Novel Craft Workshop ~ Plotting: Where to Start

Let's say you've developed your story idea with a theme and story problem. You've decided the details of location and familiarized yourself with your characters. You've done the research. Now you're ready to write your novel. Only one thing holds you back. Where should you start?

Well -- it depends. I know, but let me explain. You see, much of how you will construct your plot depends on the type of novel you want to write. That's why it's important for you as an author to read comparable books. Not only will you then be able to refer to them knowledgeably when drafting your proposal, but you'll pick up certain norms. For instance, a romance novel should introduce the hero in the first chapter. This "rule" alone can help you determine where your story should start.

Generally speaking, start as late as possible in your story. You will most often want to give a glimpse of your main character's normal life, and then introduce the inciting incident (the point where we understand normal is about to change) within the first part of the first chapter. Some people start with the inciting incident and then cover the main character's normal life as back story.

Ask yourself what will work best for your story. Here are some considerations that may help you decide.

• Base your opening scene on your theme and story problem.
• Don't start with excessive description. No matter how wonderfully you can describe a setting, it isn't your main character. 
• Starting with a dream that you present as reality sucker-punches the reader. I won't say never to do this, but it's probably not a good idea in your opening.
• Hook the reader immediately. If you don't, you'll never make it past initial readers at agencies or publishing houses. 
• We hear a lot about starting with "action" nowadays, but what you really want is "tension." You can have all sorts of action without tension that no one cares to read. Start a book with sympathetic conflict and you'll grab your reader.
• Starting too early in the story is the most common mistake writers make.
• Conversely, if you can't seem to get a grip on your story and can't minimize your back story, you may need to back up in the timeline and add a scene or chapter.
• Exceptions exist, but prologues are almost always a mistake.
• Don't jump to back story as soon as you hook the reader. A good rule of thumb is to include no back story in the first chapter. Leave out as much of it as you can. It will work it's way in as you go without your trying.

Action Step

Determine where you will start your novel. Write a sentence or two describing the first scene. If you can't decide, you may want to try out a couple of starting points before committing to one. 

Time to Quit

“Things have fallen so far behind that I see no reason to try to catch up.”

My life sits in that position right now. The things I know I need to do be doing are not enough to produce the results I know I need to get by. Why bother? The more I struggle the more I seem to lose ground. It feels like I am caught in quicksand and it slowly eats away my passion, my purpose and my life.

Bible study has taken center stage in my marriage lately, and this afternoon my husband read from the Psalms. It reminded me that I am not the first to hit a wall and think about quitting.

Reasons NOT to Quit

1. Things may be tough, but at least I am not hiding out in caves. David was told that he would be king, and even though he served Saul faithfully, Saul still hunted David like a dog.


2. Money might be tight, but at least I am not about to make a cake to eat with my son before we die. Elijah approached the widow in just such a financial condition, but she discovered that no matter how little it makes sense in the world standards, God’s provision is faithful.


3. The time may not be now, but at least I am not building a boat for 126 years. Noah built a massive boat, far away from water, constantly barraged by the taunts of the town and the persistence saved him and his family and provided hope to generations to come.


4. It may seem hard on me to get through the day, but at least I have not been ship wrecked, stoned and thrown in to jail – multiple times. Paul endured and still found contentment.

Life does not always go the way I write down on my to-do list. Things can get hard. Times get tough. Forward momentum disappears.

Do I ever have a reason to quit? That would be a huge yes. There will always be a reason to stop pursing my writing. The excuses not to submit the article, complete the novel or fulfill the possibility will overload and overwhelm me at times. I can always find an explanation that will justify the right time to quit.

The time to quit is now, but the faith driven desire to push forward overpowers that statement. That same faith that empowered David to let Saul live when Saul forced him into caves, that allowed the widow to feed her last meal to a prophet, that gave Noah the strength to lift the next beam and that put a song in the heart of Paul – it is that faith that gets me through.

How do you survive your tough times?

Blessings all around

Over the last few months, I have been taking you through some of the salient points in my workshop/retreat, “Turn your Gravel Pit into a Beautiful Garden”. In this Thanksgiving season I would like to take a time out from that series and share a piece I wrote when journaling through the grieving period after the death of my husband entitled “Little Blessings All Over”. I have edited it to fit here.

“Every day blessings are showered on us like silent snowflakes that tumble from the sky to lie shimmering and glittering like tiny diamonds in the winter sun. I have been touched by the quiet serenity of an earth blanketed in mounds and mounds of downy snow when even nature holds its breath and is silenced by its beauty. I have marveled at a night time sky full of stars so brilliant it seems I could reach out my hand and touch them. And I remember the deep, quiet peace I have felt when looking at a countryside bathed by the light of a full moon.

