The Details Are In The Calendar
Exceptional fiction requires authentic details that pull the reader into the world in which the story takes place. I discovered that one of the best ways to do this is to construct the narrative around a calendar.
Exceptional fiction requires authentic details that pull the reader into the world in which the story takes place. I discovered that one of the best ways to do this is to construct the narrative around a calendar.
You look outside the window and you realize it is raining. The wind is blowing hard against the oak tree out in your backyard and the tree dances with the tune of the wind. You pour yourself a cup of coffee and sit behind the desk of your study and find yourself staring at your grandfather clock, which stands across the room. You cast a glance at the keyboard of the computer in front of you and your mind wanders off into another place and another time.
The main characters in the bestseller-kind-of novel are bigger-than-life. No wimps here. You can’t just tell us what they do; you have to show us what they do. Prove that they’ve bigger-than-life. These are people who find ways to solve the problems around them. They outsmart the bad guys. The bigger-than-life character overwhelms the enemy, somehow. They blow up blockade, so to speak – literally or emotionally.
What makes it hard is not writing itself but how people make it hard than it really is.
Have you ever read a passage and felt the breath of life, then was too speechless to describe it? That’s writing at its best. The method for creating such a moment comes from the use of emotions. Emotions are one of the single most important, touching, impressive, and non-intrusive writing tools. It is often not recognized as a concrete tool, but as a feeling, a stirring, a capturing that catches the reader up in the fictive state.
Okay, so I didn’t really write a whole novel on my lunch hour. But I did develop a lot of the characters, locations, and plot by taking a half-hour out of each workday to sketch some ideas. You’d be surprised with what you can get done in just thirty minutes a day.