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... sts, and an extraordinary plot and well-synchronized subplots moving upward in a well organized pyramid structure. Congratulations! You now have seventy percent of the elusive good novel writing mystery solved.
But remember that the fiction book industry itself is also a giant pyramid, and only the top three percent of the damned hard-working authors at the apex of the writing matrix make the big bucks. To enter into their eminent 3 % domain you have to be better than the 97 % of wanna bes in the base of overcrowded writers pyramid. This is where diligence in pursuing excellence must be honored and implemented. Setting is another crucial element of novel writing that novice writers take for granted.
My editors at the literary agency kept reminding me, Everything that is said, all dialogue, must have a definite time and place where the characters are exchanging conversation. You cant state something like Tom Smith once told Bob Jones that Jones was incompetent. When did Tom say that? What year and date was it? Where were Tom and Bob when the comment was made?
It is the authors responsibility to extend the courtesy of time and place setting to the reader in everything that is alluded to in both real time and in flashbacks, and do yourself a a mighty big favor by leaving foreshadowing to the motion picture industry. Another must in good novel development is balance between dialogue and narrative. If you insert too much dialogue, youve written a script for a movie or a screenplay; too much description and your sci-fi narrative then reads like a non-fiction book. Mingled into the delicate mix of dialogue and narrative are such significant elements as theme, suspense, drama, authors writing style, writing voice, tone, conflict, setting, action, adventure, plots, subplots, grammar skills, creativity and character definition. If the author can weave all of these intangibles into a viable series of chapters of seventy-five to one hundred fifty thousand words, then he (or she) has advanced from being a writer of manuscripts and stories to a novel author. Above all else, the concept of show and tell is not limited to elementary schools.
It is also vital to authors of novels. The author objectively tells the story but the characters conversations and actions show the story. Show is better than tell. And a good novelist knows the difference between active and passive voice and prefers the former to the latter. Generally, stories come across as more believable when written in the first person. The authors big problem then becomes how not to overtax the reader with the repetition of the pronoun, I.
Most novels are written in the third person but I have written two in the first with the main character recalling the story as a testament of what had truly occurred. Good fiction must always read as if it were good non-fiction. Presenting a novel in the third person (speaking about the characters) gives the author a choice. The narrator (author) telling the story can objectively advance the tale as the detached presenter revealing events either in chronological order or arranging episodes accompanied by flashbacks and / or foreshadowing. Flashbacks are more desirable (remember to include setting) because they promote show, where foreshadowing tends to orchestrate tell and leans one in the direction of author interference.
This next part is rather tricky. The third person method of writing could also utilize the omniscient narrator technique. The storyteller knows all about the characters, even some things the characters dont know about themselves. You cant be both the objective narrator and the omniscient narrator. You have to choose one or the other and stick with that approach throughout the novel. The omniscient narrator method points the author in the direction of author interference, which is literary quicksand that must be avoided at all costs.
Author interference is something that all good writers can recognize and sidestep. Stay the hell out of the story you are telling. Allow one of the characters to possess your attitudes and opinions if you feel they must be expressed, but by all means, dont editorialize. You are writing a novel and not an essay or an opinion column for the local newspaper. And by all means, dont be preachy in your narrative that appears in between character dialogue, and if one of your characters has your attitudes and opinions, make sure that he or she is not too preachy, too! Give some credit to your readers.
They have minds of their own, and they are hypothesizing, evaluating and deducting conclusions as your story progresses. You dont have to tell them everything and every little detail. Leave some things open for their imaginations to ponder. Dont over-describe and overwrite, although this suggestion is easy to give but hard to employ. Your reader will respect you and your story if you reasonably stay within these guidelines. Finally, this is the hardest part of all.
Once you have finished writing your masterpiece, do not run to the post office and send it off to a publisher. Remove yourself (your emotions and your heart) from your work for at least one month. Distance yourself from your marvelous product. Harness your wonderful enthusiasm about your great contribution to literature. Writing is an art, and thats where the talent part is exhibited. Patience and prudence are part of being talented.
At last you are en route. You are now seriously involved in making writing a science. And only when there is a true marriage between art and science that your work is ready for public presentation (if you want to distinguish yourself from the 97 % of the writers that are crabs in a bushel, crawling over each other trying to get out of their mediocre enclosure). Put your manuscript on your closet shelf. After a full month, take it down and read it from stem to stern. Now you are better able to evaluate your work, your errors, and your departures from good novel writing methods that should stick out like ugly thorns throughout your work.
You can now be more objective in doing your final revision, which should be a new vision of your work as you steer it toward perfection and bring your ship into port. After that is accomplished, it is finally time to launch your masterpiece into the literary universe. Jay Dubya: Author of 25 Books John Wiessner
Free research essays on topics related to: omniscient narrator, dialogue, narrative, time and place, third person
Research essay sample on Time And Place Omniscient Narrator