And yet, snow is only frozen water, and the sun, moon and stars are nothing more than hardened, desolate, uninhabitable rocks and dangerous gasses. What is it that transforms these unattractive objects into things of beauty? And what happens to change our everyday mundane events into miracles or blessings?

When I allow my mind to become quiet and remain still long enough, I not only see the beauty of our world and universe, but experience it on a deep, penetrating, healing level. How often we miss these timeless acts of God that occur every day. The mystery of life is constantly unfolding around us from the green shoot pushing up through the dirt to the developing web of tiny spiders. Do we ever consider what the world would be like without these ongoing miracles of life?

I am humbled by the power of God as I witness storms that lash out with gale force winds. Perhaps you are as well. But do we ever consider storms blessings? Yet, it is through storms that the earth is swept clean. If we stop to observe the awesome power and majesty of God in nature, is it not just one step further to recognize that same awesome power of God in our lives? And aren’t the storms in our lives sweeping our lives clean and bringing about needed change? Isn’t that a part of the personal blessings He showers on us? Often we are so sidetracked by the storm that we don’t see the blessings that follow.

Perhaps if we slowed down - just a little - we might recognize our problems as blessings. We won’t see anything at first, but with patience, it becomes so obvious you will marvel that you never saw them before. Suddenly, we can see God’s blessings in the love of our spouses, a kind word in the middle of a loss, a baby’s dependence, a child’s exuberant squeal of joy, or an older person’s quiet words of wisdom. The people around you, your children, your spouses, and your world will never be the same again as you are blessed by God through them.

©2020 Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

Novel Craft Workshop ~ Plotting: Map Your Route

To find your way on a road trip, it helps to consult a map, GPS or Internet mapping service. While pointing the nose of your car down the road without any idea where you’ll end up can provide adventure, if you really want and need to arrive somewhere quickly, your best bet is to map out the route you will take.

Think of your book’s plot as a map you will follow, at least as a guide. Writers tend to debate whether to plot in advance or to spontaneously write and see where a story goes. After much pondering and listening to other writers describe their processes, I’ve come to the conclusion that there aren’t two camps at all. I think people who write “by the seat of their pants” actually write elaborate outlines they then revise. People who write sketchier outlines often call themselves “plotters.” 

Writers aren’t so different from travelers. While some people might route a journey along main highways, more adventurous types will pursue a course across a series of squiggly lines. In an ideal world, they’ll all wind up at their destinations. People who outline an efficient route in advance tend to arrive sooner, while others who ”let the road lead them” often experience more adventure on the way. That’s true of book journeys also.

Plotting a book in advance, if done well, will actually free your creativity, rather than stymie it as some complain. A plot, just like a road map, will suggest a route but, if (when?) you come across a road block, you can always consult your “map” for a way around it. Flexibility helps with plotting a novel just as much as it does with mapping a trip.

I’ve developed a unique method of plotting. Come back next week for the first installment.
©2010 Janalyn Voigt

So, tell me about your writing process.

The Pursuit of Greatness

“If the ax is dull and its edge unsharpened, more strength is needed but skill will bring success.” – Ecclesiastes 10:10

I am the greatest writer in the world! Okay, that might be true if the world was limited to the circumference of my own writing table. But isn’t that what everyone wants to become—great?

I’ve spent years hearing the positive, reaffirming words that “anyone can be great.” And, for the most part, those who speak such things have at their heart a desire to encourage and uplift. But is the message accurate? Is “greatness” truly the aspiration that I need to have for life? I wonder.

The problem with the pursuit of greatness is that “greatness” is such a subjective ideal. What is great to one person might be mediocre to another. Is a great politician one who accomplishes a plethora of activities or one who upholds a singular priority until it is achieved? Is a pastor great because he has thousands that attend each Sunday or because he stands firm no matter who comes? Is a writer great for having a bestseller or for holding onto integrity?

And what about the people around you? When you pursue greatness, life becomes self-interested. The pursuit of greatness puts you in a position where you want to impress rather than inspire, where your actions are set for the elevation of personal ambitions rather than the betterment of others. Remember: “Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be the first must be your slave” (Matthew 20:26-27).

Let me encourage you, instead, to pursue excellence. Where the pursuit of greatness is subjective, the pursuit of excellence can be had in all aspects of life. Excellence does not require that others even notice for the pursuit of excellence has but one audience—the Lord God Almighty.

Even as the Scripture says, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). Or again, “If a man cleanses himself from the latter [ignoble purposes], he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work” (2 Timothy 2:21).

