So you want to write a novel? Here's how!

As an award-winning author of eleven novels and novellas, I often get asked by aspiring writers what books they should read before undertaking their own novel.

There are many books for the different stages of your writing life, but here are few of the top ones I would recommend:

Inspirational books:

On Writing - Stephen King

This is the Story of a Happy Marriage - Ann Patchett
How I Write - Janet Evanovich
Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott

How-To craft books:

classics:

Goal, Motivation and Conflict - Debra Dixon

Save the Cat - Blake Snyder

The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers - Christopher Vogler

also:

How to Write a Damn Good Novel - James N. Frey

Story Genius - Lisa Cron

Outlining Your Novel - K.M. Weiland

Plot & Structure - James Scott Bell

The Author Training Manual - Nina Amir
Romancing the Beat - Gwen Hayes

Steering the Craft - Ursula LeGuin

Writing Down the Bones - Natalie Goldberg
Techniques of the Selling Writer - Dwight Swain
Writing Deep Scenes: Plotting your story through action, emotion, and theme - Martha Alderson and Jordan Rosenfeld

For help polishing your story after it’s written:

Fiction First Aid - Raymond Obstfeld

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers - Renni Brown and Dave King
Writing Active Setting: The Complete How-to Guide - Mary Buckham
The Emotional Thesaurus - Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi

The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know - Shawn Coyne

The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes - Jack Bickham
How to Write Dazzling Dialogue: The Fastest Way to Improve Any Manuscript - James Scott Bell
Writing Subtext: How to craft subtext that develops characters, boosts suspense, and reinforces theme - Elizabeth Lyon

There is an endless supply of books that will teach you how to write, but here’s a secret all authors know:  the best way to learn how to structure a story is to pick up your all-time favorite novel and reread it! What did you love about the story? (Characters? Emotion? The unique setting?) Your own book will need that, too. What kept you reading late into the night? (Plot twists? Non-stop action? A black moment where you thought all was lost for the characters in the book?) Consider including those elements in your own story! 

By perusing your favorite novel with an author’s eye instead of a reader’s eye, you can learn a lot about how to write, simply through osmosis. (And have fun while doing it.) Everyone has a novel inside them, so take a deep breath, sit yourself down at your keyboard, and start writing yours!

And let me know if you have any questions J

Best,

Leigh

www.leighcourt.com

Dealing with Discouragement as a Writer

There’s been a lot of discussion on one of my writing loops this past week about how to deal with discouragement.

If you’re a writer, I think I can safely say that every single one of us has dealt with discouragement at one time or another, caused either by publisher rejection or writer’s block or self-doubt over one’s abilities, or whatever.  But how is this for encouraging?  (I came across this list about six years ago, so many thanks to Dan Poynter’s website for this info; www.parapublishing.com)  The list below is taped it to my computer. It helps me to remember that we all write for the love of writing, not necessarily to make money. Which puts us in some good company:

REJECTED BY PUBLISHERS:

Pearl S. Buck – The Good Earth – 14 times
Norman Mailer – The Naked and the Dead – 12 times
Patrick Dennis- Auntie Mame – 15 times
George Orwell – Animal Farm
Richard Bach – Jonathan Livingston Seagull – 20 times
Joseph Heller - Catch-22 – 22 times
Mary Higgins Clark – first short story – 40 times
Alex Haley – before Roots – 200 rejections
Robert Persig – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – 121 times
John Grisham – A Time to Kill – 15 publishers and 30 agents (he ended up publishing it himself)
Chicken Soup for the Soul – 33 times
Dr. Seuss – 24 times
Louis L’Amour – 200 rejections
Jack London – 600 before his first story
John Creasy – 774 rejections before selling his first story.  He went on to write 564 books, using fourteen names.
Jerzy Kosinski – 13 agents and 14 publishers rejected his best-selling novel when he submitted it under a different name, including Random House, which had originally published it.
Diary of Anne Frank

Stephen King’s first four novels were rejected. This guy from Maine sent in this novel over the transom, said Bill Thompson, his former editor at Doubleday. Mr. Thompson, sensing something there, asked to see subsequent novels, but still rejected the next three. However, King withstood the rejection, and Mr. Thompson finally bought the fifth novel, despite his colleague’s lack of enthusiasm, for $2,500. It was called Carrie.

During his entire lifetime, Herman Melville’s timeless classic, Moby Dick, sold only 3,715 copies.

And who needs to be reminded that J.K. Rowling was on welfare, pitching the last publisher in all of England (after being rejected by all the rest) when she sold the first Harry Potter book?

FAMOUS SELF-PUBLISHED BOOKS:

Remembrance of things Past, by Marcel Proust

Ulysses, by James Joyce

The Adventures of Peter Rabbit, by Beatrix Potter

A Time to Kill, by John Grisham

The Wealthy Barber, by David Chilton

The Bridges of Madison County

What Color is Your Parachute

In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters

The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield

The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. (and his student E. B. White)

The Joy of Cooking

When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple

Life’s Little Instruction Book

Robert’s Rules of Order

OTHER FAMOUS AUTHORS WHO SELF-PUBLISHED

Deepak Chopra

Gertrude Stein

Zane Grey

Upton Sinclair

Carl Sandburg

Ezra Pound

Mark Twain

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Stephen Crane

Bernard Shaw

Anais Nin

Thomas Paine

Virginia Wolff

e.e. Cummings

Edgar Allen Poe

Rudyard Kipling

Henry David Thoreau

Benjamin Franklin

Walt Whitman

Alexandre Dumas

William E.B. DuBois

Beatrix Potter

Bottom line lesson:  hang in there! Calvin Coolidge said “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

A writer writes. It’s what we do. Don’t ever give up that spark of imagination which fires your unique ideas and helps entertain people. Give birth to the stories inside you, and let them come out into the world!

Happy writing!

Jenna

www.jennaives.com