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Excerpt - THE SUCCESSFUL NOVELIST: A LIFETIME OF LESSONS ABOUT WRITING & PUBLISHING by David Morrell |
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 LESSON ONE: WHY DO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER?
When I teach at writers’ conferences, I always begin by asking my students, “Why on earth would you want to be writers?” They chuckle, assuming that I’ve made a joke. But my question is deadly sober. Writing is so difficult, requiring such discipline, that I’m amazed when someone wants to give it a try. If a student is serious about it, if that person intends to make a living at it, the commitment of time and energy is considerable. It’s one of the most solitary professions. It’s one of the few in which you can work on something for a year (a novel, say), with no certainty that your efforts will be accepted or that you’ll get paid. On every page, confidence fights with self-doubt. Every sentence is an act of faith. Why would anybody want to do it? |
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A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO GETTING PUBLISHED by Jeff Kleinman |
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STEP #1: Write Your Project & Develop Your Credentials.
 Seems like two steps, doesn’t it? It’s not – or at least it may not be. You need to write (or perhaps just develop) the project, and at the same time, you need to make it clear (first to yourself; and then to others) that you’re the best person to be writing it in the first place.
This means having the writing “muscles” to do the job, as well as having the expertise to prove it.
Step #1A: Write The Project • Fiction: write the entire book (most novels are generally between 90K-120K words), rewrite as necessary.
• Nonfiction: Write a proposal (outline + a sample chapter or two), rewrite as necessary.
Step #1B: Develop Your Credentials
• Fiction: Publish! Win awards, grants. Try to give the appearance of a writer whose career is really taking off. |
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Maybe You're Already A Writer By Lee Child |
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Mystery novels, crime novels, suspense novels, detective novels, label them as you wish - but they all need characters, and characters need occupations. Plots need context, and details need authenticity. Read widely and you’ll see how today’s writers meet these needs by drawing on their own previous professional experiences. But what mechanism is in use? I think you’ll see that the process breaks down into three categories: direct, indirect, and contextual. A direct influence is pretty straightforward: a real-life surgeon might write a mystery with a fictional surgeon as the main character; or a psychiatrist might write about a psychiatrist; or a lawyer might (and indeed they have, in their hundreds) write about a lawyer. Indirect influence is similar: an ER nurse might write about a trauma surgeon by drawing on direct observation and stepping up a rung or two; a civilian employee of a police department might write about a beat cop; a beat cop might write about a detective lieutenant. A detective lieutenant might write about a CIA operative. Indirect influence tends to be upward and lateral in focus. |
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