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Fiction in the Time of Plague

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Six months into the worst pandemic in a century, we’ve passed five million cases with more than 170,000 dead, more than 30 million out of work, and the economy collapsing faster than it did during the great depression.  Our politics have grown even more divisive, making it harder for us to act together.  The world is changing around us in ways that we can’t possibly understand because we’re right in the middle of it.

So let’s talk about how this affects your current work in progress.  That is, assuming you’re actually working on your novel instead of binge watching or binge baking or binge eating or binge drinking or crying quietly into your pillow every night.  Or all of the above.

Of course, if you’re just starting out on a new manuscript, the virus offers all sorts of opportunities for drama. Covid is the ultimate A Stranger Comes to Town, upending peoples’ lives, putting them under strain, and revealing their true character – think Shane in virus form.  But there’s something you’ve got to watch out for if you do decide to work Covid into your story — we still don’t know how the pandemic is going to end.  Stuff could easily happen in coming months that will eclipse anything you might use as a background now, leaving your story feeling dated before it’s even finished. [Read more…]

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12 Signs You’re Afraid of Your WIP

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Writers are regularly intimidated by what might seem the oddest thing: the work that springs from their own minds. If you have days when you seek a reason to do anything but write, you may be one of them. Not because you’re suddenly dragging your feet—but because, in one or more small ways, you started dragging them long ago. If that’s the problem, soldiering on may not net the best results. (Full disclosure, I just read the exact opposite advice on Facebook today—“keeping your writing … [Read more...]

Fiction Therapy—What’s Your Story’s Problem?

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Every month, I examine some aspect of fiction—character development, plot, story structure, etc.—and offer advice and tips to help you work through the problems in your novel. I have adapted many of the concepts you’ll see here from proven techniques used in modern psychotherapy. Hence: Fiction Therapy. If you have a specific concern about your novel, send an email to jim [at] thefictiontherapist.com and I’ll do my best to help. I recently reviewed a debut novel, The Valley at the … [Read more...]

The Benefits of Fan Fiction

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Over the last eight or nine months, I've spent a lot of time teaching creative writing to children. When I started, I found it a little frustrating that no matter what the prompt or lesson or skill development, almost every child in every class would start off with a Great New Idea, which promptly turned into fan fiction the moment their pen hit the paper. What started as "a race car driver has to win his final race to save the world from aliens" quickly became Top Gear fan fiction. What … [Read more...]

Playing on Trust

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The Lutheran church where I’m organist uses an electronic instrument in a choir loft above the sanctuary.  The organ’s three huge speaker banks are hung off the loft rail so they project out over the congregation.  Which is fine, except that when the congregation is going all out (Lutherans tend to be full-throated singers), I can’t hear myself play.  Essentially, I’m playing on trust. I thought about this as I read the comments on some of the Editor’s Clinic pieces.  So many readers would … [Read more...]

What Video Games Can Teach You About Storytelling

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Please welcome Fred Johnson as our guest today. Fred is an editor for Standout Books, where he helps authors take their manuscripts from good to perfect. He also writes fiction and poetry. You can follow Standout Books on Twitter. I’ve long been interested in how video games are maturing as a medium—as a form, games are still very young (having existed for only a few decades) and have long been dismissed as juvenile entertainment. In the past few years though, this has changed—Team Ico paved … [Read more...]

The Power of Story, Now More Than Ever

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In the wake of the election, I am a different person. I am now afraid of many things, especially what is going to happen given the volatility I see in the world and in my neighborhood. It’s something I’ve never experienced in this country, in what I now realize with mortifying clarity has been a very sheltered life. And listen: I’m old. I remember first-hand the end of the Vietnam years. I had assumed a very different outcome on November 8th, and what happened upended my worldview overnight. … [Read more...]

Soundbites vs Story: The Fear Factor

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David Pacey via flickr There is a lot of fear in the world these days. More lately. Much more. Story can help. Stories ask us to slow down and take stock. Twitter, screaming headlines and clickbait encourage us to do the opposite. And sheesh, that’s a strategy that plays into Mother Nature -- our biology. We don’t respond to bumper stickers and soundbites because we’ve been dumbed down; we respond to them because we evolved to live in a much simpler world than the one we find ourselves … [Read more...]

When Your Characters Need Therapy

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Please welcome back guest Lisa Alber who writes the County Clare mysteries. Her debut novel, Kilmoon, was nominated for the Rosebud Award of Best First Novel. Kirkus calls her second novel, Whispers in the Mist, a “worthy successor to Kilmoon in tone, mood, complexity, and keen insight into human failures and triumphs.” She balances writing her third novel (Midnight Ink, August 2017) with gardening, dog walking, and goofing off. She lives in Portland, Oregon. You can find Lisa online … [Read more...]

How to Abandon Your Outline to Improve Your Story

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Please welcome Steven James, the critically acclaimed author of thirteen novels. He serves as a contributing editor to Writer’s Digest Magazine, hosts the biweekly podcast The Story Blender, and has a master’s degree in storytelling. Publishers Weekly calls him “[a] master storyteller at the peak of his game.” Steven’s groundbreaking book Story Trumps Structure: How to Write Unforgettable Fiction by Breaking the Rules won a Storytelling World award as one of the best resources for … [Read more...]

Four Post-Its to Post Over Our Desks

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Editor Victoria Mixon is back with us today to share an excerpt from her book for writers, Art & Craft of Writing: Secret Advice for Writers. Written for her blog over the years as Victoria's editing business blossomed, this advice is now collected into one place—for free. Four Post-Its to Post Over Our Desks “What if. . .” Let’s write down the “what if?” premise of a story. Then every time we look up, pondering where to go in a difficult scene, we will be re-oriented on our chosen … [Read more...]

The Power Of Point Of View

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Please welcome back guest Molly Best Tinsley. Molly taught on the civilian faculty at the United States Naval Academy for twenty years and is the institution’s first professor emerita. Most recently Molly is the author of just-released middle grade fantasy thriller Behind the Waterfall. She is also the author of My Life With Darwin and a story collection, Throwing Knives, as well as two spy thrillers, Satan’s Chamber (with Karetta Hubbard) and Broken Angels, and a memoir, Entering the Blue … [Read more...]

Do You Have the X Factor?

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I have a confession to make. I have recently developed a serious addition to The X Factor UK. I've never been a fan of so-called reality TV, and yet each week finds me snuggled up under my blankets, obsessively watching the most recent show, laughing and crying along with the contestants and the judges. I can't get enough of it. All of which prompted me to ask the simple question: Why? It's not the singing. I like music as much as the next person, but I like what I like. Most of the … [Read more...]

The Power of Fiction

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Good fiction changes the world. Submarine inventor Simon Lake was directly inspired by the work of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Martin Cooper, the director of research at Motorola, created the first mobile phone based on the Star Trek communicator. Even the TASER was invented by a fiction fan – Jack Cover grew up reading Victor Appleton’s Tom Swift books, one of which featured an “electric rifle”. In fact, the word TASER is an acronym for Tom A Swift’s Electric … [Read more...]