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Text File | 1994-04-07 | 10KB | 194 lines

                           WHAT MAKES A SALABLE NOVEL?

                                 And Other Tips


     It's always good if we can avoid some of the mistakes that others have
     experienced.  In looking back we sometimes are able to laugh at our
     mistakes.  If we can't laugh at ourselves things must be pretty
     serious.  And the more serious we are, the more difficult it sometimes
     seems to be to reach some of our goals.  One of my mistakes was
     learned after I had written my first fiction novel.

     As mentioned in "Getting Started," the simplest way to improve our
     writing is to start doing it and do a lot of it.  The other ingredient
     seems to be that we need to do a lot of reading and studying of
     manuscripts in order to make intelligent evaluations, look at the
     methods in use and apply some of what we have learned to our own work.

     And that is exactly where I made one of my first mistakes.  In my
     exuberance to produce an exciting novel, I was so busy writing that I
     neglected to do little, if any reading.  After dealing with a few
     literary agents and having them constructively but thoroughly use a
     hatchet on my manuscript, it occurred to me that perhaps some reading
     of my own would be a good idea.

     It's likely that my ego may have been the problem preventing me from
     opening the pages of a best selling novel and seeing what was inside.
     The same ego which didn't want me to see how well someone else had
     done something, was keeping my head in the sand as far as learning the
     ingredients of success.

     It's sometimes not easy for us to observe another's success if we are
     not doing all that well ourself.  The better we are doing the easier
     the observing becomes, but we do have to start somewhere.


                              The Workable Formula

     After I had put my liability of an ego aside, I read a few books and
     dealt a little more with helpful agents.  Then I realized that I had
     learned something.  What I learned is that there is a formula used in
     nearly all fiction, which follows pretty much the same structure in
     putting together a good story.  One of the literary agents spelled it
     out for me.

     This formula for putting together a good story always starts with a
     lead character with whom people can identify or with whom they want to
     identify.

     There is always a serious and urgent problem at the beginning of the
     story for the lead character.  The problem becomes a major problem and
     more complicated.  It gets worse and worse as the story continues,
     with the lead character finding it more and more difficult to solve
     the problem.

     As the problem gets worse and worse the story eventually arrives at a
     crisis point, where things are just about as bad as they can get for
     our lead character.

     During the crisis point of the story the lead character comes to the
     solution to the seemingly unsolvable problem.  It has to be a solution
     wherein the lead character finds it on his own and solves the problem
     by himself, without the aid of some form of coincidence making it
     happen for him.

     And as you may have surmised, the above formula is not just for
     fiction novels.  It is used in short fiction stories as well.  You may
     have already noticed that it is also used in non-fiction writing.  The
     interesting fact exists that we all seem to like problems to one
     degree or another.  It apparently presents a challenge for us in
     solving them in real life as well as in a novel.  And when it comes to
     reading about a subject, many of us want to read about a problem which
     is much worse than the actual problems which we face in our own lives.

     If this idea of examining problems of a greater magnitude sounds
     interesting to you, you might be interested in reading a book written
     by myself, entitled "Fine-Tuning Your Life."  It examines problems of
     greater intensity or magnitude in this manner and contains practical
     exercises you can use which have a great deal of therapeutic value in
     their effects.  Fine-Tuning Your Life is available by selecting "To
     Place An Order" from the Table Of Contents.


                                 Another Lesson

                            Don't Go Over Their Heads

     Prior to learning the above I had done a short story or two and had an
     important point made to me by a friend.  My friend explained that I
     was long-winded in my stories and was writing over the reading level
     of most readers.

     I was surprised with his advice and later found he was right.  I had
     been writing with very long sentences and paragraphs.  As it turned
     out, when using a computerized grammar checker, I also discovered I
     had been writing at second year college level with the preferred level
     for most readers being between 6th and 10th grade.

     It also surprised me to find what the preferred grade level for most
     readers was.  I was also surprised to find that fifteen percent of the
     people in this country are functionally illiterate, in other words
     they either can't read or don't understand what they read.

     Writing for a 6th to 10th grade level reader may be boring for higher
     grade level readers, but at least all will be able to understand what
     you are saying.


                         Who Should I Allow To Read It?

     This is a lesson which is difficult for some of us to learn, myself
     having been no exception.  Particularly as beginners, when we do
     something and we are excited about it, in our enthusiasm it is easy to
     want to share it with our friends and acquaintances.

     Unfortunately, unless our friends and acquaintances happen to be the
     Editor In-Chief of Double Day publishing Company or a good literary
     agent, showing what we have written to some of our friends can be not
     only not much help to us, but sometimes disastrous as well.

     In some cases, it might be a very good idea to keep our writings
     completely out of the reach of those unprofessional friends of ours,
     should we want to keep them as friends, particularly if there is even
     the most remote chance that what we have written is at all good.

     That may seem surprising to you.  If it does it may be because you
     have not shown something you have written to many of your friends.  If
     you have done so and got a favorable and kind response, you have a
     good friend indeed.

     My own experiences with this, for the most part, have been at times
     considerably shocking, and included outright vicious verbal and
     written attacks from someone I had previously considered to be a
     friend.  With half a dozen friends to whom I have shown some of my
     writing, only two had any type of favorable comments or constructive
     criticism.

     To be more specific, this same person who was the most vicious
     happened to be a writer himself.  He had been working on a novel for
     many years and had experienced some success at having some of his non-
     fiction articles published in particular art magazines.

     I wasn't so bold as to actually show him a completed novel, but I did
     give him a few of my short stories to read.  About a week later he
     handed the stories back to me with a smoking two-page tirade,
     concerning what a no-good malcontent of a writer I was, and how I was
     a complete imbecile, since I had been stupid enough to have sent a
     manuscript to a literary agent with a reading fee enclosed.  He also
     mentioned in his two-page verbal assassination that he could have read
     my manuscript and not have charged me a fee.

     I had been no stranger to criticism, but it was easy to see that his
     unending vicious critique was probably the worst hate letter I would
     ever get.  The only other problem I could see, was that if I had taken
     his belated advice and let him read my novel for free, it most likely
     would have been a case of this person somehow quickly finding an ice-
     pick and attempting to use it on my face.

     If you really want to find out what potential some of your friends
     have for becoming completely out of control psychopaths, let them read
     some of your best or worst stuff.  I have since found it much more
     socially redeeming to send my stuff to an agent.

     Although I have gotten a small amount of help and advice from friends,
     I'm much more willing to pay for good advice, rather than take a
     chance on having a wanabe literary critic turned axe murderer stock me
     for the remainder of my days.

     Show it to your friends if you want to, but remember that unless they
     are a professional, you may be sticking your neck out.


                                  Other Avenues

     Now that you have seen some of the more important ingredients which
     make a story salable, you will probably be interested to know that it
     doesn't have to be an entire eight-hundred thousand word novel, or
     even a one-hundred thousand word novel.  The short stories are a good
     place to start as well.  As with novels, the short story market is not
     an easy one to break into, but if you do it, a two or three thousand
     word story can get you a check for two or three thousand dollars,
     about a dollar per word or more.

     There is a continual need as well for non-fiction magazine articles
     concerning just about any subject you could imagine.  Whatever it is
     you decide to write or improve upon, my very best wishes and good luck
     to you!


                              --- End Of Novel ---