How to Write a Novel: Start with a Novel Outline

by Suzanne Lieurance

Wanna know how to write a novel?

Every novelist has his/her own method for getting started. But generally it helps to have an outline.

Here’s a simple novel outline trick: Create an informal outline that contains ONLY 12 chapters.

That’s right, ONLY 12 chapters.

No matter how many chapters you end up with by the time you actually write the book, if you start with only 12 chapters in your outline, the planning and plotting process will be much more manageable.

You don’t need a formal, Roman Numeral type, outline either.

Just number 1-12 on a sheet of paper and leave a couple of blank lines between each number.



To Start Your Outline
First, decide how your story will begin.

Chapter 1 – Start with a character readers will love. Put this person in the middle of some sort of change. You’re setting the stage for the overall story problem. Write a few sentences about all this under number 1 on your paper.

Next, figure out how your story will end.

Chapter 12 – Where will your main character end up, and how will he/she change or grow by the end of the book? What has he or she learned as a result of facing all the conflict? Make a few notes about what's next for this character, too (just give a hint of this). Put all this information under number 12 on your paper.

To Fill In Your Outline
Go back and fill in each of the other chapters (numbers 2-11). Keep in mind that you want to create rising action up to the climax, then falling action and the resolution.

Here’s what you should have for chapters/numbers 2-11:

Chapter 2 – In the movies, you usually see the main character take a trip or go away somewhere soon after the movie starts, so, by chapter 2, the character is now in a different location than he/she was in the opening of the story. But this change in location can be something simple, like the character leaves his house and goes to town. It can be more dramatic, like he/she leaves home for the first time, or has to go on a far away trip for some reason.

Chapter 3 – The main character faces some sort of complication to the conflict. The action starts to rise.

Chapter 4 – We learn more about the complication and wonder how the main character will deal with it.

Chapter 5 – The main character deals with the complication and moves on. But the overall story problem still exists.

Chapter 6 – But now, another complication occurs and we wonder what he/she will do this time.

Chapter 7 – The main character deals with the second complication and the reader begins to think maybe things will be okay for the main character.

Chapter 8 – But just when we think things will be okay, they get worse.

Chapter 9 – Things reach a crisis point. An action is taken that brings about the climax.

Chapter 10 – The climax occurs – This ends the crisis in some way and changes things.

Chapter 11 – The Falling action begins – this can be the start of the resolution.

Once you have all this initial information about your novel in place, you can start thinking of scenes for each chapter.

Make a few notes to describe each scene you intend to write for each chapter.

Keep in mind that once you start writing actual chapters, you’ll probably find that you need more than 12 chapters. But that shouldn’t be a problem. If one chapter is too long, just divide it into two chapters.

You’ll probably also find that your climax comes closer to the end of the story – say, in chapter 11. But, when you’re creating your initial outline, put the climax in chapter 10 to make sure you don’t plan to end your story too abruptly without tying up all the loose ends.

Now...to start writing your novel, look at number 1 on your outline to see what your opening scene should be for the book.

Next...write that opening scene.

That's all it takes to start writing your novel.

Try it!


Suzanne Lieurance is a full time freelance writer, author, speaker, and writing coach. If you need a coach to guide you to start and FINISH writing your novel, find out more about her one-on-one book coaching at www.suzannelieurance.com.

Letting Go of the Novel: How to Deal with Empty Pen Syndrome

Novels take such a long time to gestate. For me, that period is longer than the time it takes to gestate a child.  In fact, my first novel was conceived (that is, begun in earnest) while pregnant with my first child, and born (that is, finally finished), around the same time as my third child was born.  So the gestation matches the time frame of all three of my children.  And now, published, out in the world, it’s like a 20 year old who has flown the nest (while my real children are still here).  There have been other books since then - some that have taken less than a year and others that have taken three or more years.  My current WIP is celebrating its second year of gestation and I'm thinking that I still have at least six months of work to go. So these are long term projects that live with you and change, grow and develop. There are plenty of guides providing excellent information on how to best gain publicity for your book: how to promote it, sell it, flaunt it.  You'll get lots of information on that here, and some of it from me, but I’ve yet to see a guide for how to let go.  A finished novel is often something with only the most tenuous connection to those words which you held inside – your name on the cover and your photo inside perhaps.  Your book now belongs to your readers.  You can (and should) promote the heck out of your book. You can glory in the good reviews, and cry over the bad ones. But you no longer have much influence over that.  The book’s on its own.

