• Just to warn you, I am a total rookie to this writing adventure!

 

And I'm the local meanie, who points out inconvenient gotchas. The first one is that writing fiction for the printed word, while exciting, satisfying, and lots of other things, is a profession. And like any other profession it's filled with tricks and specialized knowledge not obvious until it's pointed out. And while everyone here is sincere, helpful, and interesting to know, we, as a group, are not successfully selling our work in your local Barnes and Nobel. So while we can offer suggestions and feedback, your basic education should come from those who are selling their work, teachers, and publishers. What I'm suggesting is that you invest a few dollars in a book like Debra Dixon's GMC: Goal Motivation and Conflict ( http://www.gryphonbooksforwriters.com/home/gmc.htm). She'll give you the terminology, a basic understanding of how fiction for the page differs from screen, stage, and storytelling, and knowledge of how a story is constructedto best caprure and hold a reader's interest. After you may have the best plot ever to come to a writer, but if the writing isn't exciting...

 

There are lots of things our primary education, which is preparing us for life and employment, doesn't cover, including how a line that seems simple and straightforward, like, "Susan smiled when Jack came through the doorway," can distance the reader from your protagonist. A book like Deb's will even answer the questions you didn't know you should be asking.

 

As for ideas, they're nice, but of less importance than they appear to be when we begin to write. After all, a skilled writer can make us weep with a story about taking out the trash because they know how to provide moment to moment entertainment, a feeling of involvement on the reader's part, and a real need on the reader's part to turn to the next page. That takes knowledge we don't posses when we begin, and which we won't get by reading novels, where we see the product but are never exposed to the process of creating the story, and so aren't aware of the decisions the author made and the tradeoffs that were required. And that makes sense, because the TV we watch doesn't make us screenwriters, so why would novels make us novelists?

• I know everyone is different and eventually I will find what works for me…

 

That's what we all say because we come to writing believing that writing is writing, and since we already have that out of the way, we need to focus on a good plot and an interesting turn of phrase. Both of those are necessary, of course. The problem is that the compositional skills we spent so much time perfecting are nonfiction skills, author-centric and fact based. They're designed to inform, clearly and dispassionately. But fiction for the printed word is designed to entertain, so it's emotion-based and character-centric. In other words, uses skills the pros take for granted but which we have to learn. Like chicken soup for a cold, such knowledge might not make a published writer of you, but it certainly can't hurt.