There is nothing more inspiring than the plush artificial grass of a model home.

I recently began work on a novel. It has been a while since I have written fiction, so I am happy to be flexing those muscles again. I thought it would be a good idea to share my process as I work on the novel, so that people can get an idea of what goes into it. For today, I thought I would start with my idea for the novel.

What’s the Big Idea?

The Big Idea is the initial spark for the novel. For me the spark was based on a situation and a character. I live in a relatively new subdivision almost twenty miles outside of Tucson, Arizona. When my wife and I bought our house, we initially toured the model homes. There were thirteen model homes in all, occupying a gently curved street. As we visited the homes I was struck by the thought of a single small neighborhood in the middle of nowhere. With the collapsing real estate market, it seemed plausible that a company could spend the money to build a neighborhood of model homes, but then go bankrupt before it could begin building the rest of the community. Eventually the bank would have to sell off the houses in order to recoup some of the investment.
I also began thinking about the sort of people who would end up in such a neighborhood. While the prices would be rock bottom, the location would have some appeal but a lot of downside. People in the neighborhood would be isolated to a certain extent. One of the characters I found interesting would be a man in his late thirties or early forties who wanted to abandon most of his old life and make a change. He would be moving forward after a divorce, a job loss, and the death of someone close to him. He would essentially have become a bit of a hermit, but life in this neighborhood helps to open things up for him.
From there I began to fill out the neighborhood. Thoughts included a large family, a group home for the seriously mentally ill, a hospice, a police officer, a professional couple and someone who would essentially be a love interest for the main character. I considered the man’s family and decided to include several older sisters with whom he has a strained relationship. This somewhat reflects my own family situation, although I also have a brother. Finally, I thought about his ex-wife and his friends. I decided that the house would help bring some of these people back into his life.

Developing Your Own Ideas

You can approach a new story idea from many directions. Mine was based on situation and character. This is a good place to start, but it leaves me somewhat short on plot. My idea has characters and a situation, but no clear destination. It isn’t my goal to write a thriller or a mystery that is plot centered, but there needs to be conflict and action for the novel to have any point. I also need to flesh out the main characters. I’ll discuss this in my future posts. Meanwhile, here are some things that have generated ideas for me in the past.

• Newspaper Articles. I especially enjoy tabloid articles and you can’t beat the Weekly World News for that. You have to love any newspaper web site with a mutants section.
• People. Some people are just more interesting than others. I like to combine the traits of two or more different people so that my inspiration doesn’t become imitation.
• Places. I have often had ideas based on specific locations and travel in general.
• Activities. It can be good to build a plot along a specific activity such as a tournament, a trial or a project. The nice thing about this is that the beats of your plot become clear when you have events that must happen in order to move forward.
• Events. Much like activities, events some with their own ways to move a plot forward. That’s one reason why you see so many movies that revolve around holidays. They always come with places to go to and things to do.

Success as a writer is no easy task, but it becomes much harder if you have no clear plan for what you want to do. If you want to succeed as a writer, you need to treat writing as a business. If you want to succeed as a business, you need a business plan. Most businesses have one, especially new businesses that are trying to get established.

A business plan doesn’t have to be scary, especially for a simple business such as a single-person freelance writing business. In fact, a business plan should be somewhat comforting. It spells out what you want to accomplish and how you plan to do it. Having that information clearly in mind (and on paper) allows you to focus on what items and tasks are important and what things are outside the scope of what you want to accomplish. A business plan doesn’t have to be set in stone. Sometimes an opportunity outside of your plan will present itself. That can be a very good thing. If you’ve decided what you want, however, you’ll have an easier time weighing the pros and cons of a new opportunity.

There is not set style or length for a business plan, especially if it is only for your own reference and not the basis for a bank loan or investment proposal. The plan should cover your needs. The plan I propose requires that you answer six straightforward questions. You can answer them in a sentence, a paragraph or with pages of information. That depends on your own needs and style.

What type of writing do you want to do?

There are so many types of writing that it would be hard to list them all. Here are some of the more common choices though: copywriting, reporting, blogging, essays, fiction, poetry, analysis, scientific, legal, medical, business, public relations, technical, and dramatic. These are general types, and it can get far more specific. There are many types of copywriting, for example. Writing direct mail copy is different from writing white papers or catalog ads. Some people may choose to keep to a general category while others may choose a very specific sub-genre of writing. Some people may want to have more than one type of writing in their business plan. The point is to make the choice that is right for you. As a businessperson, you need to decide if this type of writing is economically viable for you, if it suits your skills, and if it is something you can be happy doing for years to come.

