Endings are Hard

After I published my last novel, I received one (yep, only one) FB message asking if I'd forgotten to include all of the pages in the Kindle edition. 

What!?

I'd given away 11,000 copies of the book. Were they all defective? Were readers left wondering what happened to the hero? This could explain the poor sales.

I investigated. The ending was there as written, but it evidently wasn't strong enough for this reader. Also, I suspect that her eReaders caught her unaware. Perhaps the ending was perfectly fine, but without the physicality of the book and its diminishing pages to clue her in, the ending fell into her lap. (This has happened to me.)

To determine if I'd written a strong enough ending, I revisited my hero's desires and needs. Did she satisfy her desire, a goal she can achieve within the scope of the story? Yes, her family is intact. As to her needs, does she resolve the thing that is hampering her from leading a good life? Yes, she is able to forgive herself and trust others. 

So far, so good.

Does the ending evoke an emotional response in the reader?

I thought so.

The hero not only has her family, but she reconnects with a love interest. She has a future, not explicitly spelled out but definitely pointing in the right direction. She turns her pain around to accept and love the imperfect. She's taking a huge risk, for crying out loud! 

It's the kind of ending I like. The important points are resolved, and the hero is set in motion toward a promising future with the requisite challenges. There are minor things left unresolved for the reader to play with. 

But some readers aren't as comfortable with ambiguity. They would have us sit our characters around a table to report their plans for the future.

Boring!

Actually, I'm struggling with the ending--the denouement--of my WIP. Technically, this is where things get resolved. But structurally I'm wondering if this isn't where the character arc for our hero reaches the pot of gold. This is where we show his or her growth. 

Right?

Books on writing are strangely silent on endings. They use vague words like "satisfying," if they say anything at all. 

Can we discuss this?

Wait, I'm supposed to finish my post...

Time is a Greased Pig

The weather has belatedly changed. I walked in temperatures cold enough for a wool cap, mittens, and a scarf this morning. By the time I got back, my nose ran like a spigot.

I'd forgotten my iPod, and so I let my mind out for recess. I don't know if this is the beginning of a story or an idea for a story, but this is where my mind went when the whistle blew:

Time is a greased pig. The more I try to capture and subdue the wriggling thing, the more unmanageable it becomes.

Up until menarche my life was a cord stretched taut from birth. That cord has unraveled into three frayed strands, the beginning, middle, and end. The beginning is just past my eleventh birthday, and I’m the only girl in the fifth-grade to have boobs and cramps. Being the odd girl in class is not my biggest problem, but it sure doesn’t help.

The middle is three children and a husband who disappears for days at a time. No one must know, especially the children. Oh God, not the children. I’m taking accounting classes with mere babies at the junior college. The girls, and there are several girls in my classes, do not wear a smidgen of makeup. The hair at their scalps is thick with grease. I want to march them all to the bathroom and shove a bottle of Preal into their hands. The classes are my secret. I almost always have a headache in the middle.

The end is Depends, horrific food, and the constant drone of my roommate’s television. I’m sickeningly healthy, except for mild incontinence. I fear I will live forever. Only two of my children are alive, which confounds me. I haven’t lived that part of the middle years, and I’m not sure I want to. If I’m lucky, I will die before I have to know what happened to Debbie. A mother isn’t supposed to have favorites, but in my middle life, Debbie is the oops child who can do no wrong. Even her hair behaves. No one speaks of my husband. That doesn’t mean he’s dead, but he is not here, and that is a huge relief. He would not have made a nice old man.

I’ve only met one other person who lives out his life in parallel acts. I suppose being odd...

That House on the Lake

I’m not a song writer, but an article in the November issue of Smithsonian magazine titled, “The Long Way Home” about Rosanne Cash caught my eye.  Rosanne’s father is Johnny Cash and her step-mom is June Carter.  I remember my father’s stories about his family going to the general store on Saturday nights in southern Virginia to hear the Carter Family sing. It’s funny how connected we can feel even generations apart.

