Photo by Mark Monlux
I know that the writing part of "writing a novel" is going to be tough. Leaders in my writing group keep telling me, “Just because you’ve spent your career writing non-fiction, don’t think you can automatically write fiction effortlessly” – and I believe them. I just want to get started writing. I don’t want to do any writing “exercises” or “prompts.” The photo above reminds me of a writing prompt. My friend, Mark Monlux, sent it to me because he wanted to teach me how to post a photo on my blog. The photo rubbed me the wrong way. I have no patience for writing prompts or writing "exercises." Reason being: I already know I'm creative; I already know I know how to string words together. (I hope that doesn't sound smug. I don’t mean it to be. I've just written a ton of stuff -- probably 20,000 dramatic non-fiction/feature articles in my career. For the best primer on writing Dramatic Non-Fiction, see Writing for Story by Jon Franklin.) What I need help in is story structure. That's where I feel lost. I've read a number of books of creating plots and they all leave me flat. I think what I'm going to do is take my writing group out for pizza -- my treat -- and ask them to help me brainstorm a plot from my premise. The other not, we created a three-act plot structure for an idea our instructor brought to class. It was fun -- and pretty darn quick. For $100 for pizza and beer, I could end up with a plot outline. That's a bargain.
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