How to Begin Writing a Novel

August 2, 2012 — Pat Bertram

A woman left a comment on a writing discussion today saying she decided she wanted to write a novel, then she requested advice on how to begin.

My advice?

Write a word. Any word. That’s all it takes to start writing.

A book begins with a single word. Many novice writers get intimidated by the thought of writing an entire book, but all you ever need to write is one word. I know that’s not much of a goal, but in the end, it is the only goal. That’s how every book all through the ages got written — one word at a time. By stringing single words together, you get sentences, then paragraphs, pages, chapters, an entire book.

So, to begin with, just write. Get a feel for words. Read fiction. Get a feel for how a story flows. Once you are in the habit of writing, read books on how to write. Sometimes it takes a long time for it all to click. I’d written two and a half books, read dozens of books on how to write in addition to the thousands of novels I’d read, before it all clicked. Most of what the how-to-write books said didn’t make sense at first. Rising conflict? Stakes? Showing? Telling? I hadn’t a clue what they meant, but I stuck with it, and became a good writer. I’m not naturally talented, but I discovered that it is possible to learn the craft. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Writing is not always about writing. Sometimes it’s about thinking. Some authors can sit down and let the words flow and lo! There is a story! Other authors write extensive outlines, detailing the entire story before they ever set one word to the page. I don’t do either. I think about what story I want to write and why I want to write it. I figure out who the main characters are, what they want, how they are going to get it, who is going to stop them getting it. I figure out the beginning and the end (because I need to know where to begin and where I am going), and I figure out a couple of scenes in the middle, to give me an idea of how to get there. Then write. I am a very slow writer, but still, being a slow writer, I’ve written five books that have been published.

The best skill to learn after you’ve written your book is how to rewrite. Chances are, you dumped too much information in the first chapter because you assume people need to know everything about your character before they can understand her, so usually the first thing you do in rewriting is dump the first chapter. But to rewrite, you have to have written. So just write. And write what you want. Writing is all about practice. A person who wants to learn how to play the piano doesn’t just sit down at a piano and immediately start playing. You have to learn the basics, have to practice, but still, you can plunk at the keys to get a feel for piano playing. The same thing goes for writing.

All too often, inexperienced writers tiptoe through their novels, letting major events — fistfights, gunplay, murders, betrayals — take place off-page. It’s much easier to let characters emote afterward than for the writer to take the time and trouble to tackle the action scene. I know I have passed on opportunities to create such scenes, thinking the characters’ reactions all-important, but I forgot one thing: readers need to experience the drama.

Sometimes it’s hard to find the confidence to bring such complex scenes to life, to juggle the many elements that comprise an action scene, but the only way to learn is to plunge headfirst into action. Write it fast and fearlessly; let the words fall where they may. You can always clean up the mess in rewrites.

And while you’re at it, don’t forget to study the publishing business. Learn everything you can about good prose, story elements, query letters, promotion. With so many millions of people out there who have written a book or who want to write a book, the competition is fierce. A writer does not attain maturity as a writer until he or she has written 1,000,000 words, or so they say. (I’m only halfway there.) So write. Your next book might be the one that captures people’s imaginations and catapults you into fame and fortune. Not writing another book guarantees you will never will reach that goal. It also keeps you from doing what you were meant to do.

Posted in books, writing. Tags: , , , , , . 11 Comments »

Portraying Grief Correctly

July 31, 2012 — Pat Bertram

So often writers get grief over the loss of a spouse wrong, perhaps because unless you have been there, you cannot know the global effect grief has. There are so many mental, emotional, spiritual, physical, even geographical changes thrown at you that it’s almost impossible to understand what is happening.

Grief that has matured, meaning grief that is no longer new and raw, is easier to portray, but even that is often done wrong, since the characters seem to have no yearnings. And grief is so much about yearnings.

One movie that portrayed long time grief well was The Last Dance with Maureen O’Hara and Eric Stolz. O’Hara teared up when she thought of her husband, she treasured the records she had bought of the songs they had danced to (calling them her “memories”), but most of all, she yearned for one last dance from him. And that yearning made her grief real. We who have lost our mates eventually come to terms with going on alone, but we all have yearnings for one last kiss, one last hug, one last smile, one last word. Such simple things, but being deprived of them underscores our loss.

Another example of grief done right occurred in the old television show Golden Girls, of all places. In that particular episode, Blanche dreams that her husband, dead for nine years, comes home. This is a recurring dream, but instead of bringing her sadness as always, this time the dream brings her peace because in the dream, she got to hug him one last time.

