Make It a Story You Love

When someone asks how to know when a novel is complete, I always say that when it is good enough that the author wants to read it just for the enjoyment of reading it then it is done. Another question we might ask is when we know we have a story idea that is worth writing.

Before I even knew that someone else had written a novel even loosely based on the story of Hosea, I fell in love with the story and decided that I wanted to tell the story that has since become For the Love of a Devil. As always, the first draft was terrible and I asked myself what I was thinking, but after several edits I got the book to the point where I can enjoy the story. Now I am considering my next project. As I look at some of the ideas that pop into my head, I keep wondering if they will make a good story.

I think the key to my next project will be to develop a story for which I love the concept. If I love the concept, after some hard work, I will then be able to produce a manuscript that I love. That doesn't mean that the first draft won't be terrible, but if I love the concept then I can mold the final story into something I love.

A good story has to be molded before it is written. The problems have to be defined. The characters have to be created. There are many things to determine. Once they begin to look like a story I would enjoy, then it is time to begin to write.

Comments

Avily Jerome said…
Hey there!
Great advice!

They say there's nothing new under the sun, so probably no matter what you write, somebody out there has something similar.

It's important to really care and be invested in your writing.

For me, I don't always know where I'm going or what the obstacles are going to be when I start. I have an idea, and a general direction, but inevitably, something comes up or changes.

Once in awhile, I'll start writing and come up with something I love so much that I'm tempted to rewrite the entire plot, just to make it work out a certain way.

Or, I'll kill somebody off because my love for them is getting in the way of where the story is supposed to go. :)
October 31, 2008 at 3:14 AM
Timothy Fish said…
Avily,
Killing a character off because I liked him too much isn't something I've considered. Interesting. I subscribe to the notion that when in doubt kill the character and see how he takes it. In my most recent book I "killed" the protagonist by having his wife leave while he is planning to celebrate their anniversary. For that character, he would have rather died.
October 31, 2008 at 7:22 AM
Avily Jerome said…
Yes, but then he's still alive and if I understand the premise of that book, the entire point is him overcoming that. His epic struggle is because he's alive, not dead.

In one of my stories, after I kill one character, the MC has to survive that grief, which sends her into a very self-destructive cycle for awhile.

In another, the person I'm going to kill (haven't actually gotten there yet :) actually gives the MC the strength to face her own issues because of his death.

That's the one, though, that I almost changed the entire plot for, so killing him is going to be really hard, but I think it will make the story better.
October 31, 2008 at 11:49 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: WestBow Press

Image
T oday, I’m writing a book review unlike any I have written before. Actually, I’m going to I’m reviewing two books and I haven’t read either one. As you may recall, some time ago, Thomas Nelson announced that they were entering the vanity press market, using the imprint WestBow Press. The first books out of that arrangement are making their way down the pipeline, two of which you can see here. The first thing I noticed when they arrived was the size of the box. I arrived home and saw the box sitting on my front step. My first thought was that they had only shipped on of them. The box is the same sized box Amazon.com uses to ship individual copies of my novels. I opened it up and found both novels stacked neatly, one on top of the other. Both books have the dimensions 6” x 9”, a fairly standard size for non-traditionally published books. Publishing a book with that dimension simplifies the process when a book will be published both as a paperback and a hardback. One of the books is p...
Read more

Review: Raider Publishing

Image
A few weeks ago, I received a request from someone who had come across the popular Review: Westbow Press post. This reader requested that I look at Raider Publishing . After asking this reader a few questions via e-mail, I learned that she had used them to publish a book and was disgruntled with them. One of her complaints was that Adam Salviani was not responding to her e-mail and he was “unavailable” when she called his office in New York. This was brought on by her concern because she had not received an advance copy of her book and found that it had been published without her being informed. In her e-mail, she stated that she had been in contact with other customers and they had received the same treatment. I did what I normally do when I receive a request like this concerning a company I don’t recognize. I looked for as much third-party information as I could find on the web. Interestingly, I did that search before I realized she was disgruntled and I found relatively little to...
Read more

Is Tate Publishing a Scam?

Image
T oday, I want to take one more look at Tate Publishing and Enterprises LLC. In case you missed Tuesday’s post, Tate Publishing is a subsidy press that focuses on unpublished authors. They charge a $3,990 publicist setup fee, but they do appear to have sufficient staff to justify their claim that they have allocated $27,000 for each book. Today, I want to look less at promises and more at results. In the interest of showing rather than telling, take a look at the video below: One of the services that Tate Publishing provides is that they create fifteen second spots like the one above and run them on cable networks. They promise 80,000 impressions. Or to state it another way, they promise that 80,000 people will see that commercial. Someone from Tate Publishing is welcome to correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe they charge an additional fee for these commercials. The way I would expect this to play out is that each commercial will air one time with about 80,000 people watching. T...
Read more