 There has to be a way to deal with that hollow feeling you get when someone reads and interprets (often in different ways than you intended) words that were internal and private for so long.  There has to be a way to stop promoting for a bit, and move on to the next project.  So here are five tips, I’ve gathered together, as much for myself as you. 

• This is the most obvious, so I’ll start with it.  Move on!  Sounds easy, right?  Begin getting into your next book.  All that plotting, characterising, researching will help you with the all important bonding process you need. 
• Set a limit to your promotional work.  I know this is exactly the opposite of what everyone (including myself) tells you, but it’s easy to become obsessive.  Do one thing a day, and then, maybe after six months, one thing a week.  Otherwise you can spend hours checking those Amazon stats (and feel flat when they don’t move), panic about whether you’ve done enough, and feel like you've wasted your time when your quarterly sales figures don’t match your expectations.  Keep promoting by all means, but don’t go berserk.  You've got another creation that needs your attention.
• Allow your book the space to be itself.  All art reinvents itself for the person experiencing it.  Allow your readers that freedom.  Not everyone will review, or talk about your book in a way that matches your vision.  But alternative perspectives are not only valid – after all, the symphony of your book only plays when it meets a set of receptive ears – but also rather lovely, even when it's at odds with your intention.
• Harden up.  Your book really is a commercial product now.  You may not even be living off the proceeds (thank goodness, unless you’re Rowling), but your publisher probably is.  Your book is now a concrete piece of merchandise, and talking about it in terms of things like return on investment, shelf space, and merchandising may help cure that romantic sense of it being your own little baby.
• Finally, enjoy the freedom.  You’ve done your bit.  You’ve finished what you started, and there’s a sense of real accomplishment in stopping and saying that.  So go on, say it.  Nice and loud.  I’m done.  It isn’t that hard.  At least with a bit of practice. 

These tips probably won’t stop you from feeling just a little overly sentimental about your first novel – the learning curve is so large, and the sense of intimacy so strong the first time around, that, like any ‘first,’ your first novel will always be just that little bit special.  It gets a little easier after that, but it's always difficult to move on and stop focusing on it so heavily so you can go back into creation mode.  However, with a little effort, you can learn to accept the totality of your career – there will be other novels – better than the first.  There will be readers, with their own histories, and perspectives, taking your words into their hearts and making them their own.  That’s why we do it, after all. 

Magdalena Ball is the author of the novels Black Cow and Sleep Before Evening, the poetry books Repulsion Thrust and Quark Soup, a nonfiction book The Art of Assessment, and, in collaboration with Carolyn Howard-Johnson, Sublime Planet, Deeper Into the Pond, Blooming Red, Cherished Pulse, She Wore Emerald Then, and Imagining the Future. She also runs a radio show, The Compulsive Reader Talks. Find out more about Magdalena at www.magdalenaball.com.

Maguffin: An Object of Desire

So, what is a Maguffin, you might ask, as I did when I first heard the word. Is it some kind of puffin or

penguin-like animal? Or maybe a “Big Mac” sized muffin?

The term appears to have originated in 20th-century filmmaking, and was popularized by Alfred Hitchcock in the 1930s. He described a Maguffin as that object of desire everyone in the story wants, but whose only purpose is to bring the protagonists and antagonists together.

Maguffin (or MacGuffin) is a plot device, something in the plot that someone (or everyone) is after, making it a focal point of the story. It may be a secret that motivates the villains. A common Maguffin story setup can be summarized as "Quick! We must find X before they do!"