What do you want to write about?

Once you know the type of writing you are looking to build a career in, it is time to figure out what you want to write about. A blogger, for example, has an unlimited choice of what to write about. There are blogs for just about everything. While there are many choices, there are also important things to consider. Once again you have to assess whether or not the topics you choose make sense for you in terms of financial viability, skills and passion. This may require some research of the markets. Make sure you know what you are getting into.

Who do you want to write for?

There are actually two sets of people you write for, your clients and your audience. In some cases these are the same people, but in many cases they are not. A copywriter has a client with specific expectations, but he or she also has an audience in terms of potential customers for the item or service. In the case of the copywriter, the client is the more important consideration but long term success depends on the audience. A person who writes their own blog has an audience that they need to write for, but they also have to generate income through some form of product, service or advertiser. In order to succeed, it is vital that they consider both the audience (without readers they can’t succeed) and potential advertisers or buyers (without income their audience can’t keep them in business). It is important that you address whoever you want to and need to write for in order to succeed.

How much money do you want to make?

Most of us want to earn as much as possible, that’s obvious, but having a clear financial goal makes the plan feel much more official. The amount you choose should be realistic, but still a little optimistic. Your goal may be to match the income from your last job, to cover your bills with 10% to spare, or to dramatically increase what you’ve been making. Some people set monthly goals, moving the amount a little higher with each passing month. Some people set yearly goals. Yearly goals are fine but you should at least have a few milestones along the way to keep yourself on track. With the right steady client, such as a content company that pays by the article, it is even possible to have daily or weekly goals.

What do you need to have to succeed?

This is a critical element to your business plan and can often be the longest section. You need to identify ALL of your key needs such as: money in savings, equipment, advertising, skills development, contacts, mentors, licenses, bank accounts, office space, reference materials, leads, etc. The list can be quite substantial and may include items that aren’t necessary but would be helpful. You may also want to recognize the level at which some needs might come into play. For example, you may not need office space to begin with (or be able to function with limited space) but as you gain clients or assignments your need for your own space will grow. Your tiny monitor might be fine for basic assignments, but as you spend more time in front of the computer you may want to move up to a larger, crisper monitor. The idea is to plan for current and future needs.

What is your timetable?

Setting a timetable is a way to hold yourself accountable and keep focused on your goals. Financial timetables, which I discussed above, are good for setting initial goals. Some other timetables include marketing goals such as landing a set number of clients, sales or assignments. In the case of blogging you might have audience goals or a timetable for approaching potential sponsors or advertisers. Whatever the case, setting a timetable will help you focus on the work that needs to be done. Remember though that your timetable isn’t just about goals for success, it must include plans for getting there. You should also have contingency and backup plans. Sometimes you miss your goals and milestones, and that needs to be addressed too. What will you do if things go wrong?

Reviewing your business plan

A business plan is a living document. It should be reviewed and updated regularly. At minimum you should bring it out every quarter, but it is probably better to review it once a month. Set a reminder on your calendar and make it a part of your end-of-the month process along with paying bills and other regularly scheduled tasks. Don’t be afraid to make changes to the document. A plan is like a map. It not only helps you plot a course, but it is also there to get you back on course if you get lost along the way or decide to make a scenic detour.

For Further Reading

• Plan Your Writing Success With A Business Plan By Pamela White
• Building a Writer’s Business Plan by by Moira Allen
• Write Your Own Reality – Business Plans for Writers by Devon Ellington

Master the Possibilities

When you start a novel, the options are virtually limitless. A character can go in almost any direction. As the story progresses though, all of those options should fall away until the only option left is the conclusion. Think of your story as a tree. In the beginning, a tree is just a seed, and it can grow in many directions, both up and down. As you move along a tree though, you eliminate options. If you move up, you have left the roots behind. If you move past a branch, that branch is now behind you and can no longer be chosen. When you choose a branch, you eliminate everything but that branch. As you follow that branch along, you move by other branches until make another choice. At that point your choices are narrow. You are running out of branches until eventually you reach the end, where you have nowhere else to go but to embrace that final leaf or bud or whatever form your conclusion takes.

Decisions Define both Characters and Stories

The choices in a novel run along those same lines. Every word, every paragraph goes toward defining your characters, your plot and your themes. Each choice your characters make eliminates the other choices that could have been made. As each choice comes up, it further defines the character and it eliminates the choices that they could have made. The character might make dramatic changes as the story moves forward, but those changes must be the result of their earlier choices. Eventually, the character runs out of choices. They arrive at the ending knowing that it is now the only ending that remained possible.

