Happy New Year! Welcome to 2016, and may it be your best year yet.
It’s almost cliché to open January with a “let’s come up with resolutions that we can ignore at the first sign of trouble” topic. Instead, I thought it would be a better idea to focus this month on ways you can actually achieve those writing goals of yours.
We’ll have a wide range of items to help you make January a success. Articles include:
Software to help your productivity.
Personal methods working authors employ to get their projects completed.
Motivation and tips for those days when your muse was out getting hammered at the local watering hole last night.
Setting and reaching reasonable and achievable goals.
Suggested non-fiction books (and reviews) that are worth your time.
Tips for plotting your next book, and tips for winging it.
…and plenty more!
Guests this month include Petra Klarbrunn, Stant Litore, and Annik Valkanberg.
In 2016 the Fictorians will debut a monthly author interview series. The project will debut on January 29th, the last weekday of the month. You can expect a new interview monthly.
Tune in every weekday for a new article focusing on the writing lifestyle. Let’s go!
In October 2014, I signed a contract with Red Adept Publishing for my debut novel, Sleeper Protocol. From February of this year until September, the publisher’s amazing editing team worked with me through six content edit passes and four copy-editing passes. I could say, without lying, that I learned to love the editing process because of the awesome team I had in place. But what I learned this year to improve my craft was that sometimes you have to let go.
You see, Sleeper Protocol went through it’s early stages several years ago as a short story and then novella entitled “Walkabout.” Every time I worked on the basic idea, there was so much more to tell. I fell deeper and deeper in love with the story as I wrote. Strong feelings during the writing process are good because they take us deeper into the scenes, the motivations, and the surroundings of our story. When I made a sweeping change to the story and “appointed” a new antagonist, the book took off. When I submitted the manuscript to Red Adept, I was understandably nervous but I believed that the book’s title, first line, and entire plot would get the publishers attention.
I was right – but one out of three ain’t bad.
In one of the very first conversations I had with my publisher, the working title of Walkabout had to go. There were too many other books out there with the same title or a variation thereof and finding it could present a problem to prospective readers. To my surprise, this wasn’t that difficult to swallow, except that I spent about two weeks trying to use Walkabout in every possible title combination. Nothing worked. I decided to put off searching for a title until the content edits were completed. I spent weeks brainstorming a new title only to find that my publisher and I both came up with the same possible title, and Sleeper Protocol was officially born.
During the editing process, though, I learned the biggest lesson of all. We’re told to put everything we have into the hook. The right voice, descriptions, and purposeful prose will bring the reader in, right? I created what I thought was a great first line only to have my editor immediately tell me it had to go. There was a POV inconsistency in it and it led the reader in the wrong direction – but in my mind it was perfect!
And there was no point arguing about it. My content editor was exactly right. We made the change and re-tooled the first few lines and made the opening stronger. When the very first line gets the ire of your editor, it’s easy to think that the rest of process will be horrible. To the contrary, it gave me a tremendous boost of confidence that she loved the book enough to say “Hey Kevin, let’s do this differently.”
The lesson: don’t hold on too tight. Yes, the story is your baby and you’re understandably anxious about the whole process, but when your team says “consider this” you have to listen. I am glad that I learned to do just that, and I think that the novel is so much stronger than when I submitted it eighteen months ago. Hopefully, you’ll help be the judge of that.
Sleeper Protocol releases in ebook formats on January 5, 2016 with print versions to follow. You can find more information on my website www.kevinikenberry.com. Happy New Year, and I wish that 2016 be a great year for your writing!
About the Author: Kevin Ikenberry
Kevin ikenberry’s head has been in the clouds since he was old enough to read. Ask him and he’ll tell you that he still wants to be an astronaut. Kevin has a diverse background in space science education and works with space every day.
Kevin’s science fiction and horror short fiction has appeared internationally, most recently in the anthologies Extreme Planets and Pernicious Invaders. His debut novel, Sleeper Protocol, is due in January 2016 from Red Adept Publishing.
Kevin is a member of Fiction Foundry, Pikes Peak Writers, and is an alumna of the Superstars Writing Seminar.
Nearly three years ago, I attended Superstars Writing Seminar in Colorado Springs. I had been writing for about a year and was excited to learn how to become a published author.
It soon became apparent that I was ahead of my time in attending. Not that it didn’t totally propel my development as a writer, but one fact kept slapping me in the face—I had never finished a book. I had started several, they had great ideas, great premises; yet I hadn’t finished any of them. I would write a few chapters, get stuck, and abandon the piece indefinitely.
Several in the group claimed to have written terrible novels of which they were too ashamed to let see the light of day. But they had finished them all the same. I envied them.
