My 1st Novel - Part 2

Part Two

Of a writer's two choices in beginning a novel—outline or not—it made a lot more sense to outline ‘Once Dead,’ especially since I wasn't sure about my characters' names, let alone their storylines. So I outlined. A lot. I wrote out major and minor character backstories. I drew out a story arc with rising action points. I even sketched out the history of the fictional town my characters haunted. When I'd decided that the antagonist had been a Civil War veteran, I researched California's participation in the Civil War. My heroine evolved into a blond, California surfer girl. "Boys loved her," I wrote. "She loved boys. But not as much as the ocean and even less than the stars."

You can find plenty of advice on writing from people smarter than me, including best-selling authors. Pick a few good blogs on writing and start reading. Google "blogs on novel writing" or visit Writers' Digest's site to start. I teach for a living, but I'm not going to offer up lessons or tips here on how to become a writer. At this point  in my life, I've only had a few short stories published (the non-fiction books and the produced plays don't count).

What I hope to do that would make reading all of this copy worthwhile is document the journeys my books have taken. I plan to emphasize the editing rather than the writing.

Novels don't spring fully formed from the head of Zeus, but often take agonizing half--steps and missteps. (Well, I don't know about all the NYT best-sellers, but let's just focus on you and me.) I've kept all my versions and revisions, from cross-outs and re-scribbling of small passages to major rewrites. I thought it might be fun to look at the many changes a story goes through. And, who knows, it might give someone the courage to jump back into their own creative work and edit it, change it, polish it until there are no more problems.

Maggie McAuley's problem is that she's dead. My problem was to make her problem interesting.