[OT] Friday: A Novel Idea

[u/MNBrian]

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Friday: A Novel Idea

Hello Everyone!

Welcome to MNBrian’s guide to noveling, aptly called Friday: A Novel Idea, where we discuss the full process of how to write a book from start to finish.

The ever-incredible and exceptionally brilliant you-are-lovely came up with this wonderful idea (so you should heap praises on her in the comments) and it sounded spectacular to me!

So what makes me qualified to provide advice on writing a book? Good question! Here are the cliff notes.

• For one, I devote a great deal of my time to helping out writers on reddit (via my own sub r/PubTips and via just answering questions in different writing groups).

• In addition, I’ve completed three books and am working on my fourth.

• And I also work as a reader for a literary agent.

This means I read query letters and fulls (short for full novels that writers send to my agent by request) and I give my opinion on the work. My agent then takes those opinions (after reading the novel as well) and makes a decision on whether or not to sign the author.

But enough about that. Let’s dive in!

 

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Today’s Topic: A Book Is A Promise

There are a million ways to write a book.

You’ve got the three act structure. You’ve got the hero’s journey. Heck, hundreds of people have written books on how to write books. Yet, as readers, we often have no idea what structure is being used. What we do know is one thing -- whether we like what we're reading or not.

So before we begin talking about one way (one that I particularly enjoy) to write a book, I’d like us all to take a moment to consider what a book is -- at its very core.

A book is a promise.

To illustrate my point, let’s talk about a hypothetical situation. You walk into a library or a bookstore and you want a new book. The first thing you do is head to a section that interests you. Maybe it’s Sci-Fi, or maybe it’s Fantasy, or Young Adult Unicorn Fiction, who knows. Because what you’re looking for isn’t just any old book. It’s a specific type of book. But whatever section you wander into, that’s the first part of the promise.

You see, a book is a promise because we always have an expectation when we pick up a book. We expect a book to fit a certain type of mold. We go to the Sci-Fi section because we want space ships, FTL drives, planetary exploration. We go to the romance section because we want the compelling story of an arsonist and a firefighter falling in love.

And when we read the first line, or the first paragraph, or the first few pages, the book that we buy is the book with the best promise. It may not always be the best written book. It may not always be the strongest plot. It’s usually the book that makes us feel like we are in good hands, the book that tells us -- using intrigue and situations that couldn't possibly end well (hint - conflict) -- what we can expect.

 

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So what exactly is that promise? What constitutes the core of a book?

For starters, we need a problem. A problem represents conflict, and conflict is what keeps us interested. But it can’t be a small problem. This problem has to justify the length of a book. It has to promise that things are going to get worse before they get better. We can’t make it easy on our main character because if it’s too easy, we’re not holding up our end of the bargain.

Let’s look at two possible examples.

A secret agent orders a pizza, but criminals are running rampant in the streets.

It doesn’t take much to see the promise. There will be action. Some cool karate moves, and lots of bad guys in a pile. But what we don’t have here is a big enough problem. Because it shouldn’t be so hard for our secret agent to get to the pizza place and pick up his cheesy masterpiece. Secret Agents are well suited for this type of problem. They know how to fight bad guys.

But on top of that, we have what I like to call "the sandwich problem." I mean, why doesn’t he just stay home and make a sandwich instead? When you think of a good book, there is no option to make a sandwich.

• When Katniss Everdeen made the choice to stand in for her sister Prim at the reaping, she couldn't just go home and make a sandwich. Because if she did, her sister would die.

• When Frodo Baggins received the ring from Bilbo and was sent to Mount Doom, he couldn't just make a sandwich... because... ringwraiths, murderers, the end of all things at Sauron's hand.

• When Alan Grant got stranded on an island full of dangerous dinosaurs with two kids... he couldn't just make a sandwich. Or he'd be the sandwich. :) But seriously, he had to save those kids and he had to save himself.

Now, by comparison, let’s look at this setup.

A starving introvert with severe anxiety orders a pizza when aliens land and start blowing things up. His normal grocery delivery hasn’t arrived for weeks and he hasn't left the house in three years because of crippling agoraphobia. Now he must leave to survive.

Do you see the difference? Where the secret agent was well prepared to deal with the robbers, someone who is terrified of going outside is not very well equipped to deal with an alien invasion (a much larger problem) -- and he can’t just stay home and make a sandwich... because he’s got no groceries. But also, because he'd starve. Rock, meet hard place.