I’ve never heard her music, but I was intrigued at how closely her writing process parallels that of novel writing and the stages we move through for art.  She always wanted to write story songs – narratives and ballads like ‘Ode to Billie Joe’ - but didn’t feel it was her strength. Most of her lyrics came from personal introspection which she narrated from her own perspective.  She realized that the questions we ask ourselves change with our time of life. So she took a chance, tapped deeper wells and let someone else tell the story.

One of Rosanne’s new songs was a deeply personal story about her father’s house on the lake in Tennessee.  It was quite different from her other songs, and after singing it live, a man came up to her and confirmed that we all have “that house on the lake.”  She realized that “The more specific you are about places and characters, the more universal the song becomes.” 

I feel this is true because specifics make the story come truly alive for us. Maybe we fill in our own blanks, but we don't connect with vagueness. It just doesn't cut it. Specifics allow us to connect clearly, then take a step back. When we view life through someone else’s lens we have the freedom to process it fearlessly.  Like playing dress-up, we can invest ourselves as far as we want to go, and set the mask aside when we are done.  But we are always changed by the experience.

I encourage you to check out the article here to see the process Rosanne and her co-writers went through from research to finish on one of her narrative songs.  The process for novel writing is much the same, if on a broader scale, but it is so much more challenging to convey one’s story in 54 lines of lyrics. 

The last time my life experience connected 

Too Many Showers and Not Enough Writing

While in the shower I realized my hero committed to jogging daily with her friend, and she never breaks a sweat again in the story. Note to self: Revise jogging scene. Maybe the two girls could go to the bar and tip back some tequila shooters. 

Scratch that. 

Readers will kill me on Amazon. 

Better idea: Have hero come back from the run only to throw up on her friend's shoes. Hence, no more jogging invitations. Besides, jogging is so passe. 

Wait! There are Segways! Modern. Intriguing. No sweating. No throwing up. No struggle. No Segways. 

Rats.

But jogging is a chestnut, no doubt about it. Let's see, the two characters have talked in quite a few situations: over coffee, at a restaurant, while drinking wine, and they've even done some crying in a closet. 

What's left? 

I'm feeling a little sweaty. My heart is bruising my ribs. I have a potassium tablet stuck in my throat. 

Could this be writer's block? 

Is this what happens when one idea is so married to my brain that only a divorce decree can free me?

But I don't believe in writer's block. I'm going to sit here until my characters find something else to do under my brilliant dialogue that represents and precipitates change.

Possible ideas:

1. Dance the polka? (The band is too loud for meaningful dialogue.)

2. Shop for flip flops? (Really? Flip flops are an impulse buy.)

3. Make clover chains in a meadow? (No meadows, sorry.)

4. Trim each other's bangs? (Real friends would never.)

5. Fish from a pier? (Ew.)

6. Paint a room? (The fumes!)

But something has to happen outside of the character's head to bring an outer and inner change. Yes, the dialogue does that, but in the original scene my hero's lack of physicality makes her more open to romance with a man she considers "older."

I'm heading back to the shower. Where else?

Writer's block is a convenient excuse for an art that is incredibly...

Incredibly what? Do you believe in writer's block? How do you combat the beast?

Does This Novel Seem Crowded? A Rerun

[Author note: If you’re a pantser, sit down and make yourself comfortable. I'm hoping to show that some pre-writing activity can save you work later without killing creativity. Honest!]

Character, characters everywhere! But do they have a job to do? That’s a good question to ask. Just like you’re created with a purpose in mind, your characters should be, too.

It’s so easy to overpopulate a story. That’s how I’ve collected so many dynamite deleted scenes. But creating a cache of deleted scenes is not my objective. I need to look at my characters as part of an organic whole, not as detached individuals. Each character should help define the others.

According to John Truby in The Anatomy of Story, we learn the most about our protagonist when we can compare her to the other characters on four different levels: by story function, archetype, theme, and opposition. 

Today, I’m going to talk about the story function of your characters, because this helped me the most with crowd control—and revolutionized the way I think about developing characters.

This is my gift to you after being so snarky about Maass’s chapter, “Standout Characters.” Deepest apologies again, Mr. Maass, sir.

Every novel starts with a premise. The premise is what your story is about in one sentence. For instance, the premise of The Hunger Games (HG) is: In post-apocalyptic America, a teen-aged huntress takes her sister’s place in a last-man-standing battle against representatives of the eleven other districts of Panem.  

