Evan Marshall's Blog

1 Identify A Loyal Fan Base

Select a large audience you can identify and reach online (fan fiction, movies fans, readers of bestselling books, players of video games) and reinvent their stories. E. L. James developed Fifty Shades of Grey from Twilight fan fiction. Dan Brown reinvented Christian conspiracy stories in Da Vinci Code.

2 Select A Successful Genre

The most successful genres are: thriller, romance, fantasy, erotica, cozy mystery, paranormal, paranormal romance, romantic subgenres, and science fiction, according to a 2016 study. Craft your story with an eye to the story structures and genre conventions of that genre. Read deeply and widely in your genre. Talk to fans so you know what’s going on in the genre.

3 Create Compelling Men And Women Characters

Write compelling male and female characters. Create for them lots of different kinds of conflict and resolution. Give them a mix of personal strengths and weaknesses. Mix up their social backgrounds. Create an equal balance between male and female characters. Unless you know otherwise, assume women make up a large portion of your readers.

4 Vital To Your Novel: Three Surprises

A “surprise” is an especially dramatic twist or turn in your story. A good novel needs at least three of them. We explain how to create these surprises and exactly where to place them in your story. Be like George R. R. Martin of Game Of Thrones, the master of the surprise, especially when it comes to killing off main characters.

5 Fast-Paced Emotional Story

The storytelling DNA of bestsellers includes a fast-moving plot. In the Marshall Plan® novel writing system, there are basic two plot units in this storytelling DNA: the action section and the reaction section. The action section is where things happen. Someone does something, goes somewhere, says something. The reaction section is where someone reacts to what just happened. This is where most of your lead character’s emotional turmoil occurs. Many novelists don’t make the most of the reaction section. Find out how to use the reaction section more effectively to add to your novel’s emotional power.

Want To Get An Agent? Avoid This Rookie Mistake

This is the first of our occasional “kiss of death” blog series, where we cover a writing mistake likely to get your proposal rejected by a literary agent and how to avoid it, with real examples.

Today’s blog is about “sweeping syndrome,” description with no viewpoint. This type of description looks at the scene as if from a camera mounted on a long crane.

The following example came across our desk recently (we’ve modified it only slightly):

Chapter 1

Thick snow swirled down into the narrow, winding, cobbled street. A pale light glowed in the second-floor window of an apothecary shop. A young girl peered out anxiously, holding a candle up as if it would help her see. Far down the street, out of her view, a heavy wooden door creaked and rumbled open and three men in black cloaks emerged into the thick white maelstrom. They walked single file down the middle of the street, confident that no travelers would be out tonight. The men at the front and back were older men, stout, and walked with their hooded heads down. The man between them was a boy of seventeen, handsome, tall and slender. His eyes were bright with fear. The girl in the window blew out the candle. Down by the river, seagulls cried out as if in fear as a sailor threw a rope over the edge of a large ship down to the handler as the vessel edged into the pier. It awaited its cargo impassively. The three hooded men arrived. . . .

What’s Wrong?

There are six people, but we have nobody’s viewpoint.
No one has a name.
Who are these people?
No one is interacting. The young man does not look at the girl. The girl does not even see the men.
What does each person see?
What does anyone think?
Why should we care?
What is going on in this story?
Why did the three men leave the house?
Why is the girl holding the candle at the window?
Why are the three men going to the ship?
The story is cold, boring and distancing.

Now we revise this text in viewpoint writing, which forces us as writers to make some choices about characters and viewpoints, which we’ll talk about in subsequent blogs. The new version has five more words (181 vs 176).

Chapter 1 – rewritten with viewpoint writing

Colin fastened the buckle of his father’s cloak and then his own. Grandfather pushed open the heavy wooden door which scraped against the cobblestones. Thick snow billowed into their home. Grandfather, already bent against the wind, turned back and shouted, “Hurry. Keep your heads down. We’ll walk in the middle of the street. It’ll be safe enough—no carts will be out tonight.”

