Novel Writing on Edge - Development Notes From Algonkian Writer Conferences

Antagonists are quite often the most memorable characters in literature, regardless of genre. Without them many of the best selling novels of all time would simply cease to exist, their supporting beams cut away, the shell of remaining "story" quietly imploding to ignominy and self-publication. Consider the impact on a scene, any scene, as soon as the author moves the chess piece of antagonist onto the page. The mere presence of a Javert from "Les Misérables," Assef from "The Kite Runner," or Nurse Ratched from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," immediately energizes the environment. The narrative and dialogue literally crackle and groan with antagonist. What chances do you as a writer have of getting your novel manuscript commercially published,  regardless of genre,  if the story and narrative fail to meet reader demands for sufficient suspense, character concern, and conflict? Answer: none. But what major factor accounts for this d...

By Christine Stewart Many years ago, I took a workshop called Writing the Ideal Heroine , which was taught by Rebecca Smith, a novelist, a former writer-in-residence at the Jane Austen House Museum (Chawton Cottage), and the great, great, great, great, great niece of Jane Austen. Pretty good credentials in my opinion. There's another tip - if you can find a writing workshop wherever you're going, take it! How cool was it to sit in her garden doing writing exercises? It's harder to write a sympathetic female lead character than a male one, I think. Sorry if that sounds like a double standard, but in my experience as a reader and writer, it's true. Most have certain expectations of female characters related to emotions, actions, desires. Whether you meet these expectations or subvert them and how you do so, will affect whether or not your readers (especially women, who often identify with the female character) like them or hate their guts and throw your book in the ...

Before the novel, there was drama... Ancient dramatists understood the requirements of a good tale, one in which willful human beings engaged in major conflict, the goal being to possess or achieve something of value. A designated character, by virtue of position and personality, became the antagonist, naturally defying the efforts of the protagonist, or hero, to overcome. This basic conflict scenario resurfaces again and again in a myriad of forms, not only in life, but in novels, short stories, and of course, film and television. What makes true dramatic conflict so universally effective is not only its ability to create tension, suspense, and powerful characters, but its unique method for portraying the need for value in human existence. Below we've created a drama primer with quotes ("European Theories of the Drama") from three important dramatists to illustrate the nature of the drama and it's overwhelming relevancy to novel writing discussion here at WE. ...

Prepared for appropriate frustration and tapped out fingers? Using our favorite "stand on the shoulders of the classics" approach, we're going to examine the role of detailed character description when it comes to enhancing prose narrative. We've touched on this previously with our High Impact Narrative article and a caboose of Enhancement via Nabokov , but we're not done yet. Let's look at various examples and techniques. A GREAT DAMP LOAF  From Annie Proulx's "The Shipping News":  "A great damp loaf of a body. At six he weighed eighty pounds. At sixteen he was buried under a casement of flesh. Head shaped like a crenshaw, no neck, reddish hair ruched back. Features as bunched as kissed fingertips. Eyes the color of plastic. The monstrous chin, a freakish shelf jutting from the lower face." Note that Proulx first makes a single statement of character impression before moving on to details, i.e., "A great damp loaf of a bo...

So now you're writing the novel, or rewriting it, or preparing to?   There is so much to consider your head has exploded and now you're groping for the parts. Nevertheless, we strongly recommend in this phase somewhere between false confidence and mortifying epiphany that you wisely execute your novel a scene at a time. No better organizing principle than this. Forget chapters, for the moment. Know that each scene serves a purpose, often more than one, e.g., pushing the plot forward while introducing a major secondary character. Each scene also evolves with its own beginning, middle, and end (see the steamy example below). Btw, if you've not yet done so, great idea to absorb the Six Act Two-Goal Novel before continuing. Also, please review the First Ten Steps , as well as our crucial articles on setting , antagonists , and delivering exposition . Why? Because the points below will make way more sense if viewed in the proper context. KEY CONCEPTS : story premi...

When considering your novel, whether taking place in a contemporary urban world or on a distant magical planet in Andromeda, you must first sketch the best overall setting and sub-settings for your story.  Wasn't it F. Scott Fitzgerald who said something like, "Setting is 60% of what makes your novel stand out"? A great setting maximizes opportunities for interesting characters, circumstances, and complications. Therefore, with a dash of unleashed imagination and a dose of sufficient research, nothing provides a stronger novel foundation than a great setting. Fact.  One of the best selling contemporary novels in recent memory, THE HUNGER GAMES , is driven by the circumstances of the setting, and the characters are a product of that unique environment as well as the plot. But even if you're not writing SFF, the choice of setting is just as important, perhaps even more so. If you must place your upmarket story in a sleepy little town in Maine winter, then choose a sett...

For starters... Let's place this in a context rarely mentioned elsewhere. At such time dialogue becomes difficult or perplexing for writers to produce, it's usually because they have failed on some level to create interesting characters in the first place, or because they do not properly understand the role of each relevant character in the scene (please stop and read this article now if you've not already done so), or both. To complicate further, the writer may not actually understand the role of the scene in the novel. Put these three conditions together and artful dialogue becomes impossible regardless of other factors . KEY CONCEPTS : screenplay emulation, dialogue as art, the LED, major functions of dialogue, delivery of exposition, dialogue arc, character style, tags and ellipses, provocations and disagreements, the foil character, dialogue samples. Initial Admonitions But let's assume the first three conditions above have been met. So where ...