The most common type of Maguffin is an object, place or person. However, a MacGuffin can sometimes take a more abstract form, such as money, victory, glory, survival, power, love, or even something that is entirely unexplained, as long as it strongly motivates key characters within the structure of the plot. The Maguffin technique is common in films, especially thrillers. The Maltese Falcon is such a device, as is the stone in Romancing the Stone, The Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the One Ring in Tolkien's trilogy.

Here are some examples of others: 
• The crystal egg in Risky Business. It has little or nothing to do with the story, but it is always prominent in Tom Cruise's character's mind because any damage to the egg will tip off his parents as to his antics and adventures while they are out of town, so he gets into a lot of other trouble trying to keep the egg safe and in his possession.

• The "Unknown" grave filled with gold in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Most Maguffins are moveable objects (ala the Maltese Falcon), but there are plenty of breathing and unmovable Maguffins as well (gold mines, people and the like).

 • R2-D2 in Star Wars is the main driving force of the movie, the object of everyone’s search.

• The meaning of “Rosebud” in Citizen Kane.

The term has also lent itself to a number of "in" jokes. In Mel Brooks's High Anxiety, which parodies many Hitchcock films, a minor plot point is advanced by a mysterious phone call from a "Mr. MacGuffin". In one episode of Due South, the MacGuffin is a matchbook that makes its way around the episode, going from character to character. The hotel maid in this episode is named Mrs. McGuffin, and earlier in the episode, a mall security guard's name is Niffug, C.M. (McGuffin, spelled backwards). Also, the basement janitor in the hotel in part 1 is named Mac Guff.

What is the Maguffin in your story?

Protagonist’s Backstory PLANNING YOUR NEXT STORY: PART 6

Protagonist’s Backstory   PLANNING YOUR NEXT STORY: PART 6

Other discussions in this series include:

Premise

PlotPoint Development

Scenes

Motivation to Theme

CharacterDevelopment

Today we will discuss something related to getting to know your protag and that is learning from them about their background, backstory. We all have one. If you’re alive and have lived at all, even for a minute or two, you have a backstory.

So how do you learn about your protagonist’s? You ask him/her through an interview. Devise a series of questions you might ask anyone you know (real person) or want to know about. Then verbally ask those questions to an empty chair. Although that chair won’t really be empty, because your protag will be sitting there, answering or refusing to answer, your questions. If they refuse, find a way around the question to seek the same answer.

Since you completed a character worksheet last month, you already know the basic stats about your character: hair color, style, length, eye color, etc. What you seek now is more in-depth about their childhood, their parents, siblings, schooling, tauntings or bullyings, special events from their past which helped make them who they are.

Don’t forget to ask WHY or HOW. Ask about any unresolved issues from their past and how they might complicate matters now. What are some catalysts that marked their life? How did they respond/change?

Here are a few questions to include in your interview:

What do people like/dislike about you?

What do YOU like/dislike about yourself?

What are your beliefs? Secrets?

What are your personal demons? Why? What have you done about them?

Are you optimistic or pessimistic? Why? How does this affect your life?

How confident are you?

What is your level of morality?

What would you change about yourself if you could? What’s stopping you?

Do you like your name? 

Who is the most important person in your life? Why?

What would you do if something bad happened to them?

Who were your friends growing up? Now?

Who were your enemies then? Now?

Learn all there is to know about their parents/guardians. I discovered an entirely new side to my story while discussing Rayna’s parents with her. Suddenly the woman who turned her over to the Peacers had a motive and the bully in the Gestortium’s motive matched giving me bookends. Readers LOVE bookends in stories. I’ll talk more about them at a later date. But by learning about Rayna’s mother’s backstory, I discovered she also had a bully growing up (the one who turned in Rayna) and the two bullies’s motivations are the same: now and then for Rayna and her Mum. Without learning about her Mum, I would never have seen that parallel.