Colin towered over Grandfather, who teetered, but respect dictated Colin walk second, with father third to protect the back. A bolt came to Colin as he realized he had never been so scared in seventeen years. Probably neither of them would return home that night. A lit window on up high on his left caught his eye. Barbara’s beautiful face, framed in her parents’ second-floor window, was stained with tears. He smiled up, but then quickly looked down. The light went dark. Father’s eyesight was sharp enough, but he had not noticed. Colin focused on his feet.

The gulls’ cries pierced the snow. They arrived at the pier as the boatman threw the rope to the dock man.

What’s Better Now?

This passage conveys feeling, emotion, mystery, suspense.
We have a viewpoint character: Colin.
The woman has a name: Barbara.
Colin interacts with his father and grandfather.
We care about Colin, his father and grandfather.
We know the men because Colin fastens the buckle on his father’s cloak, and the grandfather leads, even though he is bent over.
Because we are in Colin’s viewpoint, we know the mission is dangerous.
Colin interacts with Barbara and we know they have a secret romantic attachment.
We are left in suspense: Why are Colin, his father and grandfather going to the ship?

Sweeping Syndrome starves the reader. Don’t use it. Take advantage of the novelist’s toolkit and delight your readers by using viewpoint writing. Therein lies the novel’s strength.

 

 

We get mad when a writer kills a good story by explaining too much.

This is the second of our occasional “kiss of death” series, where we discuss a writing mistake that will make an agent reject your proposal and show you how to correct it. Our previous blog covered “Sweeping Syndrome.”

Explaining too much is called the “Data Dump.” It’s easy to pour in too much explanation because it’s so easy, especially when you are:

In a hurry.
Moving sections around.
Cutting the manuscript.

But as Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert has said, “Explanation robs events of their emotional impact because it makes them seem likely and allows us to stop thinking about them.”

So if you want to keep readers engaged, hold back on explanation.

If you must give information, be subtle. Here are some ways to do it:

Action Mode—Have a character take action.
Background Mode—If your reader will be confused without this information, briefly say what it is.
Dialogue—have someone else say what needs to be said.
Summary Mode—give the facts in a sentence or two.

Give your readers more credit and less explanation.

Selecting Genre & Subgenres

Selecting genre & subgenres can be thought of in a similar way to how the creepy music at the start of a horror film tells you what to expect for the next 90 minutes, genre tells people what kind of story they are getting.

Whether you’re a professional author or you aspire to be one, it’s a good idea to know the genre of your novel before you start writing. If you know your genre, you’ll know your audience. It’s also key to appreciate that each genre (and subgenre) has established rules that dictate what is expected of the story.

When writing romance, for example, readers tend to anticipate a Happy-Ever-After (HEA) or at least a Happy For Now (HFN) ending. This is not to say that your romance novel must conform to a happy ending, but when your hero falls to his death during a gliding accident, you need to know that a significant number of your readers will not have seen that coming and there might be some pursed lips.

As with most if not all writing ‘rules’, you can bend and break tradition and expectations. It’s just a good idea to know you are doing it to be fully in control of your craft.

Considering the genre of your story is vital to delivering a story to meet or challenge your readers’ expectations, but it’s also important from a sales point of view. It’s worth knowing that some genres, in general, sell much better than other genres.

Again, romance is a prime example. A look at e-book retailers and the top social media sites for readers and writers, Goodreads and Wattpad, will demonstrate just how many readers are ready to devour series after series in the romance genre.

The term literary fiction describes writing that might be considered cerebral and elevated, and sits outside the arena of genre fiction. A literary novel can be major prize-winning stuff and go on to do incredibly well, but if you’re less interested in prizes or waiting for lightning to strike (although it might and it does) then you may find it easier to market and sell your book if you define it as a romance.

Some authors cross over from one genre to another. These days, you’ll find Stephen King novels not only in the horror section of a bookstore, but staring out at you from the storefront windows and on the mainstream sections of these establishments.

