Timothy's Thoughts

E ditor’s Note: It’s always a good thing to keep your protagonist s happy, so I invited all three of the protagonists from the books I have in print to have dinner with me. During the meal, they consented to answer a few questions. Timothy Fish: Each of you have had the experience of being the protagonist in one of my novels, tell us something about your experience. Neal: Maybe one of the others should answer first. I fell like the odd guy out. I thought you’d made a mistake when you sent me that e-mail inviting me down here because I was one of your protagonists. I figured you meant to send it to Brother Wayne. Sara: I don’t know how to answer either. I was twelve at the time and I don’t think I even knew what a protagonist was. If someone hadn’t told me that I was in that book, I wouldn’t have thought anything about it. Geoff: Yeah, it’s not like we realized we were protagonists at the time. I’ve read what you’ve written and I’ll have to say that you wrote it just like it happene...

O kay, here’s the thing. If you blog, having a guest blogger is a good thing for a number of reasons. It gives you a break. It attracts readers from the other person’s blog. It gives the appearance of an endorsement of your blog. It helps you develop a friendship with your guests. With so many reasons why we would want to have guest bloggers, you might find it odd that I don’t like guest bloggers. That may be too strong of a statement. It isn’t like I’m going to go short-sheet their beds or something, but I’m not a big fan of guest blogging, in general. I see a number of problems with guest blogging. The first has to do with my personal experience with guest bloggers on other blogs. I follow a number of blogs and some of them have guest bloggers. When I see that a guest blogger has written the post, I tend to ignore or skim the post, even when the guest blogger has a blog that I follow. On top of that, guest posts tend to be longer than they really need to be. It’s as if the guest blog...

N ovember is National Novel Writing Month . It's also, National Buy Timothy Fish's Books Month , but that gets far less attention than NaNoWriMo . As you can see, November is upon us, which means that thousands of authors will be trying to generate a novel before the end of the month. This will be the tenth year for NaNoWriMo. I will not be participating. That doesn’t mean I think you shouldn’t. Many people have “write a novel” written somewhere on their bucket list. If NaNoWriMo lets you cross that one off, go for it. One of the things people who've never completed a novel ask is how authors do it. As someone who has completed several books, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Don’t tell anyone, but it’s not as hard as it looks . A lot of people resort to tricks and many of them are just that. Some people force themselves to write a minimum number of words per day. Want to write a book in a year? Write 220 words per day and by this time next year you’ll have an 80,...

F iction is different from non-fiction. A non-fiction book that can provide an answer to solve a problem faced by readers will practically sell itself. Take the For Dummies books for example. While they may not be the books of choice for a college textbook, they’re designed to provide answers about how to do very specific things. The topic each book covers is on the front and many people who need answers related to that topic purchase the book. What makes fiction different is that most readers aren’t looking for the book. Imagine that, with non-fiction, the reader is wondering around confused, looking for some solution. When we stick a book out there and wave a flag to say, “the solution’s over here.” The reader then makes a beeline for the book. Compare that to the fiction reader, who isn’t confused. He’s just looking for a good story, but rather than one flag waving author to serve as a beacon of hope, there are thousands. All else being equal, the reader need only pick up the fi...

L iterary agent Terry Burns talks about learning from movies , saying that, once a writer is “done” with a book, he should go back and work on pacing and flow, much like a director goes to the cutting room and weaves together a movie from the various scenes he’s shot. That analogy breaks down at some point, but Terry is right; many manuscripts would be helped if the author would take the time to do that. In my way of thinking, what Terry is describing is what I call the second draft . For me, the first draft is just getting something down on paper; we want to get to that 50,000 to 100,000 words as quickly as possible. The third draft is primarily about detailed sentence structure. The fourth draft is about correcting mistakes in spelling, punctuation, word usage, etc. The fifth draft is optional and may not be performed by the author, but it is the typesetting draft that will go to the printer. That leaves the second draft , which I see as the draft in which we add and remove large...