Ask about siblings, dead or alive. You’d be surprised how many protags have experienced deaths they don’t like to discuss, but which had an impact on them. Ask about cousins, aunts & uncles, grandparents, neighbors, playmates (again-this became instrumental in my later bully motivation), etc.

Don’t forget to think about all of the characters revolving around your protag. You DO NOT need such in-depth interviews for all of them, but any who play a major role in the story need to be interviewed—if only to get to know them better and not use any of their background in the actual story.

Next month,

Thanks to K.M. Weiland’s Outlining Your Novel

Rebecca Ryals Russell, a fourth-generation Floridian, was born in Gainesville, grew up in Ft Lauderdale then lived in Orlando and Jacksonville with her Irish husband and four children. Due to the sudden death of Rebecca's mother, they moved to Wellborn, near Lake City, to care for her father, moving into his Victorian home built in 1909. After teaching Middle Graders for fourteen years she retired and began writing the story idea which had been brewing for thirty years.  Within six months she wrote the first three books of each series, YA Seraphym Wars and MG Stardust Warriors. The world she created has generated numerous other story ideas including two current works in progress, SageBorn Chronicles based on various mythologies of the world and aimed at the lower Middle Grade reader and Saving Innocence, another MG series set on Dracwald and involving dragons and Majikals. She is finishing a YA Dystopian Romance which has been a NaNoWriMo project for three years. She loves reading YA Fantasy, Horror and Sci Fi as well as watching movies.  Read more about Rebecca and her WIPs as well as how to buy books in her various series at http://rryalsrussell.com  You may email her at vigorios7@gmail.com

Help a Reporter Out Your Path to Free Publicity

Getting Your Book Mentioned

 

Help a Reporter Out Can Be a Boon for Your Career

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Most everyone knows about Help a Reporter Out, also called HARO.

The trouble is, many don’t know how to make it work very well for them.

 

Here’s what it is. It’s a listing of reporters, bloggers, and other media folks who need your help or the help of someone else out there. It’s a little like a list of classified ads from media folk. Often they want opinion. They may want expertise. They may even want to cast you in a reality show. All you have to do to get these targeted (and carefully categorized) calls for help in your e-mail box is sign up at http://helpareporter.com. But then, of course, like anything else, you have to “work it.”

 

Some consider it a bit of a problem that these HARO notices come to them several times a day. I did. I signed up and eventually thought I didn’t have time to fool with the extensive lists. I was discouraged because I didn’t get the immediate results I thought I should. So I unsubscribed. But here’s the thing. I wasn’t getting results I wanted because I wasn’t using it right and—of course—because I wasn’t willing to be persistent. Then I tried it again. I changed my tactics. I didn’t frame myself as an author, but as an expert. Once I learned how to approach the people I contacted, I got better, more frequent results. I had to learn the hard way. You don’t.

 

So, I thought I’d give you some of my hard-won tips:

 

1.   Sign up.

2.   Try to look at every e-mail HARO sends out and quickly pick out the calls that might directly apply to you or the ones you can skew toward you. Example: I answered one that wanted people who had suffered some kind of stroke so I shared my little story about a TIA I had while I was in Tibet. I was there for inspiration for a novel and my poetry. I was careful to include that reference to my creative work (along with links to some buy pages) in the answer I sent. But I was also careful not to make that the major thrust of my query.

3.    At first I thought these were all real reporters who would actually call me for an interview or at least to check facts. The world is a different place since I was a reporter. Writers are in a bigger hurry. That means you need to be complete with your answer. Use anecdotes. Use soundbites. This is great training, by the way, for learning what intrigues media people and what doesn’t. Give them contact information and permission to call you if they wish. Note: Though I have received lots of publicity using HARO, not once has someone called me.

4.   Always include a little bio. You can copy and paste it but it should include the kind of information about your background that applies to the kind of question your contact wanted answered. Include links to your Web site, blog, or online bookstores buy page. Sometimes the writers use that bio exactly as you gave it to them.At the risk of being redundant, media folks are busy. If your note to them requires tons of work to corral details you didn’t include, they’ll just use someone else who did a better job of giving them what they need.