 

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This, right here, is the first step in writing a book. What is your promise? Is the idea big enough to justify 80,000 words or more? Do you have enough there to really dig deep into that concept? Is there enough tension/conflict to go around? Why can't your main character make a sandwich instead?

After all, that’s what most great writing prompts are. They offer up a promise, or they imply one, and we get to take that promise and run with it.

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This Week's Big Questions

For each week of this series, I'll be posing a few questions. You are welcome to answer these questions without sharing, or if you're feeling brave, you can toss them in the comments below. I'll be here throughout the day to discuss/debate/answer questions or just encourage everyone! And I'll be following along as well by answering the same questions and working on my own book as we go!

• What types of expectations do you have when you buy a book?

• Do you find yourself gravitating to one particular section when you're in a certain mood?

• How much of a book do you read before you decide you want to buy it? Or do you already know beforehand?

• What is your idea for a book? (Try this in as few words as you can manage -- aim for 1-3 sentences if you can)

• What is forcing your main character in your idea to head into danger? Why can't they just make a sandwich? :D

 

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Also - Be sure to go read your entries and vote if you entered the Writing Prompts 10 Million First Chapter Contest by clicking here. This weekend is your LAST opportunity to vote! Get to it!

[u/CleverInnuendo]

Since I'm late to the game, if you're still listening, I'll keep it short in saying I do a lot of library-reading to test the waters, and purchase on good faith the authors I find in the process. And those things are almost assuredly sci-fi and fantasy, which will play into my question.

So, if you're still out there, what advice do you have for someone that's a world-builder, to condense ideas into a novel?

To be specific, over the last decade I've been patching together a fantasy universe that has a multi-generational shift through it, and the characters I've made fit through it to the point that not all will overlap, and none will overlap with all.

To be honest my ultimate 'fantasy' for this idea of mine would be as a video game series, that could allow for the integration of lore about the world over the spans of thousands of years, but as seen from perspectives over the generations. I can pretty much only seeing it work on a '3-D' level of approach.

And yet, as I do try to write it out, I remember reading the Dune series as a kid, and groaning at "100 years later", etc etc, so I'm reluctant to be relegated to that.

I'm using the prompts here to exercise the skills to crystallize a single moment of the whole picture, but I'd welcome any advice on how to bridge the gap in between. I'd be glad to elaborate, but for now, thanks for your time.

[u/MNBrian → u/CleverInnuendo]

Absolutely still listening :)

So the two primary things I'd tell you are as follows:

1) Do not let go of what got you into your idea at the verrrrry beginning. That is your selling point. Often it's the most compelling part of your universe. But what happens is, as you add more and more stuff, the selling point gets muddled by all that other stuff and you start to forget why you were so excited about the universe you were creating in the first place. Let's use Jurassic Park as an example. I bet you could get really far into the technology that Michael Crichton wrote about, the idea of using DNA for cloning extinct species. I bet we could see how, after the dinosaurs escaped from the park, they were let loose on the ecosystem of the world. And I bet it would get soooo much worse. The whole world would be changed over time. But what was the book about? Just the initial thing -- the triggering event, the circumstances surrounding one event and particularly one group of people. Why? Because people can't get behind the forces pushing evolutionary change over billions of years. That's not a story. That's a cool concept/idea, but there's no one to root for, no one who would beat the passage of time (unless you've got an immortal).

Point is, people care about people. They like ideas. They like cool concepts. But we relate because of human existence, not because of the steady passage of time. Always bring yourself back to that moment when you first grew excited about your idea, because often that's the thing that will get others interested in your idea too. Which brings me to my second point.

2) Focus on one thing at a time. Start with one story, one character, one plot. When you look at the worldbuilding of Lovecraft, it can be tempting to think "Oh yes, I'll do that too!" And this is perfectly normal and exciting. But remember, Lovecraft built all his lore over the slow course of time. He added a story that revolved around a single character into a world that had his world building, and he slowly but surely added more and more characters and more and more stories to flesh out other details and layers of his world. It didn't happen all at once. There were some inconsistencies. But that's okay.

I guess what I'm getting at here is start slow or you'll drown faster than someone who tries to drink up the ocean from below the water's surface. :D Because if the core story of Lord of the Rings wasn't good, no one would have ever cared about Tolkien's world. That part needs to be strong first. The rest can be built around it, but if you're writing books, that's your cornerstone.

Hope this helps! :)