Once you know your premise, you create characters. Start with your protagonist or hero. She’s the one with the central problem. (Katniss must take care of her sister.) She’s the one who drives the action in an attempt to solve her problem. (Katniss volunteers to take Prim’s place in the hunger games.) The protagonist drives the action, but she isn't without her weaknesses and needs. (Katniss is a loner, but she must partner with other contestants to survive, knowing she will later need to kill them in order to solve her problem.)

This is where things get interesting. All other characters in your novel will represent an opposition, an alliance with the protagonist, or a combination of the two. Every character has a job to do to tell your story according to the premise.

Antagonist: The antagonist should want the same thing as the protagonist, which will bring them in direct conflict. This doesn't mean they hate each other, necessarily. Think of them as opposition, a less brick-wall kind of word. (Katniss has one big antagonist, the government, plus twenty-three contestants that want to live to take care of their families, so they must kill her.)

Ally: An ally helps the protagonist solve her problem. They listen to the protagonist, giving the reader a chance to hear in the protagonist's own words what she values and wants. Again, their goals are usually the same, but sometimes the ally has her own goal. (In HG, Katniss has an ally in Gale, her hunting partner in District 12. Also, Cinna, her stylist uses his cunning and skill to make Katniss a favorite in the games.)

Fake-Ally Opponent: This is where things get really interesting. This character seems to be on the protagonist’s side, but is really an opponent. This is how twists and turns are added to a story, as well as tension. (Effie Trinket plays this role for Katniss. She’s very proper and gathers a team to help Katniss, but she represents the government, the source of all Katniss’s problems. As the government’s representative, she facilitates the death of at least one, if not both of her charges, Katniss and Peeta.)

Fake-Opponent Ally: These are fun characters to write but not as common in storytelling as the Fake-Ally Opponent, but HG is full of them. This opponent appears to be fighting the protagonist but is actually a friend. (Peeta, of course, is the first of Katniss’s opponents to come to mind, but don’t forget about Rue. The most powerful Fake-Opponent Ally is Haymitch, Katniss’s supposed mentor. He is drunk and useless most of the time, but he sees something in Katniss that makes him believe she is finally the one who can survive. He recruits sponsors and sends supplies at just the right moment.)

Subplot Character: Their role is to give another opportunity to define the protagonist through comparison (they want the same thing or have the same problem but go after the solution differently) and to advance the plot. In HG, Katniss’s mother is a subplot character. She wants the same thing, to take care of Katniss and Prim, but her grief has paralyzed her. In this way we see the heroic side of Katniss. The mother moves the plot along by her passivity. Katniss is all Prim has in her broken world.

HG might not have been the best example because there are lots of characters, but they fit very nicely into their roles. Let’s look at a “smaller” story world to see how this works.  Feel free to disagree with me.

In The Language of Flowers, the premise is that a young woman uses flowers to say the things she cannot say on her quest for love. 

Victoria is our protagonist. Her central problem is that she wants to love and be loved but can’t do either. As a product of the foster system, Victoria has never properly bonded with a caregiver, so she probably suffers from reactive attachment disorder (RAD). She uses the language of flowers she learns from her foster mother to try to make connections. 

Her antagonist is RAD, I think. She sabotages herself in all of her attempts to make meaningful connections. 

The author brilliantly gives Victoria two strong allies, Renata the florist and Grant the flower grower. Renata gives Victoria a job to rescue her from homelessness and allows her room to be ellusive, and Grant is the most patient man in the world, and he loves her, literally and figuratively challenging her flower language. 

Victoria’s false-opponent ally, and this is up for debate, is her caseworker. Name? She comes off as making hurtful decisions for Victoria, but she introduces her to the only mother she will ever know because she understands what Victoria needs. 

The false-ally opponent is her foster mother, Elizabeth. She needs the same thing as Victoria, love, and she gives it freely until what she loves more than Victoria is destroyed. She ends up wounding Victoria worst of all. 

The subplot character is Victoria’s assistant whom she brings in from her old group home. Again, name? She’s there to compare how two foster system kids react to emancipation.