I may not be the greatest writer in the world, but I can become an excellent writer. I have to trust, then, that as I excel, the road before me will be established by God.

©2010
Rev. Michael Duncan

DC #10 - Our Frames of Reference

Imagine you have taken your camera on a wildlife safari. Friends of mine have just returned from such an adventure. As you see a pride of lions in the distance you adjust your telephoto lens to focus on the group – then adjust it a little further for a close up of the lioness with her cubs. The telephoto lens allows us to take pictures of things we can’t get physically close to. But it is the wide angle lens that helps capture the enormity of the Serengeti – the vast plains of Africa – the vast world of our lives.

We look through an internal lens at the world and ourselves. Just as a camera lens can focus on things in the distance while excluding everything else, we often use our internal camera lens to focus only on the negative parts of who we are, our worth and the world around us. When we only use our telephoto lens, we miss the positives – the other things in life that capture a broader picture. While our telephoto lens can help give clarity to a problem, the wide angle lens allows us to put it in perspective.

We need both lenses. As we narrow our focus, our frames of reference become small and restrictive. The frames of reference we put around life and our potential is created by everything we have experienced in life. It is the result of our genes, personality traits, our life experiences and how we have constructed meaning from all of it. Within our frame of reference is everything we believe in and value. They include our labels, filters, internal dialogue, tapes and self-talk, fixed beliefs and life scripts. We can choose to focus on one little aspect of it or see a broader picture. Both are important.

Frames of reference:

• Motivate and guide our thinking, our emotional responses and our behavior


• Formulate our opinions, biases, expectations, assumptions and perceptions


• It is how we make judgments, create meaning and make sense of our world


• It is our emotional responses to our past and all we have experienced


• Our frames of reference color and shape our realities


• We can change our frames of reference by adjusting our internal camera.
  
  If our frame of reference is small, our lives will be restrictive, limiting, negative and inflexible. When we enlarge our frames of reference, we can explore healthy options and opportunities.
  
  As you adjust the lens on your camera of life, allow yourself to telescope inward for some reflection, but then return to your wide angle lens to put it in perspective. If you lens is always focusing on your faults, etc, then you will miss all the wonderful aspects of who you are – aspects that God uses to share His love with others.
  
  ©2010 Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

Author Haven Follower Highlight on Sheila Deeth: Changing the World One Child at a Time

What if Christmas could fill the whole Bible and last for the whole of December? That’s what my advent book tries to offer. It's hard to believe I first published it two years ago. 


This will be my third year running a stall at our local Christmas bazaar. A friend loaned me a box of myrrh the first year and another let me borrow her Christmas tablecloth--I only had two books for sale back then, so I really needed the extras to attract customers. I invited passers-by to "Guess what this is," “Look inside,” “Guess who,” “Guess why,” and “Remember Christmas doesn’t end as soon as the presents are opened.” 


One girl spent quite a while looking at my pictures and stories, then turned to the back of the book for the scripture references. She bought a copy and made my day with her smile. I like to think of her opening her Bible each day in December, maybe reading, maybe wondering, maybe checking with her Mom and Dad as they try a little bit harder to find out what it really says...

I don't suppose I changed very much of the world, but I hope my book might have changed that little girl's life, and even her family's. And if it did, that's more than enough as I prepare for the next bazaar.

Learn More About Sheila's Books.
Sheila's Web sites: Inspired by Fath and Science, or Sheila Deeth.

DC#9 - Where is your Locus of Control?

Remember as a kid, floating toy boats in a stream or river? Perhaps you placed a piece of bark or small twig in the water and watched as it floated away. If the current was strong, it might stay in the middle of the stream long enough to float out of sight. But usually, obstacles in the water would catch it and your “imaginary” boat would end up snagged by tree limbs or rocks that would prevent it from going anywhere. Sometimes the current simply steered it into the shoals where it remained beached. But if your toy boat had a tiny receiver inside and you held a remote control, you could guide your boat away from the obstacles and keep it moving in the direction you wanted it to go.

In psychology “speak”, we call who or what is responsible for what happens in your life your locus of control. Using the above analogy, that tiny boat is you. Who is guiding it? Are you a ship without a rudder just floating along without a direction, at the mercy of water currents, wind, or stagnate backwaters? Or are you at the helm guiding and directing it?

Translated into everyday language, if you believe that outside events, people, your childhood, whatever, has been and is responsible for what happens in your life, then you have an external locus of control. You are not responsible for what happens to you; you are a victim. You do not have to plan, or make tough decisions, because you already “know” it is a waste of time. You can point to all the times when you have tried and nothing worked. So you quickly give up.