Even though I am doing well two years and four months after the death of my life mate/soul mate, I still yearn for one last smile from him, one last hug, one last visit with him at his store where we met. It seems impossible these yearnings will go unfulfilled for the rest of my life. Like Maureen O’Hara’s character, though, I have my “memories” but in my case they are not shared songs but movies he taped. I’ve been going through his movies, weeding out the ones I will never watch again, and each movie I am keeping makes me remember a conversation we had about the movie, a particular time we watched them, a feeling I once had when he watched the movie with me.

Many of the movies he taped toward the end of his life, like The Last Dance, are about people going on alone after the death of a mate. It almost seems as if he is/was trying to help me find my way through the horror to a new peace. Some of these movies, again like The Last Dance, he edited to take out the parts he didn’t like. So not only do I have movies he taped, I have versions no one else in the entire world has. For example, he edited out all the flashbacks in The Last Dance, so I never see Maureen O’Hara’s young husband. I only know him through her love, her tears, her feelings about the possessions she is getting rid of in preparation for her own death, and in the stories she tells Eric Stolz and his family. This makes for a stronger story, keeping it all in the present, and it makes the relationship between O’Hara and Stolz more compelling.

But more than that, it makes it my story, a story about a woman yearning for one last moment with the man she loved.

Posted in grief, life, writing. Tags: , , , , , . 9 Comments »

Being Where I am Supposed to Be

July 28, 2012 — Pat Bertram

I was happy today. I didn’t feel giddily gleeful, just a quiet peace that came from knowing I was where I was supposed to be.

I’d been walking in the desert, ruminating over my petty concerns. I have no major problems at the moment — I have a place to stay and food to eat, and I feel no great lingering sorrow over the death of my life mate/soul mate — but there are small matters that niggle at me. I seem to have crossed some invisible line where I no longer attract people through my words, but am actually starting to repel them — people have been blocking me on Facebook, and often it’s because of a simple non-combative comment I made in one of my discussion groups. I also wonder how to entice people to read my books, and I still ponder the whole issue of my writing. Although I am coming to an accommodation with continuing to write despite lackluster sales, I still am not comfortable with the idea of being a writer among millions of other writers — never have liked being a face in the crowd.

So there I was, walking, thinking, talking a bit to my deceased mate, when it suddenly dawned on me that at that very moment, I was not a face in the crowd. There was no crowd — just me. I stopped and looked around. A jackrabbit loped by, but other than that, no creature made itself known. I felt the breeze cooling my sweat, heard the air whistling faintly as it passed my ears. I stilled my thoughts and simply stood there in the middle of the desert, deep blue skies above, sun-warmed soil beneath the soles of my shoes, desert knolls surrounding me and blocking any view of the nearby city.

A friend who has endured far worse grief than I have, told me that she is finding peace by telling herself that she is happy. Alone out there in the desert, I decided I was finally ready to take the next step in going on with my life, so I thought, “I am happy.” And I realized that was the truth of it. Right then, I was happy. I had no sense of longing for something or someone, no sense of waiting. My entire life — all the joys and pains, the learning and creating, the loves and losses — had led to that very moment, and I felt as if I had arrived where I was supposed to be. There was no reason for me to be there, nothing to for me to do, no task to accomplish. All I had to do was simply . . . be.

One cannot stand in the middle of the desert forever, so eventually, I continued my walk, still feeling the effects of that moment. There are few perfect moments in life, but that was one of them. (I’m smiling as I write this. Can you tell?)

Posted in being me, culture, life, writing. Tags: , , , , , . 4 Comments »

Is it Better to Write for Yourself or to Write for Readers?

July 27, 2012 — Pat Bertram

For many writers, maybe even most, finding a readership is crucial. They write to entertain, which they cannot do without readers. Or they write to communicate, which they also cannot do without readers. Or they write to sell so they can continue to write, and for that, they need not only readers but customers — readers who are willing to buy books.

The lucky writers are those who write the books they love and the books they love just happen to be the books readers want to read and buy. The rest of us have a conundrum to deal with — do we write the books we need to write, regardless of what readers want, or do we try to write the books we think readers will read?

In discussion after discussion, writers put forth the idea that to get readers, one must write what readers want. And perhaps that is the smart and lucrative way to write, but it’s not the only way.  Besides, if I look at the situation from my point of view as a reader, it seems a cheat. I want a story filtered through the writer’s life/voice, not something the author thinks I would like.

