Novel Writing on Edge - Nuance, Bewares, Results
Platitudes, entitled amateurism, popular delusions, and erroneous information are all conspicuously absent. From concept to query, our best craft archives.
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A snapshot below from the Algonkian Writer Conference Competitive Fiction Guide on the subject of learning the craft of narrative enhancement from a variety of successful authors. This example features Nabokov. Nabokov’s narrative in Lolita pushes forward largely due to his gift for discerning meaning and detail in everyday life (which is necessary since Humbert H. is a hard character to cheer on) and reporting it with the flair of a phenomenal writer. Basically, however, you can break Nabokov’s categories into observations, ruminations, and fantasy. Here we see examples as Humbert wanders a department story looking to buy underwear for Lolita: Narrator observes…
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The Ruminations of Gail Godwin Gail Godwin excels at observing and ruminating on the human condition. Much of the power of her narrative depends on her ability to create interesting characters whom she then dissects. The following excerpts are from her novel, Evensong, the story of Margaret Bonner, the pastor of a church in a small town, and how she interprets and reacts to the characters in her life. "Would Gus and Charles, as involved in their building and doctoring as Adrian and I were in our school mastering and pastoring, be able to live up to the words better than we were doing? I hoped so. I hoped so for their sakes. I sketched a Celtic cross…
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So what's your edge? I just finished reading two very mediocre books, both very atmospheric, but without much story because the story was buried somewhere in that atmosphere (and, in one case, lyricism, as one book was written by a poet and she was so in love with her writing she didn't realize there wasn't actually a story). I'm not going to tell you what either book is because one is a Pulitzer Prize winning 'classic' and I don't feel like debating its merits. The other was represented by an agent I'm going to send my current novel to, so a little self-preservation is called for! While dragging myself to the final chapters of these books, I realized that…
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Ken Atchity has made hundreds of film and television deals for storytellers wanting their books to be films–including movies, series, and reality shows–since he began producing in 1987 after retiring from his tenured professorship at Occidental College. Also, as literary manager his authors have logged nearly twenty New York Times bestsellers. His own most recent novels are The Messiah Matrix and Brae Mackenzie. Dr. Atchity is also the creator of the free on-demand webinar presentation “Sell Your Story to Hollywoodâ€� for aspiring storytellers available at realfasthollywooddeal.com. Common Problems in Novel-To-Film Adaptation “There’s no third act…it ju…
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If you're working on a commercial fiction or narrative non-fiction manuscript, you will benefit if you view your project as possessing three layers of increasing complexity: Layer I: Overall story premise and plot. These involve top level decisions regarding major characters, the overall setting, plot line evolution, dramatic complications, theme, reversals, and other, as defined in the Six Act Two-Goal Novel guide (see below). Layer II: The actual scenes in the story, as well as the nature of the inter-scene narrative. Consider your story generally composed of units of scene, each scene performing specific tasks in the novel, always moving the plot line(s) for…
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DO NOT ALLOW "TO BE" VERBS TO DOMINATE YOUR NARRATIVE Overuse of "was" and "were": an all too common feature of many young manuscripts. Yes, Janet Evanovich might use them a lot, or another author like Orson Scott Card, sure, but why do you wish to copy them? You're not Evanovich or Card, so the odds you can get away with instances of passive writing are much slimmer. Besides, why not write prose narrative that possesses more verve due to the liberal application of stronger verbs and more interesting sentence structure? Even Janet could benefit now and then! Let's make a comparison. And keep an eye on "had" and "have" also:"Her love for the Kensai had driven her mad…
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The Golden Years of The Literary Review In the mid nineties, The Literary Review, edited by Walter Cummins and published on Web del Sol by Michael Neff, held the distinction of being the second traditional literary journal to ever be published on the Internet--the first being Mississippi Review edited by Frederick Bartheleme. Like Barthelme, TLR editor Cummins was a visionary, and unlike most of his contemporaries at the time, quickly saw the value in making the superb and varied international literature of TLR available to the world via the Internet. As you will see below, we are linking here to as many of these TLR golden age issues as we can discover, now all web-a…
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By Christine Stewart Many years ago, I took a workshop called Writing the Ideal Heroine, which was taught by Rebecca Smith, a novelist, a former writer-in-residence at the Jane Austen House Museum (Chawton Cottage), and the great, great, great, great, great niece of Jane Austen. Pretty good credentials in my opinion. There's another tip - if you can find a writing workshop wherever you're going, take it! How cool was it to sit in her garden doing writing exercises? It's harder to write a sympathetic female lead character than a male one, I think. Sorry if that sounds like a double standard, but in my experience as a reader and writer, it's true. Most have certain …
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From the desk of Richard Curtis. If you do something so horrendous as to provoke your agent to declare, "Life is too short," you'd better start looking for someone else to handle your work. It means you have tried his or her patience beyond its limit. You're a walking dead author. We recently described good timing as one of the most important virtues a literary agent can bring to the job. There's another that most good agents possess, and that's patience. If timing is the art of "when to," patience is the art of "when not to." Unfortunately, that often means when not to knock my head against a wall, wring an author's throat, or hop in a taxi, race over to a publisher's …
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Antagonists are quite often the most memorable characters in literature, regardless of genre. Without them many of the best selling novels of all time would simply cease to exist, their supporting beams cut away, the shell of remaining "story" quietly imploding to ignominy and self-publication. Consider the impact on a scene, any scene, as soon as the author moves the chess piece of antagonist onto the page. The mere presence of a Javert from "Les Misérables," Assef from "The Kite Runner," or Nurse Ratched from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," immediately energizes the environment. The narrative and dialogue literally crackle and groan with antagonist. What chance…
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Using the Rowling "Harry Potter" approach, you create a sympathetic underdog and render highly imaginative events with masterful narrative while also introducing more characters who are unique and endearing to the reader. Meanwhile, as mysteries writhe beneath the surface and the reader is absolutely gripped, you introduce the trope (e.g., a roving killer troll) in a circumstance that can't help but create immediate concern. Which tropes must you employ in fantasy fiction vs. those you must reconsider, and perhaps discard or alter? What techniques might an unknown writer use to avoid overdone-to-a-char tropes and create a competitive fantasy fiction novel that trumps t…
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Senior editor Charlene Castor of Algonkian Author Connect interviews Michael Neff, the CEO and Chief Production Editor of Algonkian Writer Conferences. Q: What made you and Algonkian decide to start this novel editing service? NEFF: Manuscripts to Market is a natural outgrowth of our writer events and programs. Writers are always asking for something like this, especially following the New York Write to Pitch. Over the years, I've spent many hours helping alums get published, in one way or another. CC: That makes sense, of course, but seriously, Michael, does the world need another novel editing service? NEFF: Yes and no. The world does not need another common…
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Revision is Emotional “Revision! Whatever that is.” And thus Gotham’s own Arlaina Tibensky kicked off our Fiction Writing Conference a couple of weeks ago, with a panel on strategies for revising. Which was perfect, because by asking, “What even is this?” Arlaina freed the other writers in the room to come back with an unexpected answer. Revision is… emotional. “The first thing is accepting that even though you’ve been working on your book, and you think you’ve finished it, it’s really not your book yet,” said Kate Fagan, sportswriter and author of the novel The Three Lives of Cate Kay. “You’ve got to mourn that.” When she first sends …
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