On the other hand, if you operate from an internal locus of control, you know that if you want to go somewhere, you will need to take charge of your life and be responsible for your responses, decisions and mistakes. You don’t assign blame, but you don’t beat yourself up either. You know there will be times when storms alter your course. But you are prepared to take back the helm as soon as possible.

Your internal dialogue and self talk will reflect whether you have an internal or external locus of control. What are you saying to yourself? “I am making choices and following through; I don’t have to remain a victim of my past; I can try once more; I will look more carefully at my options to find solutions; or does it sound like this: “I grew up poor; I don’t have the money or education; I didn’t have the advantages other people have; I have tried and I always fail; my dad said I wouldn’t ever amount to much, and I guess he was right; I can’t do this, because…..”

When you are at the helm steering your life, your decisions are based on accurate information and facts versus past experiences or negative feelings. And as a believer you know you are not alone. When big ships have to navigate down rivers to reach their final destination, a River Pilot boards the ship and takes over the controls. While God teaches us how to be captains of our ships, He is the River Pilot who helps you steer in unknown territory and unfamiliar waters. Become the captain of your ship knowing that God is there all the time overseeing, correcting, assisting and guiding you in the direction you are to go.

©2010 Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

Novel Craft Workshop: Create a Research Master Plan

When it comes to research, writers tend to polarize. Some meticulous souls all but camp in libraries while others grab information from the Internet in quick-and-dirty spurts. I fall somewhere in between with a bent toward library haunting. Knowing your research style helps you decide what to write. Research requires commitment. It’s good to count the cost before you announce your project to the world. Having said that, you never fully know what you will find when you delve into research. Of course, that’s what I love about it. You’ll want to cushion your research master plan to allow for the unexpected. 

What’s a Research Master Plan? It’s a map through a labyrinth of information that will help you find your way through your subject. I use mine to break down the studying I need to do into manageable chunks. This helps me plan my time better and helps keep me on track.

Putting together a Research Master Plan is simple. Once you decide your domains, prioritize them. I suggest you assign letters of the alphabet to your domains. Use “A” to designate primary domains, “B” for the next most important, and “C” for lesser domains. Then number your segmented domains (for example: A1, B3, C10, etc.).  When doing this, I usually work inward from broader subjects. For instance, I would study the overview domain “the Old West” before narrowing my focus to categories like clothing, food and livestock care. Doing this saves me time because I may find questions about lesser categories answered adequately within my overview studies without my having to hunt-and-peck for them.

Once you’ve assigned priority values, you can schedule your research time to cover your domains in order of descending importance. In the event you run out of time for research and have to grab information from the Internet as you write, you’ll be left with less important information to gather on the fly.

Now add in your projected sources of information. For more on that, read Locate Research Information. Put out of your head any notion that you need to read every last thing ever written on your subjects. Your story should determine how in-depth you’ll go. For a book set in a specific location that focuses on local concerns, you might need to read just one good overview of your time period and location followed by in-depth information aplenty. For a sweeping saga with multiple locations, you’ll need to gather a great deal of overview information and maybe less local specifics.

Action Steps

Assign both a letter and number to each of your domains. Now, determine how much of each type of research you will consult. Once you’ve done this, fill in the specific books, articles and other resources you will draw from for each category. Keep this information in your research binder and/or online. I prefer the simplicity and ease of a paper list.

Now you are ready to schedule your research! You can either schedule specific domain research by day and date or use a To Do List and check items off as you complete them. I personally find a To Do List more flexible since I find it hard to predict how much time I’ll spend per category, but do what works for you.

©2010 Janalyn Voigt

Do you have tips on organizing for research? I’d love to hear them.

Follower of Author Haven: Our New Feature is All About You!

Dear Author Haven Follower:


We want the world to know how much we appreciate you! On a regular basis Author Haven will run posts that highlight you, our cherished reader. Let us know how you're changing the world around you, in ways big and small. Please be brief and remember to include relevant links and a good-quality picture of yourself. If we select your submission we'll feature you on Author Haven (a great opportunity to get the word out about yourself and your writing). 


Send your submission to Janalyn Voigt.

Inspiration and Opportunity

Inspiration doesn’t last forever—in fact, it doesn’t last long at all.

You have to do something with it. You have to turn your inspiration into substance and that only comes through effort.

Thomas Edison once said, “Invention is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” This is quite true for the writer. The inspiration that all writers experience when a new thought, a plot twist or a significant character begins to find his shape is so stimulating that it might encourage even the most novice writer to spend an hour at the computer.