E ditor’s Note: I don’t often get to talk to famous people, but just the other day, I was able to sit down with award winning actor Davis Shoat. What you might not know about Davis is that when he was in college, Ellen’s café was a regular hangout for him. Of course, her grandparents were still running it back then. That wasn’t where I talked to him. Instead, I managed to grab a little of his time between takes on his latest movie. It’ll be another blockbuster, I’m sure. Timothy Fish: Mr. Shoat, thanks for agreeing to talk to me. Davis Shoat: Call me Davis; all my enemies do. Timothy Fish: Thanks, I’ll do that. Davis Shoat: That was supposed to be funny. Timothy Fish: I’m sure I’ll laugh later, but they said you don’t have much time—five minutes, I think. Davis Shoat: I’m sure we’ve got more than that. The director just says things like that so the actors won’t wander off. They don’t like tracking everybody down when their ready to start shooting again. Timothy Fish: I’ll try not to t...

W hy do we tell stories? In the old days, people used stories to pass knowledge from one generation to the next. Some of these stories were true; some were not. People would sit down and listen as the old-timers would spin their yarns. The younger generations would remember these stories and they would repeat them to their children and grandchildren. We tell stories because we remember stories. We don’t have as many storytellers these days. Instead of telling our stories, we write them in a book, hoping that someone will read it. When they do, they remember our stories. But the question we must ask ourselves is whether our stories are worth remembering. Often, we tell stories for entertainment value alone. That’s okay, but where is the true value if there isn’t something to learn form the story. A story is a powerful tool for relaying information and assisting with memory. At the end of the day, if a story doesn’t do that then it is wasted. The theme is very important in a story. I do...

F or whom do we write? Some people will say that we write for God. I don’t want to disagree with that, since everything we do should be for him, but that in itself helps us little in determining how we should write. There is nothing we can write that God doesn’t understand and there is nothing we can write that can approach his ability. Others will say that we write for ourselves. We are not to write for others, they say, for it will cause us to change what we say to please them and we will be unable to please everyone. The solution, it would seem, is to write for ourselves, to stay true to what we believe we should write. If others like it, great, but if not, then that is too bad. While we should remain true to who we are as writers, we should never lose sight of the ultimate goal. We are trying to communicate truth to the reader. Imagine that you aren’t writing for some faceless person who happens to have picked up your book in a bookstore or has ordered it from Amazon.com. Instead, ...

Y esterday, we looked at picking a protagonist and my claim was that the protagonist should be the character whose story it is, the character changed the most by the story. We must either choose that protagonist or change the story to fit the protagonist. I mentioned the problem that must be solved. Whether we are changing the story or selecting the protagonist for the story, we must consider the problem that must be solved. It is that problem that drives the change that occurs and thus the selection of a protagonist. Usually, the problem is several problems and if we were to look at only the beginning and ending of a story, we would see a character with a problem at the beginning and a character that has solved the problem through change at the end. But not just any problem will do and that’s why we make mistakes in choosing a protagonist. All characters face problems, but if the problem a character faces at the beginning of a story isn’t basic enough, then our protagonist will never ...

W hose story is it anyway? One of the easiest mistakes a writer can make is to pick the wrong protagonist and it is also one of the hardest to correct. After several chapters of following the exploits of one character, we discover that he isn’t as interesting as we thought he would be. There is little choice but to rewrite major sections of the manuscript . Or it could be that we have a protagonist forced upon us because the story appears in a series. How we came to make the mistake is immaterial, but one way to avoid this mistake is to ask whose story it is. Consider the Cinderella story. Whose story is it? It could have been that of the prince in search of a bride or it could have been the story of the the fairy, helping her goddaughter. It could have been the story of the step-mother, but it isn’t. This is Cinderella’s story. Or consider the story of the twelve dancing princesses. There are plenty of characters we could have followed, but we follow the soldier who must d...