The list of novel genres and subgenres, or types of novel, is vast. Speculative fiction, for example, encompasses science fiction, fantasy, and horror, each of which can be further subdivided into dozens of categories. Being this specific is useful for focusing you as a writer. It can also be helpful for finding readers, particularly on websites that sell e-books, and that act more like search engines than traditional bookstores.

Whatever you want to write, the chances are that it has a name and dedicated fans. Do your research before putting pen to paper, or fingertip to keyboard. If you’re already a fan of your genre and are reading it, this is a great start.

When thinking about minor character development let’s first deal with that word: “minor.”

You have major, main or primary characters, and you have minor, supporting or secondary characters, but they are all relevant to the story you are telling. A general rule of thumb is that if you have a character that isn’t working for your story, cut them out or combine them.

So, let’s hear it for minor characters! Under-appreciated not-quite-heroes-or-heroines of our fictional worlds.

What do we mean by a character working for us?

An effective use of a minor character might be to challenge or echo the story of the protagonist.

While they can be used to create light relief and change the mood or pacing of a passage, a minor character is a handy tool for making your protagonist’s life more difficult.

One thing to consider, however, is that if you make them too impressive, readers might expect them to appear again later in the story. They may become confused with primary characters, who are typically more 3-dimensional. It’s a fine line and something to feel your way around, perhaps with the help of feedback on your early drafts.

Modern readers are wise to many literary techniques and devices, even if they wouldn’t use that term. Movies have been influential on the way people read too. Particularly in a Hollywood studio movie, every scene is meaningful or helps move the story forward. Your character may seem minor to you, but your readers will be paying attention to everything he or she does.

This is one reason that it’s useful for a minor character to have a role that relates in some way to the hero or heroine. The supporting character can be assisting or hindering. They could be similar to the hero or the antithesis. They could share the same flaw, but deal with it in different ways. And many other variations. What’s important, is that they seem solid. Giving them a real function in the story, will help.

On the subject of making characters solid, here are some well-worn tips for developing minor characters.

Give them a quirk or defining characteristic that makes them easily identifiable.
Your characters should have distinct voices. This might be harder than it sounds. Don’t forget to make the effort with your minor characters.
Don’t give them YOUR voice! This isn’t necessarily the time for a cameo appearance from the author.
Attach them to something, such as a location or a uniform or a time of day.
Consider giving them a character arc. Nothing says “you’re meant to be in this story” like the development of a character arc, even a small one.
Finally, imagine that you’ve deleted your minor character from your novel. Does your story still work without him or her? If so, was he or she truly necessary?

Who tells your story (your narrator) is an important technical decision that can determine not only the feel of any novel but also the level and quality of the story the novel ‘allows’ a novelist to tell. The choice you make can either enhance your story or work against it.

Most long fiction is written in either the first person or the third person. When a novel is written in the third person, there can be different kinds of narrators. The narrator can be the kind that knows everything that has happened and will happen – omniscient. And there are different levels of omniscient narrators. One might observe from the outside but not go into the character’s heads. Another might ‘dip’ in and out of the mind of the protagonist from time to time. An omniscient narrator can even tell the story from the point of view of other viewpoint characters in the story. Each choice has a different impact on the story.

Writing in the first person can be a particularly powerful way to tell a story. It’s an immediate and powerful way to develop a strong voice – for example, that of your principal character. It does present certain challenges, however. In most cases (except in fantasy, science fiction and paranormal), the narrator of a first-person story will not be able to ‘enter’ the minds of other characters. No rules are set in stone, but you should be aware that viewpoint should be handled carefully to avoid a jarring effect.

While a first-person narrator is highly unlikely to be able to know everything about the story they are in (unless you are writing about a deity, perhaps), your protagonist might be telling a story about something that happened to them long in the past. In this case, consider the difference between who the narrator is now and who she was in the time period of the story.

Writing in the first person is an effective way of creating tension in a story because the reader only knows what the narrator narrates. As a novelist, you can make your reader question the reliability of the narrator in subtle ways, which increases suspense: How much can you trust your narrator?

