Writing a novel is a marathon. And anyone who’s trained for a marathon knows that goals and a plan are important, but preferably, goals and a plan that take your life and personal style into consideration.
Friday, February 26, 2016
Writing Goals - the Ideals & the Reality -- by Rachel
Writing a novel is a marathon. And anyone who’s trained for a marathon knows that goals and a plan are important, but preferably, goals and a plan that take your life and personal style into consideration.
Friday, February 19, 2016
Treasure Trove of Research – by Christine
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Historical Train Museum in British Columbia |
RELIABLE RESEARCH SOURCES:
- LIBRARY—Order old books from your librarian that may give a slant on your novel from another point of view. Eg. For Shadowed in Silk I found a book written from the Indian point of view on a massacre perpetrated on the Indian people by an English general in 1919. That book enabled me to write several scenes from the point of view of my Indian characters as well as my British characters.
- PRIMARY SOURCES—historians rely on primary sources such as birth certificates, photographs, diaries, letters, embroidery samplers, clothing, newspapers, autobiographies. Again, documents or texts like these are usually found only through the library, museums, civic centers, chambers of commerce.
- SECONDARY SOURCES—Information that is not from first-hand experience, such as scholarly books, articles, reference sources such as encyclopedias, biographies. To finish my British Raj trilogy I read biographies and autobiographies of Indian and English political leaders such as Lord Louis Mountbatten, Gandhi, Nehru the first Indian Prime Minister, and so on, especially for the finale Veiled at Midnight.
- TRAVEL BLOGS, BROCHURES, BOOKS. Eg. To get a feel for the Irish coastline for the book I’m currently writing, I read a non-fiction travelogue written by a man who sailed around the entire island of Ireland in a kayak, so I could feel vicariously what the coast felt like close up without actually being there. I also read tons on India.
- THE ACTUAL PLACE—nothing beats being there. Eg—being in India
allowed me to
Or this train trip in India. The blond lady is a fellow traveler.
- COOKBOOKS—Especially old cookbooks give such an insight into the foods people used or still use. Food and their ingredients add such sensuous detail to a story. This was especially helpful in my Raj trilogy when I found a treasure of a cookbook for English woman living in British Colonial India. Through that I discovered a favorite snack for British children living in India was a chapatti spread with marmalade.
- SPECIALTY MAGAZINES—such as historical train magazines, gun magazines, military, the list is endless.
- EMAIL—When I was writing Londonderry Dreaming, a romance set in Ireland that featured scenes in St. Augustine’s Church in the city of Londonderry, I contacted the vicar of that church through her website email. She was delighted to help me with details about the church especially the Ruth and Naomi stained glass windows. Even though I'd been there in person, I needed to verify my memory.
- OLD MOVIES—Great to hear and see how people walked and talked in the previous century, so different from us now. For my Raj trilogy I watched loads of movies, Gandhi, The Last Viceroy, Flame Over India (an old Lauren Bacall movie) to name only a few.
- INTERNET—is good for checking quick details such as weather, moon phases in other parts of the world, accuracy of what day in a specific year, etc. but always check those sources. There are a lot of falsities online.
RESEARCH FOR AFTER YOU WRITE YOUR BOOK
I actually wait until after I have at least my outline written, and continue to do research while I’m writing, or even after the first draft is complete.
- Get your story down first.
- Insert notes in your first draft to “Do Research on duck hunting.”
- When you’ve got a tight story, your characters ring true, then add your authentic details.
Friday, February 12, 2016
Planning for Pansters (Writing without an Outline) -- by Rachel

If you follow these guidelines, you don’t need an outline to make sure your story stays on the lit path. But what about coming up with the story itself when you have no outline to refer to?
Tweetables: Writing a novel without an outline (Click to Tweet)
Friday, February 5, 2016
Outlining for the Messy Brain -- by Christine
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Improvisation 27 (Garden of Love II), 1912, oil on canvas, Wassily Kandinsky |
I envy those writers who call themselves pansters. They sit down at their computer and start typing out their novel, having a general idea of where they want their story to go.
Oh boy do I wish . . .
I have a messy brain, stuffed with ideas for several novels all at once, so if I sit down at my computer without an outline I can guarantee myself several major rewrites.