It is after that moment of inspiration that the work really begins. Stick to the task and press through all of the excuses why you can’t go farther. Joseph was inspired by God through powerful visions, but he needed to keep serving the Lord even when all seemed lost.

Today, in our modern, almost bohemian culture of entitlements and passivity, the idea of work has become a ‘four-letter word’. But nothing is achieved without effort. Your inspiration must become perspiration as you strive to achieve the writing that God has put before you.

Your opportunity is only as good as your determination.

The great struggle in most people’s life is not against opposition but apathy. The challenge is to stand and embrace the moment, to face forward in life and do the most with the opportunities that lay before you. The problem is that it takes courage to do so.

Joshua was given the opportunity to lead God’s people to the Promised Land, but he needed to be “strong and courageous” to do so. David had the opportunity to take down one of Israel’s greatest foes, but he needed to determine to throw that stone. Jesus had the opportunity to save the world from sin but even He needed to wrestle down the moment in the Garden of Gethsemane and determine to go to the cross.

So, what opportunities lay in front of you? Is there something waiting for you to make up your mind and set your heart? Determine to do it—don’t wait. If you let apathy and indifference steal the moment, you may not get it back.

There are opportunities sitting before you—opportunities that wait upon your determination. So, what are you waiting for?

“This is why it is said, ‘Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.’ Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” – Ephesians 5:14-16

©2010
Rev. Michael Duncan

DC#8 - What do you say to yourself?

What do you say to yourself when things get tough? Is it “I can do it” or “oh, no, here I go again.” What you say to yourself on a daily basis can make the difference between living a joyous, happy and successful life and one that is always seeing the negative.

Remember those filters? When you have negative beliefs in place, your filtering system will screen out anything that is positive. It becomes a well-rehearsed habit; a tape that continues to supply you with a readymade answer from the past that says, “I can’t, even if I try; I will never be able to make it; I just know I am going to fail – again.” Your filtering system looks for all the reasons that will support your self-talk, from unsuccessful attempts in the past to old reminders from your childhood. We not only rehearse and continually replay the messages that are recorded there, but continue to add to them. And they negatively influence everything we do.

We are not a prisoner to our past; we can change our internal messaging and we can stop the recorder that keeps telling us we can’t or we are no good and never will be. We all struggle with doubts. And that struggle is good if we balance the input.

So, what can you do to offset or overcome negative messages and feelings?

· First, become aware of what you are saying to yourself. Carry a notebook and jot down thoughts that pop into your head along with their accompanying emotional responses. Remember, most of the time we are not even aware of our self talk.

· Challenge those negative thoughts. Ask yourself, what evidence do I have that this is true? Who says I can’t? Are they messages from my past? Who says I will fail if I try once more? Who says I am no good when God loves and accepts me.

· Replace with positive thinking, God’s promises and affirmations. As Paul says in Hebrews 2, God made us not quite as high as angels, and then put us in charge of His entire world. How do you see His world? How do you see your potential? Ask God for strength as you challenge your negative self talk.

· It’s okay to feel anxiety and fear. But it needs to be balanced with possibility, hope and a “yes I can” attitude.

· Old habits die hard. Your old filtering system will fight back. Take charge of it. See yourself pushing the STOP button on your tape recorder. Tell yourself you will no longer listen to its negative messages; they have outlived their usefulness.

If God is for you, who can be against you? It is often our own past that we keep dragging around with us. Maybe it’s time to challenge and let go of it.

©2010 Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

Novel Craft Workshop ~ Research: Determine Your Resources

With a cornicopia of information available to you, it's tough to know where to dig in for your research. Let's take a closer look. When you think about it, resources really only fall into three different categories:

1. Written information like books, articles, newspaper archives and online information.
2. Audio and/or Visual information, including recordings, videos, pictures and maps.
3. In-person encounters with eyewitnesses, museum curators, historians and experts.  This category includes your own in-person research trips.

The nature of your project will help you determine how heavily to rely upon any of these resources. For a book that recounts the lore of coastal Indians, as an example, the third category of information might play a greater part in research than the first. I based my novel, DawnSinger, on 13^th-Century Europe.  Because DawnSinger is a work of fantasy, I had a little leeway. While, I used both the first and second categories of research, I didn’t need the in-depth information in-person encounters with historians would have given me.

Once you establish the kinds of information to glean, let the relevance of each domain tell you how much focus to give it. For domains where you just need an overview, find information that distills the facts for you. Don’t overdo it. Most people over-research. As with anything in life, balance is key. Remember you can always add more research if (or “when”) you find something you missed.

Action Step

Put a binder together with tabs for each domain. Note the types of resources you intend to tap for each domain.