In my case, I have no choice — I can only write the stories that speak to me. Even if I wanted to write solely in the hopes of getting a large readership, I’m not sure I could do it. Readers can tell when they are being pandered to, though there are exceptions to this, most notably a couple of now very wealthy men who write romances for women. For some reason, most women don’t feel the manipulation of those books and so fall in love with the stories, while others, perhaps less interested in the romance genre, hate the feeling of someone trying to tug on their emotions by writing books they think women would like. To a certain extent, all books are manipulation — authors write in such a way to elicit emotional reactions from readers — but sometimes, like with these men, the tugs are quite apparent.

Writers who also read the genre they love know the nuances of the genre (assuming, for example, there are nuances in category romance) and so can more easily write to their readers tastes. But what if you can’t write genre fiction (or, more probably, can’t force yourself to write it)? You end up writing for yourself.

There might not be money to be made by writing for oneself, but there are other advantages. For one thing, you can make your writing as intelligent as you wish without having to worry about losing your audience. For another, there will always be one person who loves your work — you. And there is a third reason, perhaps the most important: We are so much more than we know, and writing is a way of communicating not just with readers, but with the unknown us. If we just write what we know we know, we are the poorer for it. And maybe, just maybe, by writing the book only we can write, we will end up writing something spectacular.

Posted in culture, writing. Tags: , , , , . 8 Comments »

Who Wants to be a Character in a Book?

July 26, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Grief: The Great Yearning is a compilation of blog posts, letters, and essays I wrote while struggling to survive the first year of grief after the death of my life mate/soul mate. We’d been together almost thirty-four years. I thought I was prepared for his dying, but his death shattered me beyond anything I could ever have imagined. The only way I could survive the agony was to write about it. Although Grief: The Great Yearning is non-fiction (obviously), it has all the elements of great fiction — emotion that weeps off the page, a conflicted character who yearns desperately for something, a love that lives on even after death.

Such is the pendulum swing of life that now, one year and four months after the publication of Grief: The Great Yearning, I would no longer make a good character in a book. I have no real wants or desires; no wishes, dreams, or hopes; no great love (no hate, either). I have nothing to avenge, no strong beliefs, no regrets, no guilt, no fears, no anger.

From the beginning, I’ve been bewildered by my lack of change. Shouldn’t such a soul quake cause ripples of change forever after? I didn’t feel any different, but apparently changes were taking place. All the conflicts of my life seem to be in hiatus, as if the slate of me was wiped clean to make ready for the changes that will be coming to my life. Some of the changes will come because of decisions I make, others changes will simply happen as the rest of my life unfolds.

Character change in itself is not enough either to pilot a story or to plot a book. Change in a character is generally the result of other actions, and shows us how the events of the story affect the character. So, basically, a book needs to begin with a compelling character, and I am missing all the elements that makes a character compelling. On the other hand, since I am not a character in a book, I will enjoy this hiatus from conflict and strong emotion. I mean really, who wants to be a character in a book? Life is hard enough without having to deal with all the torments we put our characters through.

Posted in grief, life, relationships, writing. Tags: , , , , . 2 Comments »

Searching for New Loves

July 25, 2012 — Pat Bertram

In the wake of my grief, now that the worst of my pain for my life mate/soul mate has burned itself out, I am left with . . . emptiness.

Most of the things I once cared about are gone. Not just him and our shared life, but completely unrelated matters I once cared about are gone too. I loved reading — it was always the only thing I ever wanted to do — but first the major publishers started the process of killing off my love for reading by producing such mediocre books, and then the indie movement gave my love the fatal blow by outdoing the major publishers in mediocrity. I know there are good book out there, but I no longer have any interest in wading through the muck to find the gems. (To be honest, after reading more than 20,000 books, both non-fiction and fiction of all genres, there isn’t much that is new to me, so I can’t blame the loss of this love totally on the publishing business.)

I’m also losing my love of the language. When people no longer see the beauty of words, when typos and textspeak are the norm, it seems foolish to care. I feel as if I am trying to breathe new life into a creature that is already moribund. Admittedly, language is always changing, and the youth have always been its custodians. Maybe it’s not language that is obsolete but me. I am outdated, outnumbered, and out-of-step.

I will still write, of course, and I will still search for the best word to use to put across my ideas, but I no longer see any reason to rail against the inevitable. There is no reason to pass on what I’ve learned about writing, storytelling and editing because there is no downside for new writers. If they don’t want to hone their craft, they can publish their untutored books on Amazon and the various ebook sites, and make a fortune selling to untutored readers.