As the Plot Progresses, Even the Same Decision is Different

Keep track of the choices that your characters make. In the beginning, your protagonist may be a high school graduate who must choose between college and work. If he chooses college, then he must choose a major. If he chooses a major, he has to choose from a specific set of classes. If he goes to the class he must take a seat. If he takes a seat between two people, he may choose to talk to one of them, none of them or both of them. If he talks to one of them, that person may turn out to be a friend or an enemy. If that person is a friend, they will go places together. If they spend too much time doing things other than classes, the student fails out of college.

At that point the student once again must choose, college or work, but he is not at the same point as he was in the beginning, even if he is making a similar choice. Getting back into college will be hard this time. He may have to choose a lesser school, foe example. If he goes to work it will be as a college dropout or perhaps as a part-time student who must hold a job as well. Either way, his choices revolve around college or work, because those are the branches of the tree that follows. If he fails at college again, the chances are very slim that he will have a third chance. Meanwhile, he has acquired a friend along the way, and that friend would not have appeared if he had made different choices.

Sometimes, Decisions are Made for You

Sometimes, in a novel, outside forces determine some of the branches. For example, his parents may have been paying for college, but then they lose a significant amount of money when the stock market crashes, and they can no longer afford to help him out. He must now make his choices based on the new situation. Be careful with outside forces though. It is usually better for a story if the characters’ own choices determine their fate as much as possible. The outside world may act to eliminate some options, but for the most part, rely on your characters to determine their paths; otherwise the conclusion will feel unearned.

Outlines Make it Easier to Track Complex Events

An action outline is a point by point outline of the events that you intend to have happen in your story. The action outline serves as a roadmap for your plot. It demonstrates to you how your plot will be driven forward. It helps you to think about how an action taken in chapter two might result in an event in chapter ten, due to the sequence of events it causes.

The beauty of an action outline is that it allows you to look at the complexities of the different things happening in your novel. How the choice not to return a phone call early on may result in a lawsuit or a suicide attempt as the story continues. These action-based relationships are what are generally lost when you write without an outline.

Cause and Effect Drive a Plot Forward

When writing an action outline, think in terms of cause and effect. While, in everyday life, not every mistake or missed opportunity matters in a given day, in a novel these things must matter. If the choice to go to a party rather than visit a sick friend has no consequence further down the line, then it probably doesn’t belong in the novel. Life may sometimes feel random, but in the end, a story needs to feel like an evolution. An illogical event might happen early on, but as the story progresses it must have a logical impact on all the people concerned.

Some consequences may be less startling than others. A character may not suffer external consequences to an action, but may pay an emotional price that results in them making a different decision later on. The decision not to visit a sick friend on Tuesday weighs on the character until Thursday, then the character finally does go, just in time to run into someone the character didn’t want to see or find out that they missed out on something they would have wanted to be present for.

If you map out those possibilities from the beginning, you will not only understand what drives your plot forward, but it gives a shape to what you write so that everything feels logical within the framework of your story, no matter how different your world might be from reality.

Sample Action Outline

This outline shows two different chapters in a novel, demonstrating that actions from an earlier part of the novel often result in consequences later on. This is a very bare-bones outline to demonstrate the process. You might want to be far more detailed about the actions that occur.

Chapter 3

1. Lisa comes home to find Sam’s father Roy parked in front of their house.
2. Roy demands to see Sam. He is clearly drunk and angry.
3. Roy grabs Lisa, holding her helpless. He threatens her life.
4. Jeremy  arrives from next door and bashes Roy on the head with a baseball bat. Knocking him out.
5. Jeremy tells Lisa he will take care of things
6. Jeremy shoves an unconscious Roy into the passenger seat of his own car.
7. Jeremy takes Roy’s keys, gets in on the drivers side and drives off.

Chapter 8

1. Lisa tells Sam that his father has been in the Hospital for several days.
2. Sam confronts Lisa about her keeping the information from him.
3. Sam and Lisa break up.
4. Sam goes to Union Hospital to see his father.

In the earlier days of this site, I used to host a fast fiction exhibition. Every week I would post a prompt and people could write a very short story in response to the prompt. It was a lot of fun. A story told in 100 or 200 words starts to read a lot like poetry. All of the excess thoughts have been eliminated. There is no room for wasted words when the count is so tight. To me, that is one of the advantages of good poetry over prose. Every word matters.

