Friday, January 23, 2009

Starting a Book

Yesterday, my free newsletter for writers, Doing It Write, went out. It’s been going out to subscribers around the world for over nine years. Every week. Amazingly, I’ve never missed an issue. In yesterday’s column, I talked about starting a book.

Fiction books seem to start with a character or plot point in the writer’s head. Perhaps a voice that won’t quit yapping at the author until he starts plotting out the book. Or maybe the writer starts writing because a scene plays over and over in her head.

Non-fiction can begin with some of the same “events.” Perhaps a relative seems to be speaking to the writer, telling him to write her story. Or maybe the author reads an intriguing diary. It could be a subject that fascinates the writer.

For me, though, my latest project involved the publisher asking me to write it.

My question to the Doing It Write readers and to all of you stopping by Straight From Hel today is, once you make the decision to write the book, what’s the first step you take? I begin the research, since I’ll be working on the next in a series of TechCareers books.

What do you do first?

22 comments:

  1. My book starts with an idea, then the characters naturally follow, and hopefully a good plot.

    Morgan Mandel
    http://morganmandel.blogspot.com

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  2. Morgan, is the idea usually a vivid scene or is it something big, like the climax or perhaps a confrontation between protagonist and antagonist, or is it something small that defines the main character?

    I guess I'm asking because I often follow that same sequence you describe and the first thing is sometimes just a sentence that a character says in my head. It's something significant that sets up the whole story.

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  3. I get an idea and let it percolate. If I don't already know the characters (I write a series, too) the characters will develop from the percolating process. Once I know the characters, the ending, the beginning, and certain major plot points, I start drafting.

    That's for fiction. I don't write nonfiction books (though I'd like to) but I do technical writing for a living. First thing to do: research. If it's a short document, I then write down the highlights of what I want. If long, I write an outline. Then I write.

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  4. I'm a non-fiction author. I get an idea, I flesh it out and send it to my agent. If she says "yes", then I put an outline together. But not much work till we're both sure it will pay off.

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  5. Hello Doug. When do you have time to write? You maintain a ton of sites. Wow. I bookmarked your garden one (husband loves to garden) and your Alzheimer's one (it runs in my family, too).

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  6. BJ, it's interesting how many writers do both fiction and nonfiction writing. I'm hearing from more and more authors who say they do both. And each one, it seems, requires a different approach.

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  7. I get an idea for a character and a "situation" that creates tension needing resolution. Then I write the first chapter, sometimes maybe three chapters. THEN I decide if I need to put a synopsis plan outline together. If the story is just flowing and unfolding naturally I'll go with the flow - sometimes never stopping for an outline. If NOT, I'll put the outline together and that helps my creative process get triggered with other "situations" and twists that will help it continue to be a good book.

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  8. As a fiction author, stuff always comes to me as very visual vignette scenes; in my mind's eye, I can see the setting, the character, the action. It's like watching a scene from a movie that hasn't been filmed yet. I expand from there, imagining other vignettes and then seeing how they fit together. Sometimes, there are only a small number of scenes, and I know I have a short story. Sometimes, there are many scenes and I know I have something bigger and more involved on my hands. But is always starts as a very cinematic moment in time.

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  9. I very much like BJ's visual of percolating ideas. I used to write down everything that flittered thru my brain, only to have 90% of them wither within five sentences. Now I wait until the idea has bubbled and brewed, and I have to get it to paper before I explode.

    For fiction, I'm working in mysteries, so I like to figure out what crime I'm trying to solve, then work backwards to lay the clues across my intrepid heroine's path. I build a spreadsheet with the basic plot points so I don't assign events to the wrong day, clues to the wrong characters, etc.

    I also write a weekly humor column about my life, which is non-fiction, unless you ask my husband (I still contend exaggeration is not lying). For that writing, I try to figure out what message I want to get across. This is a 500-600 word column, so I don't outline. I've been writing it for 4 years now, and I've developed a sense of when to peak the material, then bring it down to the closing paragraph, which ties into the opening.

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  10. Helen - time to write? It's all about focus and determining what's important. Plus being fairly fast at what I do write. I tend not to waste a lot of time on extraneous tasks to my main core of income-earning or developmental work (that has to turn into income earning or die). I think it has a lot to do with a refusal to be hungry or some such thing. You know, I have to work so I can afford to live in the style to which I'd like to become accustomed. :-)

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  11. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  12. Check http://vivianzabel.blogspot.com for information about an award for your blog.

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  13. With my WIP, I started with the opening hook idea, then the main character, followed by the outline.

    My biggest mistake was putting in too much detail at this stage. I have meandered through the outline adding new bits and dropping others altogether.

    I also made the mistake of thinking of some parts of the outline as scenes when they weren't substantial enough.

    I won’t be making these mistakes again.

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  14. I agree Marvin. If I get stuck at some point, I can stop and do some plotting or mind-mapping and get myself unstuck.

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  15. Phy, while you're visual, I tend to be auditory. I hear the characters talking. I can see some scenes, but they're not as vivid to me as the words.

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  16. Gayle, I'm glad to hear you say how you work in mystery. I know people who say they don't know who the killer is until they write the ending, then they go back and insert the clues. That seems counter-intuitive to me.

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  17. Doug, I totally hear you. If writing doesn't come first, then often it doesn't come at all.

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  18. Sounds like you write best when you have a lot of structure to follow.

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  19. The only book-length manuscripts I've ever written are novels, but the idea for the most recent began with several characters I had in mind.

    I recently had a nonfiction book idea --- a collection of interviews with first novelists --- that grew out of my blog and specifically from my 100-novels reading project.

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  20. I research first, too. For fiction, once I have an idea, I outline and look up facts. Nonfiction I do about the same, though I don't need to outline usually.

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  21. I write a scene to explore the world and the characters that come to me.

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  22. So many wonderful ways. This really is fascinating.

    Personally, after working on this nonfiction series, I think that when I get back to fiction, I will do more upfront research. In the past I've waited until I felt the need to find out more about a particular subject.

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