Last week Rachel talked about Getting to Know Your Story, writing out those all-important character sketches, scene kernels, the faith story, and so on. Character development is huge, and at Novel Renaissance we will be talking in greater depth about Character in September.
But by this time in the novel’s journey we are here:
The Premise is written (although open for tweaking) ü
Character sketches, scene kernels, faith story are written ü
Now I’m ready to start an outline. ü
There are a lot of excellent outline styles out there, but the method that has worked best for me is a combination of elements.
1. I always keep in the back of my mind that a good novel is a CIRCLE.
2. A good novel has major STORY POINTS (approximately 15 to 20)
3. A good novel is also a 3-ACT STAGE PLAY.
A bit of a balancing act you might think, but not as difficult as it seems.
Let’s start first with # 1 YOUR NOVEL IS A CIRCLE
When a story comes a full 360 degrees from start to ending, the reader may not recognize it but they should feel a silent ahhhhhh that the ending is reminiscent of the beginning.
For example, Veiled at Midnight had to start with an important historical event and end after another historical event. I also wanted the ending to feature my hero and heroine in an emotional scene that resonated with chapter one. However, Veiled at Midnight is also the finale to a trilogy, so that book had to close two circles, its own story and that of the entire trilogy.
Christine’s Writing Tip: One of my personal tips is to actually copy sections from my first chapter and play with the writing to create my ending.
If you have read the entire trilogy Twilight of the BritishRaj you may recognize parts of Chapter One Shadowed in Silk in the epilogue for Veiled at Midnight. But instead of seeing India through the eyes of my first heroine Abby who is just arriving in India at the end of 1918, the trilogy ends as seen through the eyes of Dassah, a young Indian woman who is leaving India in 1947.
September 1947
On the Bombay quay, a kaleidoscope of color and humanity dazzled Dassah’s eyes—Women in saris of mango pink, peacock blue, lime green. Bengali clerks rushed here and there. On the dock, uniformed English soldiers joined the throng on their way back to England. So many people. The teeming press of millions. India, the land of her birth.
And now # 2 STORY POINT METHOD—to help me close the story circle
·
I start on a fresh document page with a # 1 and write down my first story point.
Eg. Star crossed lovers Cam and Dassah meet as adults during a train derailment.
· On the next line I put point #15—how I want this book to end.
Cam and Dassah say goodbye to their loved ones in India as they prepare to leave India by ship, and live somewhere in the world happily ever after.
· Then I go back up to create point # 2, what has to happen after point # 1 to get my characters on the journey to the last point.
After finding her again after all these years Cam can’t let Dassah go, and seeks her out even though the city has erupted in riots.
· After I write Step # 2, I jump down to Step # 14. What has to happen right before the last point, in order to make that happen?
Cam rescues Dassah from the area in tumult by hijacking a train.
· Back and forth I go from beginning to ending until I work my way into the middle of my book with all the story points from # 3 to 13 which would include
From the beginning of the story Cam and Dassah find each other, and we think they will live happily ever after. But due to their mixed race love, she runs away and is lost to Cam in the middle of a country being split in half. Cam in his political role as aide to the British Viceroy of India is torn as he helps the British grant independence to India while also searching for the woman he loves before she dies during the Indian Partition and the birth of Pakistan.
· This method forces me to work out the kinks in my novel first before I start a more in-depth outline. My middles are not just filler, but each point relies on the point before and paves the way for the point following.
And # 3 THE THREE ACT PLAY
When I’ve got my story points down, I then look to see if they naturally fall into a 3-act play. Because of the story points I find 99% of the time that the novel automatically creates that 3-act structure, but if it’s weak then I go back and work on those story points.
ACT I
Childhood friends (English) Cam and (Indian) Dassah are reunited and try to find ways to openly be married at a time when mixed race marriages were taboo in British India.
ACT II
India begins the tumultuous process of gaining independence from Britain, and in so doing the country erupts with violence from various factions. At the same time Dassah’s heart is broken that Cam does not want to openly make her his wife, and she runs away, hiding herself in the war-torn countryside.
ACT III
After a building climax of violence, rescue, and character arcs, where all characters learn how to overcome their situation with God’s guidance, Cam rescues Dassah physically, but Dassah rescues Cam emotionally. The end of the book has them deciding what God wants them to do as a couple.
Ultimately though, that 3-act structure matches up beautifully and very naturally with my premise. If not, I tweak until it does.