So, there you have it, a purpose-driven approach to populating your novels. Personally, this information has helped me develop a wider variety of characters with greater capacity for conflict and helped me to focus the story on the premise by not adding characters who aren't needed. (This is how adorable yet menacing Fred got booted from Goodness & Mercy.)

I would love to hear what you think of Truby’s story structure approach to populating your stories. Have you tried this approach? What benefits or hindrances did you experience? How do you keep from over-populating your stories? Have you ever asked yourself while reading a novel, "What is this character doing here?" 

Monday at the Movies: NOT a rerun!

Welcome to Monday at the Movies! This is not a rerun but a wonderful interview with two of the most acclaimed YA writers in the world, Katherine Paterson and Kate DiCamillo. (Patti here: I adore them!)

They talk about what a writer is, and it's amusingly honest. You won't hear any must-dos from these ladies. You will hear that writing is hard work. Sorry, no magic pills!

If I were to recommend two books, one from each of these ladies, I would have to suggest The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by DiCamillo and The Day of the Pelican (because you've all read The Bridge to Terebithia, and if you haven't then pity your deprived reader's soul).

Without further ado, here's the interview:

10 Steps to Success as a Novelist--Summer Rerun, sort of

Note: Yep, this is a summer rerun, too, but I've done some tweaking. Are we not all editors at heart?

One perk of being a published writer is gaining credibility whether I deserve it or not. I'm frequently asked to speak to church groups, book clubs, service groups, and writer groups. I love it! I'm a teacher, first and foremost, and a bit of a ham.

I spoke at my first writers conference not long ago. They asked me to speak on what it takes to be successful in publishing. (Don't worry, I'm doing research!) These are my notes on 10 steps to success (I know, there are more than 10. I'll have an addendum in my handout):

1. Determine if you're a dabbler or a writer (This is from Sharon).

A writer will trouble over the perfect word, insist upon writing draft after draft until the manuscript sings, dream about her characters, forget to eat, listen to critique and make changes as needed, and never, never, never give up even in the face of repeated rejection. A dabbler is easily discouraged.

2. Read poetry.

We've all heard to read the best fiction the world has to offer. Let me add poetry to your reading list. No other writing form can train you on the power of word economy. And poetry makes the ordinary extraordinary. I've learned to see my world more fully through a poet's eyes. Above all, a novelist must be an observer. It's the details that bring authenticity to our stories.

3. Care about people.

Be fully engaged with the people around you and take every opportunity to broaden your circle of friends. LISTEN to people. Hear their stories. Become part of their stories. As a novelist, you write about people. And since I believe you have to love your characters--the good, the bad, and the incorrigible--you should practice loving the people around you. The result will be more fully developed characters and a broader variety of personalities.

4. Duct tape yourself to the chair! (From Latayne)

A writer writes purposefully. Some writing teachers will say you have to write every day. That works well for some people. It's impossible for others. I say, find what works for you. Come up with an achievable goal, even if it's a paragraph a day while sitting at soccer practice. And do it. My goal is to write 1,000 words per day. I find that is about my limit for creating slop in one day. Apply duct tape as needed.

5. Learn the publishing biz.

Oh my. The publishing biz is really changing with eReaders and self-publishing and the economy upending the publishing houses. Go to a writers conference and make a gracious pest of yourself by asking every editor and agent what is going on in publishing. Be a student of the industry. Read professional journals like Publisher's Weekly, The Writer, and Writers Digest. There are many more!

6. Don't stagnate.

Take classes. Read books. Grow as a storyteller and write the very best story you can. By the way, this is the strongest element of your marketing plan. 

7. Ask your prospective agent these questions:

• Will you read my story?
• Will you offer editorial comments? (This is becoming more typical as the publishing houses are looking for manuscripts that are ready to go. Also, sadly many publishing houses are letting editors go to save money. And we LOVE our editors!)
• Do you LOVE my story?

8. Fall in love with your craft.

Genius is highly overrated and possibly nonexistent. On the other hand, you can't quench the passion of loving your art. You will do anything to perfect your technique. You will gladly--almost without notice--invest the 10,000 hours it takes to master a skill.