From the beginning of a first-person-narrated novel, the narrator knows how the end of the story whereas the reader doesn’t. This in itself presents an opportunity to add tension. How has the narrator changed? What has the narrator endured or survived? Through the course of the novel, how did the narrator change in response to events? Who was he at the middle of the book and who has he become by the end? Written with a strong voice in first-person viewpoint writing mode, this type of narration will leave readers asking what happens next and turning the pages for more.

Question: Where do you get your ideas?

Answer: The Bees.

Apparently, many authors dislike being asked where they get their ideas. They tell tales of elves, goblins or fairies that write their stories in the night for a terrible fee, or they say something even less welcome, such as: “the cookie jar” or “from the idea tree, of course.”

Perhaps one of the reasons for this apparent grumpiness/playfulness, is that there are stories everywhere. You don’t need to look any further than the daily newspaper, the dream you had last night, or what happens the next time you step out of your front door.

In any typical story, the thing that makes it worth telling, and re-telling, is that there is an obstacle. You have a hero or heroine. He or she wants something. Desperately. But someone or something is in the way. How he or she succeeds – or fails – to get what he or she desires is a central component of a story.

With that basic framework in place – bend it, shape it, see what happens – you can let your creativity fill in the details.

Many a great story-teller has developed an idea from the words: “What if …”

A great story idea can hit you any moment, whether you are looking for it or not. You might be on the edge of sleep when the strangest most wonderful idea floats to the surface. You could be waiting in line at the store, or gazing out of the window during a commute. The key is to be receptive to these flashes. One of the differences between writers and, well, almost everyone else, is that writers collect these ideas in notebooks and they might look at them from time to time. These ideas, daydreams, and imaginings, become stories that other people will love to read.

So, as mentioned at the beginning of the post, here are the be’s to help you generate and collect story ideas.

Be perceptive.

These flashes of inspiration, genius, brilliance, luck, or whatever you call it, can come at any time. It’s important to recognize them as being different to idle thoughts. You’ll know, because you’ll feel it. These are the ideas that excite you. They might make you smile. Don’t ignore them. This is part of what it is to be a writer.

Be prepared.

Keep a writing pad in your car, beside your bed, and in your bag. That’s only three pads. You might need more. A pen or two will be useful too. Having paper but no pens is a potentially devastating and frustrating writer mistake.

Be playful.

Nurture your idea, yes, but have fun with it too. Stretch it to see how far it could go. Turn it upside down and see what falls out.

Be patient.

You might decide that you like the way the wind blows through the trees. While that in itself doesn’t seem like much of a story, the image may keep coming back to you. Let it.

It’s a good idea to write the idea down, but don’t expect to capture it all in one frenzied sitting. Give it time to grow. You might find that your short story has enough depth to fill a novel, or that your novel idea has deep enough roots to become a series.

 

Getting ready for NaNoWriMo.

If you’ve participated in NaNoWriMo before or you’ve signed up for this year, you’ve probably received an introductory email by now. Are you feeling excited about the prospect of writing 50,000 words in a month? Daunted?

Whatever the emotion, it’s time to prepare for the writing marathon that is NaNoWriMo.

Start now.

Starting work on your NaNoWriMo novel before November isn’t cheating. If you want to achieve novel success, now is the time to plan your story. November 1st is not the time to sit in front of your computer and try to develop a story idea. You’ll want to hit a certain word count per day, so you’d better hit the ground typing.

Thinking is a very important part of writing. Some might say that it’s the least appreciated but most important part of the process. November is the time for tap-tap-tapping. October is the month for thinking ahead.

We know that it’s an exciting time, but the election is nearly over! Turn off the TV. If something cataclysmic happens, your friends will tell you about it.

Whatever happens, NaNoWriMo will go on. If you’re thinking of being part of it, we want to help you.

Pantsers: Outline.