E ditor’s Note: Several days ago, Rachelle Gardner tweeted that she’s looking for complete manuscripts suitable for Christian fiction having a female P.I. I don’t have one and by the time I could create one, I’m sure she will have moved on to something else, but I couldn’t help but wonder what my version of such a story might look like. For today’s post, here are the first three pages. It wasn’t a big storm—some dark clouds, a little rain and one lightning strike. That one lightning bolt killed my father. He was sitting in his office, working at the computer, when it happened. That left me to clean up the mess. I asked my mother to help, but she washed her hands of my father after the divorce. I never understood why. Mom raised me. Dad raised my brother. The girl with Mom and the boy with Dad, I suppose, but it should have been the other way. I wanted to be like Dad and my brother—well, I don’t even know what happened to my bother. He got married and moved off somewhere. He’ll show ...

It began upon the following occasion: It is allowed on all hands, that the primitive way of breaking eggs, before we eat them, was upon the larger end; but his present Majesty’s grandfather, while he was a boy, going to eat an egg and breaking it according to the ancient practice, happened to cut one of his fingers. Whereupon the Emperor, his father, published an edict, commanding all his subjects, upon great penalties, to break the smaller end of their eggs. - from Gulliver’s Travels , Jonathan Swift M uch like the dispute between the Lilliputians and the Blefuscuians there is a religious dispute among novel enthusiasts. Over in reader land, we find people who believe a good story is the most important thing. Over in agent land, we find people who believe writing is the most important thing. In reader land, people pick up a book, read the back cover and if the story looks interesting they buy the book. In agent land, people read the first few paragraphs and if the writing holds thei...

A s I’m sure you’ve heard, Thomas Nelson has launched a subsidy publisher , WestBow Press. I don’t have enough information to do a complete analysis of this new kid on the block and compare it to the subsidy publishers that came before it. WestBow Press is similar to other companies that sit between true self-publishing companies like Lightning Source and BookSurge and traditional publishers. The way these companies work it that the author provides some amount of money and the company provides workers and services. The author takes on all or most of the risk in publishing the book, or the publisher charges high prices for the book so that the profits on the few successful books will make up for the losses on the rest. There is a broad spectrum across which subsidy publishers are distributed when we consider every company between BookSurge and PublishAmerica. Some place more risk on the author, some less. I don’t have enough information to know where WestBow Press fits on this spectrum....

G enre’s are a big problem, in my opinion. For authors, there’s the problem of determining which genre their work fits in, but that isn’t the problem I’m talking about. Genre’s are supposed to make it easier for readers to find the kind of books they enjoy. It’s a noble goal, but as I glanced at a book review posted on a blog the other day I saw the words “World War II fiction.” My eyes glazed over and I clicked away, thinking that I wasn’t interested, but as I did I realized that I didn’t know if I would enjoy the book or not. Mention World War II and I get images of slaughtered Jews, green shirted soldiers and Sherman tanks in my head. I see fiery red explosions in a night sky, thanks to the movies I’m sure. I see red armbands with swastikas. And at the moment, I’m not looking to read about that stuff. The same is true of Westerns. I see cowboys on horses. I see bandits holding up a stagecoach. I’m not sure that I want to read about that either. But here’s the thing. I’ve enjoyed som...

Y esterday, I showed you an “outline” that I did in FreeMind. It showed beginning, middle and end, each dividing into chapters which were in turn divided into beginning, middle and end. Let me be clear, that isn’t they way I outline. Yes, every book should have a beginning, middle and end and an episodic chapter should too, but I find those terms don’t help much when outlining. Usually, when I outline in FreeMind, I use a variation on the late Blake Snyder’s outline, which is influenced by the work of Syd Field. Yeah, I know they are both screenwriting gurus, but a story is a story. My take on this outline is shown below: Being a screenwriter, Blake Snyder was big on the storyboard. I don’t work with a storyboard the way he suggested. I tried, but over time, my practice had gotten to the point that I use FreeMind for that purpose, making it “the board.” When I sit down to outline a story, I open up FreeMind and I begin plugging stuff in. I don’t work in a sequential fashion. I may no...