9. Be patient.

It just so happens that all of us are learning this at the moment, and we aren't exactly happy about it. You have to be patient with people who have promised to be beta readers but have gone AWOL, an endorser who eats your manuscript for breakfast, your agent may seem to be sitting on your manuscript, a critique partner keeps rescheduling, and/or agents aren't as much in love with your story as you are...and they're dead wrong. It only took God six days to create the earth, but publishing moves much slower. I hope you're the one exception to this, but that's not what I'm hearing.

10. Define success for yourself

Let me ask you a few questions: Are you a born storyteller? Is entertaining people one of your gift areas? And here's the tough question: Can you be happy with a small audience? Is connecting with your reader the reward you crave, or are you hoping for a rancho in Napa Valley? We hear get-rich stories about big-time writers all the time, but the reality is quite far from that. If you're going to pour your life into a story, you must love what you're doing and define success for yourself. For me, telling a redemptive story that entertains is a huge challenge. The payoff is hearing that people connect with the characters and say that they look at the world and eternity a little bit differently. 

Looking for the Extraodinary

Until I read Elizabeth Berg's novels, I didn't even know I wanted to be a writer.

It was my turn to choose a book for book club. I hadn't been a member of the group for very long. The weight of choosing a book to suit varied tastes made my pits sticky. I wandered around Barnes & Noble for hours reading back copy and first paragraphs, beginning to believe the perfect book didn't exist.

And frankly, I was looking for more than the next book. I was looking for a new direction. We'd read about plague years and dream-seeping violence and horrendous violations. Don't get me wrong, I'm not squeamish when it comes to hard-hitting fiction, but a steady diet of the stuff had left me battered.

And so, the search labored on. My checklist included these requirements: rich language that wasn't syrupy or distracting, a story that valued the small things that tower large in our lives, a story about familiar things portrayed in surprising ways. That's all. Simple. A story that is neither contrived nor soul-crushing.


Why was this so hard?

And then [cue the rapturous music], I picked up Joy School by Elizabeth Berg. My prize! The story is ordinary and extraordinary. Human. Winsome. Transparent. The girl's mother wears Tabu perfume, for heaven's sake.

I read the book quickly and set it down, only to pick it back up again. I read random scenes. Underlined favorite passages. Carried the characters around in my head for days, maybe weeks. Is anyone gagging yet?

I'd read many wonderful books up to this point--classical, popular, and literary. This is the book that made me want to be a writer. But why?

I wanted to spend my days playing with words and writing stories that become friends to the reader. That's my goal, anyway.

BTW, I traveled a thousand miles to attend a writers conference where Ms. Berg was the keynote speaker. I sat in the front row at all her appearances. The poor lady was on the tail end of a long book tour. She looked ragged. Did that keep me from schmoozing my way into a conversation with her? No! Are you kidding? I have the picture to prove it.

Update: It's been awhile since Ms. Berg has hit the high bar she set for herself with the Katie stories (Durable Goods, Joy School, and True to Form, plus What We Keep), but I still credit her for showing me the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Who has done this for you?

Taking the Plunge into Novel Writing

I wrote this post in January 2009..five years ago and five years younger! I used one of my favorite quotes of Flannery O'Connor as a jumping-off point. Let's take the plunge...

People without hope do not write novels. Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I'm always highly irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system. If the novelist is not sustained by a hope of money, then he must be sustained by a hope of salvation, or he simply won't survive the ordeal. --Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners.

This is my favorite quote about novel writing. There's a touch of hyperbole in O'Connor's words (I still have my teeth!) but not much. A story owns the writer, not just for the hours set aside for tapping on computer keys, but while we sort lights from darks and wander down grocery aisles. We forget to eat, and yes, personal hygiene suffers. What's more, to write authentic fiction, we are forced to wrestle with God, dig deeper into what we believe about him and how he interacts with us and the world, and hopefully see him with fresh eyes.

Novel writing is not for the faint of heart!