5.   Keep at it. As with all marketing, persistence pays.

6.   Don’t get discouraged. Expect that you may hit gold on about one of every ten or twenty calls you answer. But one of those can reach a ton of new readers.

7.   When you learn that your answer has been used, go online and comment and send a thank you to the writer. If you don’t know how you could possibly know if your helpful piece gets used, you need to refer again to your Frugal Book Promoter (http://budurl.com/FrugalBkProm) and find “alerts” in the index. Note: Sometimes the blogger or reporter (the smartest ones!) will let you know you were mentioned and even give you a permalink to use in your own marketing.

8.   If you get featured on a relatively big site, add the coup to your media kit, your Web site, and maybe even blog about it.

 

Remember, you’re not just selling books here. You’re building a writing career. You’re building name recognition. You’re networking, too!

~To reprint this article in your own blog, Web site, or elsewhere, send me a quickie query at HoJoNews(at) AOL (dot) com. I almost never say no! (-: In other words, I’m happy to Help a Reporter Out!

6 Book Marketing Tips that are Sure to Increase Your Visibility

Having yearly, monthly, and weekly marketing goals are crucial to achieving success. With goals, you know where you’re heading and can work toward that end.

Marketing goals can be considered a marketing plan and it will have a number of steps or objectives that must be set in motion and accomplished.

Whether you’re book marketing or trying to sell another product or service, six of the bare basic online marketing strategies to increase you visibility are:

1. Create a presence and platform

Creating an online presence and platform is initiated by creating a website or blog. First though, you’ll need to be sure of your niche because the site name and content should reflect your area of expertise is.

Remember, plan first. Choose a site name that will grow with you. Using an author as an example, if you choose a site name, Picture Books with [Your Name], you’ve limited yourself. What if your next book is for young adults?

As part of your book marketing strategy, you need to create a ‘hub’ site that will act as the center to your offshoot sites, such as the individual sites for each of your books.

Leave room to grow; it’s always advisable to use your name as the site’s name or part of it.

In addition, with today’s gone-in-a-second attention span, it’s a good idea to keep your site simple. Marketing expert Mike Volpe of Hubspot.com points out that it’s more important to spend time, and money if necessary, on content rather than a flashy website design; simple works.

Google verifies this ‘simple is better’ strategy and notes that milliseconds count in regard to your page load time. In fact, Google gives a ‘poorer’ score to pages that are slow to load.

Sites that take a few seconds or more to load may also cause you to lose potential subscribers and buyers.

2. Increase visibility

Writing content for your readers/visitors is the way to increase visibility – content is definitely still King. Provide interesting, informative, and/or entertaining content that will prompt the reader to come back and, just as important, to share your post or article.

Also, be sure your content is pertinent to your site, and keep your site and content focused on your platform.

3. Draw traffic to your site

To draw traffic to your site, promote your posts by using social media. You should also do article marketing which will increase your visibility reach.

Another strategy is to offer your readers free gifts, such as an ebook relevant to your niche. This will help to increase your usefulness to the reader and help establish your authority.

This is considered organic marketing; it funnels traffic back to your site with valuable content and free offers.

4. Have effective call-to-actions

Your site must have call-to-action keywords that will motivate readers to visit and click on your links. Keywords to use include:

• Get your Free gift now for subscribing
• Subscribe to our Newsletter
• Free e-book to offer on your own site
• Buy Now
• Sign up or Join Now
• Don’t hesitate, take advantage of our expert services
• Be sure to Bookmark this site

You get the idea, motivate the reader to want what you’re offering and give him/her a CLEAR and VISIBLE call-to-action. Make it as simple as possible for the visitor to buy what you’re offering.

5. Develop a relationship with your readers

It’s been noted that only 1% of first time visitors will buy a product. Usually, only after developing a relationship through your newsletter, information, and offers will your potential customer or client click on the BUY NOW button or other call-to-action you have in place.