If you like to make stories up as you go along, our advice is that you take a more balanced approach when tackling NaNoWriMo. When you have an outline of any length, you know where you’re going and how far along the path you are. Both of these things become essential when you’re trying to write 50,000 words in 30 days. Knowing what you’re going to write every time you sit at your computer is going to help you, especially if you’re feeling fatigued in the final days of the month.

With an outline, you’ll be able to give your story a neat story arc. You’ll be less at risk of falling short of 50k or having to overshoot your word count goal to tie up your story.

Seaters: Inspire yourself. Write sketches of your characters.

If you like to plan your stories in advance, keep yourself excited and inspired by getting more familiar with your characters. Try writing character sketches. Put them in situations to see how they react. You might even try pretending to be one of your characters next time you are in town.

Describe in detail the scene where your story takes place.

A problem with many stories is that they seem to float, as if the action could have taken place in any location and it wouldn’t have made any difference to the story. This can happen easily when the story is written quickly.

Use some of your preparation to time to make sure that your story is anchored to clear settings. Think of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights or Stephen King’s The Shining, where the setting is as important as the characters themselves.

Plan for the inevitable interruption.

Achieving 50,000 words in 30 days means writing around 1,650 words per day.

Whether you feel horror staring at these figures or it seems a manageable goal, you also need to work in time that you will spend dealing with interruptions.

“Mummy? Daddy? I don’t feel so … bleurgh!” One evening lost.
Surprise! Visitors from out of town are on a road trip and they’ve got nowhere else to stay. You know, because you asked. One weekend lost.
You turn on your machine and are greeted by a blue screen. Three days lost.

Planning to write the minimum per day is asking for trouble! Round up to 1750 – 2000 words and you’ll be able to withstand a few interruptions to your writing regime. If you know that you can do a few extra hundred words at weekends, go for it, from the beginning. Don’t leave it until the last few days to try to make up a 30k backlog. This is unlikely to be fun for you as a writer and, despite your best intentions, you’re probably not going to be much fun to be around.

Get the most out of NaNoWriMo by putting the most in, from the very start.

And you really can start (planning) now.

Note that we’re not saying that you should genuinely set your keyboard on fire. That would be dangerous. While it may be very satisfying during a particularly arid writing session, we don’t think it will do anything for your productivity.

We’re talking about writing fast. Many authors churn out novel after novel, month after month. Many of them claim to write tens of thousands of words – or more – per week, and they’re talking about quality words.

Writing quickly is not the only trait of many successful authors, but it can help you along the road to success.

Follow these three tips and you’ll be off to a speedy start and a sprint finish.

Find a Solid Structure

Work out how your story is going to look before you start writing the first word. Know which viewpoint you will use and how you intend to structure the book.

Your plan can be flexible, but if you know where you’re going, you’re likely to:

get there more quickly, and
know when you’ve arrived.

You probably wouldn’t go on a cross-country hike without consulting a map. Why not? If you’re now envisioning yourself sitting with your back against a rock, gulping the last of your water reserves while buzzards circle overhead, know that the same thing can happen to you while writing. Plan ahead.

When it comes to creating your map, you don’t need to start with a blank page. You can create your unique stories with the help of familiar structures that have endured over many hundreds of years and that will resonate with audiences for hundreds of years more.

In Poetics, which is the earliest surviving work to focus on dramatic theory and literary theory, Aristotle digs down to the core of storytelling, discussing the recurring characteristics of genre and plot. Closer to home perhaps is the new book by Jodie Archer and Matthew L. Jockers – “The Bestseller Code”– in which the authors investigate the characteristics of a novel that give it bestseller potential.

“The Bestseller Code” says that bestsellers they studied followed the same basic seven story arcs that Christopher Booker identified in “The Seven Basic Plots.”

Comedy – eg. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”
Tragedy – eg. “King Lear”
Rags to riches – eg. “Cinderella” and “Aladdin”
Rebirth – eg. “Silas Marner”
Voyage and return – eg. “Alice in Wonderland” and “The Forbidden Kingdom”
The quest – eg. “The Odyssey”
Overcoming the monster – eg. “The Epic of Gilgamesh”

Being aware of existing story structures can give you a framework on which to build your story. Construction is always quicker and more efficient when a sound foundation is in already place.