A poem doesn’t have to tell a story. The pantoums that Jenn just wrote about, for example, don’t feel like a story. The use of repetition makes them feel more like a thought that simply won’t go out of your head. There are also nonsense poems, chants, list poems, imagist poems and a variety of other forms and approaches that are not about the story. Even the prose poem, which takes on the look of a story with its use of paragraphs and other prose structures, generally reflects thoughts more than story.

If you choose to tell a story with your poetry, you will find yourself looking at a narrative that winds through your poem. Events happen in succession. There are some poems in which a line or a stanza can easily be moved because the poem doesn’t progress along the lines of a plot. If the poem tells a story, however, there is generally a flow between lines and paragraphs that only makes sense in order.

People are comfortable telling stories. They do it naturally. Poets write about moments from their lives. Poets make up stories that are realistic or fanciful. They do all the things that prose writers do. They just do it in a different way.

Today’s Poetry Prompt

Write a poem that tells a story. For an added challenge, use a word count. Write four stanzas, each with 30 words.

Article by Lillie Ammann

When a writer contacted me to edit his 164,000 word novel, I told him publishers don’t like books that long. We discussed the possibility of breaking the novel into two separate stories. However, when I read the manuscript, I realized the word count could be cut dramatically. He was appalled at the thought-he’d worked hard on every one of those words, and he knew each one had to be there.

We agreed to experiment with the first chapter. Although I usually use Track Changes to show my suggestions, we decided I would send him a clean copy with all my recommended changes incorporated. If he thought cutting words destroyed his story, we would start over.

He called me after he read the revised first chapter. “I thought you were going to cut it down. Everything is still there.”

“Everything important is still there,” I answered. “But all your words aren’t there.”

Since he couldn’t tell I’d cut anything, he gave me permission to continue.

This is the process I used to cut his novel from 164,000 words to 118,000 words. You can use these same steps to lose excess wordiness from your own writing.

• Eliminate repetition. “Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them” may be good advice for giving a speech. However, a novelist seldom needs to repeat information.

If a scene is described in action, inner thought, and dialogue, cut out the repetitions and leave the action. Although you should show more than tell in a novel, sometimes you need to tell. If one character needs to convey information that the reader already knows, simply say Character A told Character B about …

Trust your readers. If they’re smart enough to read your book, they’re smart enough to remember the defining event in the protagonist’s life. You can connect a thought or an action to what happened before without repeating all the details.

• Eliminate unnecessary words. Write in active voice rather than passive to make your writing readable and interesting in fewer words.

You can cut almost every instance of some words-such as very and that.

Use strong verbs rather than weak verbs supported by adverbs. He trudged is both more descriptive and shorter than he walked slowly and heavily.

Don’t overuse adjectives. Be specific. The red Corvette is more effective than the flashy, fast, brightly colored sports car.

• Eliminate backstory. Almost every manuscript I’ve read from beginning writers-including my own!-begins with too much history before the real story starts.

Begin with action and let the readers meet the characters as we meet people in life. We learn their names, see what they look like (if we meet in person), maybe find out a few details such as what they do for a living. But we discover more about them only as the relationship develops.

After several rounds of editing the long novel, we removed the first four chapters. We introduced what readers needed to know when they needed to know it instead of bogging them down with history before anything happened.

• Eliminate anything that doesn’t reveal character or move the plot forward. This novel was filled with tidbits of information, cute dialogue, interesting characters, and amusing incidents.

“We’ve never heard of this character before. What part does he play in the plot?” I asked.

“Well, this is the only time he appears. But this was just such a funny scene.”

“How does the scene fit into the rest of the story?”

“Well, it really doesn’t. But it’s so funny!”

Cut! If you’ve included a character or a scene or a quaint historical fact just because you liked it, get rid of it. Of course, you can have a character who appears only once-if he does something that moves the plot along or that shows something about your protagonist. But if the character or scene doesn’t add to the story, eliminate it.

In short, when you edit to cut your novel down to size, remember the words of Elmore Leonard: “I leave out the parts that people skip.”

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Lillie Ammann is a writer, editor, and consultant specializing in working with self-publishing authors. She blogs at A Writer’s Words, An Editor’s Eye.

The Law of Diminishing Randomness: As a good story moves forward, the events become less and less random.

One of the differences between real life and a short story is that in a short story, events happen for a reason. In the ordinary world, there are plenty of events that happen in the day that may seem important for a moment, but in the long run are completely meaningless. The telephone rings, and it isn’t a long lost friend. Your car won’t start so you catch a ride from a friend, but as soon as you get to work the day returns to normal. A stranger who appears to be following you turns out to be heading to the same store, but never even realized they were behind you. In the real world, even during times of turmoil or adventure, some events will remain completely unimportant.