I ’ve talked before about the theory of a book . One of the things that fall into the category of the theory is how we handle chapters. I’ve read some novels that have a chapter break about every two pages. I’ve read some novels that break about every seven to ten pages or more. I’ve read novels where they are all the same size and others where it varies greatly. I’ve even read one novel that had no chapters, but was broken into three parts, each of which was long enough to have been a book in its own right. There’s no right or wrong way to do chapter breaks, though I would prefer not to read another book that has no chapter breaks. But instead of looking at where to insert a chapter break, let’s consider the structure of the chapter. Here again, there is no right or wrong answer. Some books are written as letters between two people. Others are entirely flashback. Many are written as if we are currently in the action. We do what works for the story, but one theory for the structure of...

E ditor’s Note: This week I’m interviewing a another character who doesn’t exist yet. In this character may never see the light of day. She is the protagonist in a story that I’ve tentatively titled Timothy Fish’s Science Fiction Christian Historical Romance Novel , for obvious reasons. We’ll call her Ann for now, but that may change. I sat down with Ann at Ellen’s Café and this is what we talked about. Timothy Fish: Okay, Ann, while we’re waiting for our order, tell us about what you’ve been doing to get published. Ann: Just what I’ve been doing recently or… Timothy Fish: No, let’s go back to before. Tell us about the family business. Ann: Oh, you mean that most of the family works in the publishing industry? I can do that. My father was a literary agent before he died and my brother followed in his footsteps. There’s a couple of editors in the family and of course you know Melinda, she’s had several bestselling books. And I’ve got a cousin who’s the president of a major Chr...

F iguring out who the protagonist of a story is seems like an easy task. We know that the protagonist is the lead character in a story. We know that the protagonist isn’t the antagonist (usually). When we think in terms of the 7 Basic Plots (man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. God, etc.), it seems pretty simple. Man is the protagonist and whoever happens to be on the right is the antagonist . With many stories, that is exactly the case, but we find some stories where it isn’t so clearly defined. On another blog, someone mentioned Forrest Gump as an example of a non-proactive protagonist . I’ve read very little of Forrest Gump , but I know enough about it to know that Forrest stumbles into one thing after the other. I also know that while it is told from his point of view and follows his life, it is actually a satire about the stupidity of other people. Forrest is an observer in this story and others move the plot forward. Another person mentioned having two protagonists . I ass...

S omeone came to this blog the other day looking for the answer to the question Is there a Cinderella story in the Bible? The answer to that is yes and no. It depends on exactly what aspects of the Cinderella story you are referring to. No, you won’t find a maiden with a fairy godmother who transforms her into a princess, but yes, there are some stories that have similarities to the Cinderella story. Consider the life of Joseph. His father loved Joseph, but his step-brothers hated him. They hated him so much that they threw him in a pit and would have killed him had not he older brother suggested they sell him instead. He was taken to Egypt and sold as a slave and eventually ended up in prison. But he had the gift of prophesy and he foretold of a great famine. The king was so convinced by Joseph that he put him in charge of preparing the land for a long period with few crops, making him a rule of the land. Joseph’s brothers came when they needed food and bowed before him. Or consider ...

T ime, there never seems to be enough of it, true, but what if there were no time at all? If you’ve read Christian Science Fiction , you may have noticed a few books that talk about time in heaven, or rather the lack of time in heaven. I’ve also heard some preachers who have latched onto this idea. The best I can tell, this concept is the result of combining Einstein’s theory of relativity with a very literal interpretation of the phrase “there should be time no longer” from Revelation 10:6. As some Christian Sci-Fi authors portray this concept, in heaven, the forth dimension of time-space will no longer exist. We’ll just be floating around in some kind of eternal bliss or something like that. Now, I can’t tell you exactly what heaven is like, but I don’t think the Bible supports this concept. First, in context, Revelation 10:6 is talking about something else. When John penned the words, he wouldn’t have been thinking of Einstein’s theory of relativity. If we consider the passage with...