But a deeper truth in O'Connor's words shakes me: Novelists plunge into reality. In our stories, we can rearrange topography, give an alien extra arms, or allow mythical characters into the landscape, but we cannot, must not, rescue our characters from their fallen natures or transfer them to a fall-less society (La-La Land), or save them from meaningful struggle. They will fail, not in a contrived, acceptable-to-Christian-culture way, but in a way that makes our own skin itch. That's when grace shows up.

Does this mean every novel should portray the underbelly of society?

No, but we disrespect our readers if we mishandle the human condition, both its nobility and frailty. After all, the Bible is wrought with counterexamples. Think of David; he committed adultery and sent the husband to certain death, and yet, he is the apple of God's eye. Peter denied Jesus. Judas betrayed him. Thomas forgot. Even Jesus struggled in the Garden of Gethsemane. The faith life is messy!

Now, it's your turn. Have you read a novel lately where the author plunges into reality and does it well? Tell us about it.

Sorry, Virginia, There's No Such Thing as a Completed Manuscript Either

Bonnie did a great job of popping our bubble about the first draft on Monday here. In short, first drafts are not really first drafts. If we're lucky, they're third drafts. Sometimes, they're 27th drafts.

It's all good.

Now, for the bad news: Even if you don't demonstrate symptoms of OCD in other areas of your life, you will never have a completed/perfect manuscript either.

Take a minute to let that soak in.

It's the truth.

I speak from personal experience. And just to be clear, I am not medicated for obsessive behaviors. I'm a novelist.

So, once the manuscript gets to the point where Bonnie left it--friends are begged to read it--the manuscript will come back marked with circled words, bold question marks, and the abbreviation: awk in the margins.

Back to the drawing board!

Page by page, each suggestion and question is evaluated for verisimilitude. You learn to trust certain readers more than others, and some are gifted at critiquing certain aspect well: dialogue, story structure, or grammar.

Changes are made.

Before I send off a "completed" manuscript to an editor, I pay to have it printed and 3-punched to put in a binder. And then I read it out loud in a southern drawl or a horrible British accent, something that will get me out of my head and paying attention to each and every word.

Lots of slashing at this point. Extraneous words are such slippery devils.

This is the copy I eventually let people I want to respect me read.

Next, my husband talks me out of the tree to push the send button. I hate pushing the send button. I never feel more vulnerable.

This is why deadlines were invented. If we didn't have deadlines, not one novel would sit on the shelf.

With my manuscript on my editor's desk, I begin the next story. I need something to keep my mind from asking, "Was the motivation for the hero strong enough? Was the whole thing with the subplot character too clownish? Did you put your name on the title page, dummy?"

Editors notes come back much too quickly. (Where do these people learn to read like that?) I read the notes with one eye closed. S/he is almost always right, but I would be a fool not to carefully consider all their remarks, especially if they ask, "Did you leave out a chapter?"

OOPS!

Corrections are made--Are we keeping track of how many times we comb through a novel?--and the manuscript is sent off to the publisher again.

The manuscript returns as a galley, a mock-up of the novel. The accompanying letter says that I can only change up to 20%.

I'm up for the challenge.

But I don't take it. Deadline.

I do change more than I thought I would. I add addendums and use Wite-Out when I don't like the changes I made.

I read the novel out loud very slowly, again. I find more words to slash.

Finally, the novel is published. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

But...

At every reading I do for an audience, I revise as I read from the published novel. (I read somewhere that William Faulkner made changes in the margins before going on stage for his readings.)

Time passes.

Several of my novels go out of print (ouch!), so I decide to reissue them as ebooks. I read each aloud for the third, fourth, or fifth times. I can't remember which. I cut out passages that weigh the story like a sinker.

How did those get in there?

And so, Virginia, no novel is perfect. It is only your best effort, and that is magic enough.

It's good magic. Very good.

Monday Movies with Novel Matters

Jodi Picoult is one of the best selling authors today, both in the US and internationally. She's published more than 20 novels, all that deal with cutting-edge topics, and many of which have been best sellers. In this interview, she talks about her characters, her research, and future books she'd like to write. We hope you enjoy.

What did you most get out of this interview that you could apply to your own writing? Do you have a favorite Jodi Picoult novel?

