CHAPTER 10: The Psychology of Creativity Now that we’ve explored novel structure, its constituents, and its connection to the external world through research, we’ll explore its relationship to the novelsmith’s internal world. The author creates the novel within his psychic … Continue reading
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CHAPTER 9: Research First of all, research isn’t something you do once for a few days before getting on with the business of writing. It’s an ongoing process, with little letup until the novel is finished. When you write, you … Continue reading
CHAPTER 8: Chapters A novel is a structure of structures.44 At the beginning of this book, we started with the broadest overall structure, the Premise, progressed through the more detailed Novel Diagram with its plot points and reversal, and now we … Continue reading
CHAPTER 7: The Intellectual World Meaning is so much a part of everyday life that it has become like the air we breathe: ever-present but never really part of our awareness. Yet, meaning is what drives our lives, and without … Continue reading
CHAPTER 6: The Fictional World THE GRAND ILLUSION When a reader picks up a novel, he “signs” a contract with the author. The author has already fulfilled his part of the contract: to present the story as truth. The reader’s … Continue reading
CHAPTER 5: Irony Creating the fictional world is difficult. Sometimes, no matter how brilliant your writing, it just doesn’t seem to jell. You provide exquisite description, active, intelligent characters, and yet the novel won’t come to life. Nothing seems to … Continue reading
CHAPTER 4: Narration Who will spin this splendid illusion of reality, this thing called a novel? The narrator is the one who tells the story. Narration is the most complex element of fiction since it defines the relationship between the … Continue reading
CHAPTER 3: Character Character motivations, wishes and desires, are the driving forces behind the novel. Character emotion exerts dramatic pressure on the storyline and forces it forward. Therefore, without interesting, highly motivated characters the novel loses its emotional impact. The … Continue reading
CHAPTER 2: Plot Just as most of the metals with which a blacksmith works are amalgams and alloys, a novel is generally said to have three constituents: plot, characterization, and setting.8 Plot is the author’s contrivance of storyline, its narrative structure. … Continue reading
CHAPTER 1: The Big Idea Seems as though everyone has a big idea that they believe will make a great novel. Some of them may be right, but generally ideas that come to a novice constitute only a tiny part … Continue reading