In a short story random events are kept to a minimum, and when they do happen, they matter as the story moves forward. A story may open with an accidental meeting, an odd event or a sudden change in circumstances but as the story progresses it is the actions of the characters that drive the plot and lead people to care about what happens. That is why random events tend to happen early rather than late in a story. If the events of the story aren’t driven by the characters then the story had better be about lack of control, because that will be the dominant theme.

In a novel or a movie, there is more room for the random because there is time for sub-plots and minor characters. Not every idea has to have a significant influence on the central conflict of a story. Even with those longer works, however, you will find that random events are focused more at the beginning than at the end.

There is a basic plot structure for novels, movies and plays. That structure is:

• Initial Incident
• Complications
• Crisis
• Climax
• Denouement

An initial incident sets the story in motion. Complications arise, often due to mistakes made by the protagonist. The protagonist faces some sort of crisis that causes them to change in some way. Based on this change they must settle the key conflict of the story in the climax. This leads to the denouement, in which the aftermath of the events is put into perspective.

This basic narrative structure has been used to tell stories as long as there have been stories. It can be used in short stories, and is often used successfully. Short stories, however, can be more experimental. In some cases, there are only one or two brief complications that are dealt with, and the denouement may or may not be made clear. A short story can even revolve around a single incident or argument. A short story can focus on a major crisis or a minor epiphany. The denouement can be made clear or left up to the reader’s interpretation.

Whether you choose to follow a traditional narrative structure or not, you should be aware of it, and of the reader’s expectations. A story without conflict is no story at all. If you leave an ending up to interpretation, don’t be surprised if the interpretations differ wildly from your expectations. If you wander from the traditional structure, you should do so with a plan and a purpose. Otherwise you may find that your reader has been lost along the way.

Writing the first draft of a short story is distinctly different from writing the first draft of a novel. Novels ten to require a great deal of forethought and planning. Additionally, each progressive chapter locks you further into the plot, limiting your options as you get closer to the end. With a short story, you don’t have those worries. Lengthwise, a short story is similar to the first chapter of a novel. If you don’t like how it is going, you can scrap the draft and move on, without worrying about complying with a series of expectations or requirements.

Writing the first draft of a short story is about exploration. You start with a plot or character or conflict in mind, and you explore it for as long as it seems interesting or relevant. Once you reach a sufficient conclusion, you stop. This may take you ten pages or thirty pages or more, but it doesn’t stretch out in the way that a novel does. Some people can write the first draft of a short story in a single sitting. That may not be your process, but with a short story it is certainly possible.

The overriding advice that I can give for a first draft of a short story is to relax and let the writing take whatever course it will take. Cleaning up and revising a short story isn’t nearly as complicated as doing the same for a novel. A short story is short enough that you can even throw the whole thing out and start from scratch if you don’t like your initial results. That’s the sort of freedom a short story gives you. Take advantage of it.

One of the differences between a short story and a novel is that the idea for a short story doesn’t have to be as complex. In the case of a novel, you will usually want to have a pretty good plan going in. You will want to know all about your protagonist and have a pretty clear idea of the plot. The reason for this is commitment. Before you commit to writing 50,000 words or more about a single topic, you will want to feel confident in your ability to finish.
In the case of a short story, your preparation does not have to be as thorough. It certainly CAN be. You are welcome to outline your stories and create character profiles in the same way that you would for a novel. Because the commitment for a short story is so much less though, you can feel free to sit down and just start typing away with whatever comes to mind. You only have to fill a few thousand words at the most, so you don’t have that much to lose.
There is, of course, a middle ground between starting with no preparation and starting with a full outline and character sketches. Most people, when they sit down to write a short story have some idea of where they are going. They might have a character in mind, a situation they have been thinking about or even a setting that they find particularly interesting. Many short stories begin as a “what if” question. For example:

• What if a man inadvertently found himself stranded in an unfamiliar city just after the end of a serious relationship and decided to hole up in a hotel until he could figure out what to do with his life?
• What if two women met in a Las Vegas bar and figured out that they were both in town to marry the same man?
• What if a couple traveling across country decided to pass the time by playing a game of ever-escalating dares?

From a simple what if question, you can build a story. You may decide to map out character histories or plots, or you may dive right into the writing. With a short story, any of these options are viable. You just have figure out what works for you.

What methods do you use to prepare for a short story?