Nail Your Story Arc

Your story arc is the transformation that occurs – or fails to occur, if you choose – in your story. By being aware of this constant thread, you’ll be able to stay focused while writing. If you start to wonder why your tale is sagging, ask yourself if the scene you are writing is serving the story arc.

Each part of your arc will be like a stepping stone. Don’t wade blindly across the raging river of your story. Use the stepping stones and you’ll be across in no time without even getting wet.

Eliminate Indecision

When you have a plan you can be more spontaneous, not less. You’ll know where you were expecting to have twists or particular plot points. If you go off track, you’ll know. You can correct your course or you can follow a new direction from a position of strength.

Writers generally agree that creating the first draft of your story is not the time to be obsessing over details. Write quickly. Write as fluidly as possible. Go with what feels right. If you have prepared in advance, then you will have given yourself the freedom to explore. You’ll know when you are veering from your chosen path and how far.

Later, you can alter your overall plan, or edit your story so that things keep moving in the right direction. While you are writing your first draft, however, write!

Don’t let nagging doubts get you down. Set your keyboard on fire and you could produce a sizzling story for your readers in days instead of weeks.

Short Fiction

Short fiction has been a hard sell for traditional publishers who typically refuse to take short fiction unless the author is famous or very well-established. The cost of traditionally publishing a print book of short stories for an unknown or relatively unknown author is prohibitive. With digital publishing, however, a book can be produced for free, making this form of story a much less risky and a much more lucrative prospect.

Is short fiction better or just shorter?

Short stories tend to be tighter than longer forms, such as novellas and full-length novels. It is arguable that each word is more important in a short story. In a novel, there is some room for meandering. Short fiction, on the other hand, can be like delivering a punch. It takes a lot of work and skill to give that punch stopping power!

Will shorter fiction bring more readers?

Many people read short fiction, because they are busy and are looking for worlds that they can digest on the train to work.

Short fiction also serves as a doorway to longer stories. People who read your work in an anthology of short fiction might well be delighted to find that you also have novels published. This happens frequently enough that it’s a good reason for novelists to try short fiction too whether they are sold to magazines, anthologies, or published independently.

James Patterson’s new initiative

In an analog version of Amazon’s Kindle Singles – among other short-form digital publishing offerings – wildly successful author James Patterson is marketing fiction to people who have abandoned reading in favor of video games, movies, television and social media. His plan involves making books more plot-driven, cheaper, and short enough to read in one sitting. He has named this line of fiction: BookShots.

It’s been described as being like ‘dime novels’ and ‘pulp fiction’, from an era when commercial fiction was widely-available in drugstores. It will be interesting to follow the reception these books get from the reading and non-reading public alike.

Junot Diaz’s short stories

If you’re looking for inspiration or examples of what makes powerful, short fiction, check out short fiction by Pulitzer Award-winning Junot Diaz. Look up ‘Drown’ (“[a] stunning collection of stories [that] offers an unsentimental glimpse of life among the immigrants from the Dominican Republic”) and “This is How You Lose Her”, described by the telegraph as sharp, bawdy, and raw with emotion. Both of these collections are excellent examples of how to transport readers with skill, style, and an economy of words.

“Invisible Writing”

While you want to move your readers, whether it’s to make them cry or gasp or laugh, it’s worth being aware of a particular writing trait that may help you. This is the ability to get out of the way of the story you are telling. Your voice is important, yes, but sometimes authors’ prose can obstruct the story itself.

As a panelist at a Writer’s Digest Conference in New York City, I was asked: “What do you look for in a book proposal?”

When I said: “Writing that doesn’t get between me and the story” the room erupted with applause.

I describe this type of writing as “invisible”. You don’t have long to make an impact in a short story, so cultivate ‘Invisible Writing’ to ensure that your words serve your story, not your ego!