My love affair with computers and the internet is also waning. There are only so many cute animal photos one can look at, only so many political commentaries one can read, only so many advertisements one can ignore, only so many inspirational comments one can gag on. Like words, the internet is a tool, so I still log on every day, though not with the glee I once did.

I need something to care about. Too bad I can’t just snap my fingers and voila! There it is, the thing to love. I’ve almost always lived as if each day would be my last, so I followed my enthusiasms. I created the things I wanted to create, learned the things I wanted to learn, opened the businesses I wanted to run. There is no love languishing in the back of my heart, waiting for me to find the time for it.

I can’t go back and redo, relearn, recreate. There is only forward. In many respects, I am a brand new creature let loose on this earth, open to new possibilities and new loves. Maybe someday I will find them. Or maybe they will find me.

Posted in internet, life, writing. Tags: , , , , . 4 Comments »

Becoming a Curmudgeon

July 23, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Are writers as a group less willing to read rules and follow directions than the rest of the populace, or is it that I am mostly connected to writers online who don’t know how to follow directions?

I have a book blog, Dragon My Feet, where I post excerpts from books to help authors with a bit of promotion. I thought it was a good idea, but I’m getting exhausted having to explain over and over again that I cannot post what I do not have. For example, in the instructions for Dragon My Feet, I say:

“Please include a short synopsis (blurb) of the story, short bio, a link where I can find a photo of you and one of your book cover, and whatever links you would like me to add. Post the excerpt along with the rest of the information/links as a comment/reply on this page.”

Despite those clear instuctions. I get bios with no information about the book and no excerpt. I get blurbs without any other information, not even the title. I get excerpts without a title letting me know what book it’s an excerpt from. I get dozens of comments/replies by people who say they can’t figure out how to get their excerpt to me since I didn’t leave an email address.

When I’ve mentioned this lack of communication, I’ve had writers tell me flat out, “I don’t follow directions.” Is this part of the creative process? Make up your own rules and expect the world to follow along? Quite frankly, I don’t care if people follow my instructions or not, but as I said, I cannot post what I do not have.

I’m not the only one with such problems. My publishing company sponsored a short story contest with the winner to be published in an upcoming anthology. Some writers mistook the contest for a call for submissions, though the rules clearly stated it was a contest. Others were upset that their submissions were “published” on the site, though the rules clearly stated the submissions would be posted. (According to the vagaries of the internet, once a story has been posted it’s considered published. It doesn’t make sense to me that just because something was posted for a month and then deleted, it’s considered published for all time, but then, I don’t get to make those particular rules.) There was nothing underhanded about the contest — everything was stated up front — and if people didn’t like the way the contest was run, they didn’t have to submit a story.

Maybe I have it all wrong. Maybe writers can follow directions. Maybe they just can’t read.

(Do I sound curmudgeonly? There is a good reason for that — I’m rapidly turning into a curmudgeon. I no longer have the desire to embrace the absurdities of humanity, and I see no reason why I should, especially if it causes more work for me.)

Posted in culture, internet, relationships, writing. Tags: , , . 8 Comments »

Creating Characters Who Burst From The Page Into Readers’ Hearts

July 21, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Yesterday I wrote about The Flaw Of Flawed Characters and how the oft repeated advice to create flawed characters is itself flawed. The best characters are not flawed, but are those facing terrible dilemmas who are forced to work against their strengths. If they have a lot of knowledge, they are most compelling when they need to act without being able to use the knowledge, perhaps using logic, intuition, or snap judgments instead. If they have armed services experience or strong physical skills, they are most interesting when forced to use their minds and wits. If they tend to be serious, they are most fun when forced to rely on their humor, or vice versa.

Besides having characters work against their strengths, you can make characters real by taking their positive character traits to the extreme. For example:

Caring about and caring for other is a positive trait, but taken to the extreme, such characters could become bossy, thinking they know what is best for those they care for.

Confidence is a positive trait, but taken to the extreme, the character could have a hard time acknowledging another point of view.

Creativity is a positive trait, but taken to the extreme, the character could be impractical, or the character could be insensitive to others’ needs when they are focused on creation.

Being outgoing is a positive trait, but taken to the extreme, the character could be flighty or superficial.

Being introspective is a positive trait, but taken to extremes, the character can become self-absorbed.

These extremes are not flaws. They are simply different shades of human behavior. What about your characters’ negative traits? Turned on their head, such traits can become positive. For example:

Fear is generally considered to be a negative trait, but fear can be turned into caring if the character is fearful for another.

Anger is generally considered to be a negative trait, but anger can be used to propel a character to accomplish great feats, particularly if the character is trying to right an injustice.