I left Superstars with the resolve that I needed to finish something, anything, regardless of skill or quality.
Well, three years later, I’ve thrown out hundreds of thousands of words. I almost finished a novel about a year ago and almost completed it, solely out of principle, to be able to claim that I had finished a novel. But after taking a writing seminar from David Farland, I knew it was garbage. I abandoned the 90% finished work for a new project.
This year I did a lot of things and learned a lot of things that have helped my writing. Each of these has a synergistic effect on my writing. First, I took another class from David Farland (this time online). I set monthly goals. Some of these goals required me to submit my short stories for publication. I hired an editor to perfect a couple short stories, and learned from this experience a great deal about self-editing. The culmination of these led to the completion of a novel. I completed a novel.
In February, I’m returning to Superstars, this time having completed a novel. Also, from my goals and endeavors, I am now a published writer. I had no less than three of my short pieces published (one in a paying market). I received my first rejection letter from Writers of the Future. And this year was my first to participate in NaNoWriMo. I wrote about 42,000 words (8k shy of winning).
These are exciting accomplishments, but the grandest of all, the one that will make me a successful writer one day, is the accomplishment of not giving up. I’m still writing.
I’m planning on taking another David Farland class or two, attending Superstars, winning NaNoWriMo, and writing throughout the year, finishing at least one other novel. I’ll submit each quarter to Writers of the Future. And I’m looking for an agent for my finished novel (despite being my first, it’s actually pretty good).
I live in Arizona with my family, wife and five kids and a little dog. I write fiction, thrillers and soft sci-fi with a little short horror on the side. I’ve got an MBA and work in finance for a biotechnology firm.
I volunteer with the Boy Scouts, play and write music, and enjoy everything outdoors. I’m also a novice photographer.
*Please note that this is part one of a two part series. The second part of this series will be posted on Thursday, December 17th.*
It never fails. I sit down, Scrivener doc open and ready. And I’m terrified and completely unsure of where to begin. Luckily this year, I’ve discovered two books that have forever changed my writing process from here on out.
Many people will tell you to just sit down and write. Some will say to have an overall plan, but the important thing is that you sit down, every day, and write, no matter how painful it is. I offer you an option three: plan. And plan carefully.
In K.M. Weiland’s book Outlining Your Novel, she writes:
K.M. Weiland
“Each author must discover for himself what methods work best for him. Just because Margaret Atwood does X and Stephen King does Y is no reason to blindly follow suit. Read widely, learn all you can about what works for other authors, and experiment to discover which methods will offer you the best results.
My own writing routine is a constantly evolving process. What worked for me five years ago isn’t necessarily what works for me now, and what works for me now isn’t necessarily going to work for me in another five years.” (Page 18)
Indeed, you should do exactly what works for you, even if a famous writer says it’s the worst advice she’s ever heard. You should do it if an author you don’t necessarily like also adheres to the same advice as you do.
So, if you’ve decided outlining is for you (and Weiland goes through pros and cons in the very first chapter to help you decide), where do you go from there? In the rest of the book, Weiland overviews every pre-writing method I’ve ever seen, from crafting your premise to writing your pitch, character sketches to character interviews.
What I love most about Outlining Your Novel is that you don’t have to do every single exercise in the book. You get to choose what will be helpful for your process. But Weiland doesn’t skimp on giving you ideas about how to think about your novel in the conceptual stage, as she shows you how to approach shaping your creative ideas into a tangible game plan.
One of the items I found incredibly helpful was in chapter four. Weiland encourages you to look at all possible outcomes, all possible conflicts that could arise with the characters you’ve chosen or in the situations you’ve dreamed up.
“Even when you think you have a plot problem all figured out, push a little farther by asking a few more questions. What if something else happened in this scene? What would change as a result? Would the resultant shifts be for the better or for the worse?” (Page 69)
Sometimes we get so married to an idea that we don’t even want to consider other ideas. You aren’t doing your story justice if you could dream up an excellent side story, a secondary conflict, or a great additional character to make the world richer. Ask yourself what’s expected, and then what’s unexpected.
At first blush, I’ll admit I questioned if I really needed Outlining Your Novel. I’ve been writing for over a decade. I have my degree in creative writing. Is this book really going to help me? I wondered. And the answer is a loud, enthusiastic yes. From me to you, yes, this book will absolutely help you. Some of the knowledge is common. But I found that I was pleased to have a reminder of that knowledge. K.M. Weiland digs deeply into the pre-writing process, deeper than I have ever gone. This is an incredible resource to have in my library when I’m dreaming up a new story, and I think it could be for you as well.
On Thursday, look for part two of this series when I go over K.M. Weiland’s Structuring Your Novel.
