Characters 223Are values in conflict? 223Do the values make sense from the backstory? 224Does ambition follow from values? 226Will the story goal satisfy the ambition? 227The Narrator: Fine-Tuning Point-of-View and Voice 228Does your POV strategy work? 228Have you chosen the right POV character? 232Is your POV consistent? 233Does your character have a unique voice? 233Fixing Broken Characters 234Boring characters 234Shallow characters 234Unbelievable characters 235Unlikeable characters 236Chapter 13: Scrutinizing Your Story Structure 239Editing Your Storyline 240Removing all unnecessary weight 240Keeping your characters anonymous 241Staying focused 241Cutting down some example storylines 241Testing Your Three-Act Structure 244What are your three disasters? 246Are your acts balanced in length? 247The beginning: Does it accelerate the story? 248The first disaster: Is the call to action clear? 249The second disaster: Does it support the long middle? 250The third disaster: Does it force the ending? 252The ending: Does it leave your reader wanting to tell others? 253Scene List: Analyzing the Flow of Scenes 255Rearranging your scenes 255Foreshadowing: Planting clues to prepare readers 256Putting it all together as a second draft 257Chapter 14: Editing Your Scenes for Structure 259Triage: Deciding Whether to Fix, Kill, or Leave a Scene Alone 260Identifying ailing scenes 260Evaluating a scene’s chances of recovery 261Fixing Proactive Scenes 262Imagining a proactive scene: The Day of the Jackal 262Checking for change 263Choosing a powerful goal 263Stretching out the conflict 264Desperately seeking setbacks 265Examining the final result 266Fixing Reactive Scenes 267Imagining a reactive scene: Outlander 267Checking for change (again) 268Fitting the reaction to the setback 268Working through the dilemma 269Coming to a decision 270Coming to the final result 270Killing an Incurable Scene 271Chapter 15: Editing Your Scenes for Content 273Deciding Whether to Show or Tell 274Knowing when clips, flashbacks, or telling techniques are most appropriate 274Following an example of decision-making 275A Good Show: Editing Clips 277Guidelines for editing clips 278Fixing mixed clips 279Fixing unintentional head-hopping 280Fixing out-of-body experiences 282Fixing cause-effect problems 283Fixing time-scale problems 284Getting In and Out of Flashbacks 286Editing Telling 287Tightening text and adding color 288Knowing when to kill a segment of telling 289Part IV: Getting Published 291Chapter 16: Getting Ready to Sell Your Book: Polishing and Submitting 293Polishing Your Manuscript 294Teaming with critique buddies 294Joining critique groups 295Working with freelance editors 296Hiring freelance proofreaders 297Looking at Three Common Legal Questions 298Deciding between Traditional Publishing and Self-Publishing 299Understanding how traditional publishers work 299Understanding how self-publishing works 301Beware the vanity publishers! 302Our recommendation 303First Contact: Writing a Query Letter 303Piecing Together a Proposal 306Deciding what to include 306Your cover letter: Reminding the agent who you are 307Your title page 307The executive summary page 308Market analysis: Analyzing your competition 309Your author bio 309Character sketches 310The dreaded synopsis 311Your marketing plan 311Your writing, including sample chapters (or whole manuscripts!) 312Chapter 17: Approaching Agents and Editors 315Defining the Roles of Agents and Editors 315Finding the Best Agent for You 316Deciding whether you need an agent 316Doing your homework on agents first 317Contacting agents to pitch your work 320Editors, the Center of Your Writing Universe 322Targeting a publishing house 323Choosing which editor to contact 324Contacting editors directly 324Part V: The Part of Tens 327Chapter 18: Ten Steps to Analyzing Your Story 329Step 1: Write Your Storyline 330Step 2: Write Your Three-Act Structure 330Step 3: Define Your Characters 331Step 4: Write a Short Synopsis 332Step 5: Write Character Sketches 332Step 6: Write a Long Synopsis 332Step 7: Create Your Character Bible 333Step 8: Make Your Scene List 333Step 9: Analyze Your Scenes 334Step 10: Write and Edit Your Story 335Chapter 19: Ten Reasons Novels are Rejected 337The Category is Wrong 338Bad Mechanics and Lackluster Writing 339The Target Reader Isn’t Defined 339The Story World is Boring 340The Storyline is Weak 340The Characters Aren’t Unique and Interesting 341The Author Lacks a Strong Voice 341The Plot is Predictable 342The Theme is Overbearing 343The Book Fails to Deliver a Powerful Emotional Experience 343Index 345

"... an easy-to-follow guide providing step-by-step instructions...." (Writers Forum, December 2009)