Even if negative traits can’t be turned into positive ones, they can be used to raise the stakes for your character. For example, a timid character who overcomes his timidity to accomplish a daring feat is much more real to us than an adventuresome character who takes such feats in stride.

The important thing to remember when creating characters is that there is a broad spectrum of human behavior to choose from. You do not have to rely on superficial, trite, or boring flaws to create a character who bursts from the page into readers’ hearts.

Posted in writing. Tags: , , , , , , . 1 Comment »

The Flaw of Flawed Characters

July 20, 2012 — Pat Bertram

I cringe every time I see authors brag about their “flawed characters” as if that’s a good thing. Apparently, somewhere along the line, writers were told not to write perfect characters but to give them flaws, and so writers everywhere are assiduously flawing their characters. Well, they are wrong.

There is no such thing as a perfect character. If a character can do everything, meet every challenge the first time, and do it all without damaging a single hair on his/her head, the only thing perfect about that character is that it is perfectly boring, which makes it far from a perfect character. Adding flaws to such a character only compounds the problem, making the character not only boring but trite. Aren’t you sick of the cynical detective struggling with a drinking problem? Or the overextended single mother struggling with the rebellious teenager? Or the lonely person struggling to find love but who is too stupid to see the love disguised as a friend or even enemy? Well, you might not be, but I sure am.

The best characters are not flawed characters, but those facing terrible dilemmas who are forced to work against their strengths. If they have a lot of knowledge, they are most compelling when they need to act without being able to use the knowledge, perhaps using logic, intuition, or snap judgments instead. If they have armed services experience or strong physical skills, they are most interesting when forced to use their minds and wits. If they tend to be serious, they are most fun when forced to rely on their humor, or vice versa. Anything else is just cheap.

One thing most people say about my main characters is that they are real. And guess what? There isn’t a flawed character in the bunch. Not a single character drinks too much (okay, Kid Rags in Daughter Am I might tipple, but he never gets drunk or lets his drinking get in the way of business). Not a single character cheats on his or her spouse. Not a single character is mean. Not a single character makes stupid mistakes. Not a single character is self-absorbed. (Well, Jeremy King, the world-renowned actor in A Spark of Heavenly Fire is focused on himself, but that isn’t a flaw but the personality trait that makes him a great actor.) Not a single character gets into fights just for the sake of proving how flawed they are — all the fights are to protect themselves or others. Every character acts to the best of his or her ability at all times, and if the best isn’t good enough, they get better.

Instead of flaws, my characters have character traits. For example, in Daughter Am I, at first the hero Mary Stuart tends be a bit of a pushover, going with the flow because she simply doesn’t care enough about the outcome of any situation to fight over it. When she makes the decision to find out who her grandparents were and why someone wanted them dead, she becomes almost obsessive in her quest, even going so far as arranging a meeting with a notorious hit man and various other shady characters. And when she finds something to care deeply about — the octogenarians who accompanied her on her journey — she becomes steely in her determination to protect them at all costs. Are these traits indications of flaws? Of course not. They are indications of a true-to-life character grabbing her destiny with both hands and going along for the ride. Flaws would only get in the way.

Posted in books, fiction, writing. Tags: , , , , . 6 Comments »

Ah, the Sacrifices We Make for the Sake of Art!

July 19, 2012 — Pat Bertram

I am writing a short story to be included in the next Second Wind anthology, which is a combination of holiday short stories and recipes. At the end of my story, the wife decides to stop poisoning her husband because she realizes that even though he is not giving her what she wants, he is giving her what she needs. This change in attitude is shown by her change of cookie recipes, from an unhealthy cookie to a healthy one.

The recipes we use are supposed to be uncopyrighted, which means that to be safe, they have to be old family recipes or something we created. Oh, the pressure!!

Well, today, I finally got down to the dirty job of creating my recipe. I dragged out oatmeal, honey, applesauce, walnuts, raisins, chocolate chips, coconut, and a few spices, mixed it all together, spooned the concoction out on a cookie sheet, stuck it in the oven, and waited.

When I took the cookies out twelve minutes later, I let them cool and then . . . drum roll, please . . . I took a bite.

Ah, the sacrifices we make for the sake of art!

As it turns out, it wasn’t such a sacrifice. I got the recipe right on the first try. The cookies actually taste great and the texture isn’t bad.

Now I have an even harder job — not eating all the cookies at once. Maybe I’ll save a few for you.

(Second Wind is running a short story contest, and the winner will be included in the anthology with me and other Second Wind authors. Please click here to Vote For Your Favorite Story!)

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