I t’s a healthy thing to have a few eccentricities—especially for an author. It helps to keep up the illusion that there is something strange and mysterious about this breed of people who would spend weeks writing with no guarantee that anyone will read what they write. A couple of mine deal with signing books. When I sign a book, I don’t put some special message there, such as, “To my dear friend, George.” If you ask me to sign a book, all you’re going to get is my name scrawled across the story title page. But it’s not without reason. One reason is that it helps the resale value. You might think that having a book signed by the author influence people to keep the book in their library, but go down to Half Priced Books, look at the autographed books and see how often someone else’s name appears on the same page as the author’s signature. If people are going to sell their autographed books anyway, we might as well sign it in a way that gives them a higher value. The other thing is that...

E ditor’s Note: In my WIP, some of the characters are trying to put on a play based on a scene from a movie. What the movie is about has nothing to do with the story, so I didn’t bother writing a script for them to use, but I keep wishing I knew what he movie was about. Almost anything would do. Since I started a story here, last week , I thought I might as well us it. Today, I offer you a continuation of that story. The bloodhound sniffed around Shirley’s car. With his nose to the ground, he moved hurriedly across the drive, pulling the sheriff’s deputy along behind and came to the front door. The deputy said something to the dog and the dog turned back. He sniffed around the yard and came to the flowerbed. He sniffed around there and looked confused. The deputy directed him in another direction. Chandra watched all of this from the front window. She went back to the couch and sat down next to her mother. She felt the breeze from the oscillating fan cross her face. The sheriff, Denve...

T his isn't the post I intended for today. I may get to that one yet, but in a similar train of thought to my original post yesterday, I was talking to a co-worker from India yesterday and he was telling me about his struggles with communication. He said that in his language he speaks very precisely. He chooses the word that means exactly what he means, but in English he is force to use simple terms that are less precise, making him feel that he appears dumb. He gave as an example, the word thanks . In English, thanks can be used when speaking to anyone from the lowest bum to God himself. We would use it to show our appreciation for anything from a person holding the elevator for us to giving us a house. Apparently, his language works differently. There are different words they use that may apply to one situation but not another. I don't have all the details and I don't intend to turn this post into a lesson on his language. As I listened to him, myself struggling to under...

T he news of the day is that Amazon.com has settled the lawsuit concerning deleting copies of an illegal copy of "1984" from Kindle. [1] You may recall that my big concern over this issue was the possibility that it would open the door for the courts to prevent bloggers and other electronic content creators from deleting material they place on publicly accessible computers. Had the courts ruled in Justin Gawronski's favor, I still think it would have opened the door for people who link to our websites to sue us if we break the links they have on their websites. This settlement isn't great for authors and content owners, but it's livable. Essentially, if Amazon.com puts your stuff on Kindle and you didn't want it there, they aren't just going to delete it upon your request. Instead, you will have to get a court order. That will likely require a lawyer and some fees, but if your lawyer knows what he is doing, he can probably convince Amazon.com to pay that...

A few years ago, I was talking to this guy at work and I said something like, “It’s not uncommon to…” The guy stopped me and said, “So, you mean it’s common?” Somewhat flustered to have my thought pattern interrupted, I said “Yeah” and tried to continue what I was saying. After considering the conversation, I came to the conclusion that no, I didn’t mean that it’s common. I meant that it wasn’t uncommon. You see the problem here. Not uncommon is a double negative. Your high school English teacher probably marked double negatives with red ink, telling you that you shouldn’t use them because they can cause confusion. But there’s a lot of space between common and uncommon. What if something is near the middle? It isn’t common, but it isn’t really uncommon either. The double negative solves the problem of stating this very succinctly. Consider also the tautology . You’ve heard such phrases as “free gift” or “unsolved mystery.” If we did what we ought, we wouldn’t use redundant terms, ...