While it will take some time and effort to implement and maintain these strategies, it will be worth it in the long run. Think of it as a long-term investment.

6. Create an ebook for increased visibility and opt-in enticement

This is an effective marketing tool and ebooks can be offered for sale or given away as a gift or 'ethical bribe.' Whichever you will need it for, it's important to get on board the ebook band-wagon.

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MORE ON ONLINE MARKETING

How Do You Create an Author Online Platform?
4 Tips to an Effective Subscriber Opt-in Email Box

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Karen Cioffi
Award-Winning Author, Freelance Writer/Ghostwriter
Author-Writer Online Platform Instructor

Create and Build Your Author/Writer Online Platform
Karen Cioffi Professional Writing Services

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Keyword Search and Article Marketing Content Tips for More Effective Book Marketing

As an author you may not realize the necessity of keywords. You may feel they’re something a marketer or affiliate marketer needs to be aware of. It’s their area of business and their problem to find these mysterious words that help increase the ranking on search engines. But, that’s not really the case, not by a long shot.

Authors and book marketing go hand-in-hand. This area of online marketing is like any other and needs to use the same strategies to be effective.

Today, if you are promoting yourself and/or your book, service, business, or product, you need readers to now several things:

•    Who you are
•    Where you are
•    What you have to offer
•    Why what you’re offering is what they need
•    Why you’re qualified to be offering this product/service

Yes, there are a lot of requirements that need to be met in order to be successful in this ever expanding and competitive internet arena.

One of the basic strategies used to get noticed is writing or providing content – this is considered article marketing. I’m sure you’ve read or heard a hundred times that “content is king.” It is absolutely true. Imagine being a spec in the sky . . . so tiny and far away that you are invisible to the human eye. Well, that’s you in the internet universe.

So, how do you get a flickering light going and build it into a steady strong beam?

Valuable Content and the Keyword Search
The only way to get on the internet radar is to create valuable content, provide it regularly, and make sure it is keyword effective. As I mentioned, content is essential, without it you don’t have a chance. But, even with it, you need to fine tune your ‘must read information’ with a keyword search tool.

Don’t fret though. Finding and using keywords is not difficult to do; the search tools make it easy. Most of it is really common sense, using words you would use to search for your topic.  But, a keyword tool affords a much larger pond to fish from and is search engine specific.

For this article I plugged in the word “keywords” at freekeywords.wordtraker.com (a free tool). The number one phrase for this keyword is “keyword research,” number two is “keyword analysis,” and number three is “keyword.” I really didn’t have to do a search to realize the word “keyword” would be there, I didn’t know, however, that “research” would be part of the number one phrase. Knowing the number one keyword phrase provides valuable information; this also means it is a highly competitive keyword.

The Long Tail Keywords

To make your keyword rich content even more effective look for what’s called long tail keywords. These are words that will move you away from the general querying crowd—and the heavy competition.

For example, if your niche is children’s writing your key words would be: writing, children’s writing, and possibly children’s fiction and/or children’s nonfiction.

To elaborate on these keywords - to get more specific and narrow your target audience - you might use: writing for kids, children’s fantasy chapter books, picture books, middle grade fiction books, or kids’ nonfiction magazine articles. You get the idea; you need to focus in on your niche. Instead of aiming at the outer rim of a bull’s eye, go dead center, or at least very close.

To get started in this area of book marketing, try a free keyword search tool from the three listed below:

http://wordstream.com/keywords/
http://keyworddiscovery.com
http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

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MORE ON ONLINE MARKETING

Email List - 10 Giveaway Freebies to Get Readers to Opt-in
Guest Blogging – Advantages for the Guest Blogger
Your Author Online Platform and Social Networks – Blog Page Views and Twitter Followers

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Karen Cioffi
Award-Winning Author, Freelance/Ghostwriter
Author-Writer Online Platform Instructor

Create and Build Your Author/Writer Online Platform
6 Week WOW! Women on Writing E-class Starting May 6th

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