Monday Movies with Novel Matters

Welcome to Monday at the Movies, a monthly event on Novel Matters. The featured author this month is Amy Tan. Since we like concise writing, we also like concise movies. Featured interviews with authors will always be 5 minutes or less but pack a definite punch for developing writers.

Amy Tan is the author of The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter's Daughter, The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life, and two children's cooks, "The Moon Lady" and "Sagwa," which has now been adapted as a PBS production. 

She's a very prolific, talented, and entertaining woman. You'll enjoy hearing from her.

In this interview, Amy talks about writing from personal experience.

                                     

Do you write from personal experience? Do your life experience, ethnicity, or sex influence your story choices? Tell us about the tradition of storytelling in your family. Have you adapted family or personal stories into fiction? Do you have a favorite Amy Tan novel?

Topic of the Week: Crossing the Finish Line

7 Tricks to Meeting Word Count Goals

This guy looks like he's about to puke. Writing a novel (and evidently, running a race) is excruciating work, requiring countless hours of solitude and brain work. Throwing up is the best response to that kind of exertion.

But notice, he is crossing the finish line.

And you can too.

Like this:

1. Set a reasonable but challenging word count for each day. (None of this will work if you don't start here.)

2. Pay someone to call you every day to ask if you've reached your word count for the day. Short on cash? Some will do this for chocolate. I would.

3. Learn to write in noisy places. Take your laptop or your pad of paper to a coffee shop, bingo parlor, or bowling alley (advanced writers only) to develop your focus. Ear buds with soothing music work like a silencer. Use them as you would training wheels.

4. Avoid your email, FaceBook, or any other online time-sucking site until you've reached your word count. Try a week-long break from social media. You'll be shocked by your productivity.

5. Think of your writing space as a bunker. Keep an emergency first aid kit and seven days of nonperishable food items stocked by your desk. Hurricanes are not considered a grace period. Sorry. Don't forget duct tape and a generator. No phone reception, sorry again. Turn off and unplug, people.

6. For the gambler in you: Set up a partnership with someone who is dead serious about reaching their word count each day. Agree on a goal. Let's say you spent too much time oohing and ahhing  over friend's pictures on FaceBook, and you missed your word count. That means you owe your partner, who bypassed all social media, a certain amount of money. I know two writers who pay $125 for each missed day. It doesn't have to be that much, maybe $10. But it has to hurt a little. Ouch!

7. Celebrate each day's accomplishments. Meeting a word count takes brain power, and you did it! Self-care is very important for writers. Be deliberate about meeting with real-life people, the kind you can hug. You'll be renewed for the next day's challenge.

How do you get those words on the page? Anything to add?

Pickwick Comes to Novel Matters

Is it spring yet?

Sadly no, but let's defy the arctic blasts and have some writerly good fun.

After all of our talk about collaboration last week, writing a serial story with our readers seems like the most logical (and entertaining) next step.

This Friday the 31st, you'll find the beginning of the story posted here, and yes, we collaborated. We had a ball.

You have a huge part to play in this. We'll supply the beginning, but we invite you to add each consecutive portion of the story for the following Fridays until, well, the story is finished satisfactorily.

This is how our serial story (yet to be titled) will work:

• We post the beginning of the story this Friday, January 31.
• You jump in with unbridled enthusiasm to write a portion of the story. Please let us know via our contact us button. We'll be waiting!
• We will then assign you a week to write up to 300 words. That's about a page. Your job is to keep the story moving with good tension, interesting twists, and ever-deepening revelations about the characters.
• The next author (and you know you want to play along) starts where the previous author left off. 
• Your installment is due the Wednesday before the Friday it is published.

Things to remember for participants:

• Remain true to the characters. Yes, they should surprise us but in a way that's consistent with who they are.
• Let's practice what we've been preaching about nouns and verbs. Adjectives and adverbs are very welcome to play, in moderation. Lean hard on specific nouns and power verbs. 
• Have fun, fun, fun!
• Invite your authorial friends to join us.

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens enjoyed outrageous popularity when it was serialized, starting in 1836. Authors are still serializing their stories in newspapers, as e-installments, and as e-novels. Let's not miss out on the fun.

We believe we have the most creative and talented readers in the blogosphere. We can wait to see what you have to contribute.