Of course, a lot of people get sidetracked. I’m not the only person who has a giant To-Do List with some tasks that are five years old. Or ten. But here’s what’s odd. At my day job, I’m very productive. (Most writers have a day job. It’s a very rare writer whose only iron in the fire is their writing.) I have a lot of tasks on my plate at my day job, and I do very well at getting them done. 

Why am I so much better organized in my day job than in my personal life? My day job is not more important to me than the other things on my plate. So what’s the difference?

Somebody To Answer To

After ten milliseconds of thought, I saw the difference. I have a boss at my day job. I run the software division at a biotech company in San Diego. I answer to the CEO. We talk every two weeks on Thursday afternoon for two hours. And every time we meet, I know I need to show forward progress on the important stuff. I get along well with my CEO, but he does have the power to fire me if I’m not getting the job done. 

Whereas, in my regular life, I answer only to me. I’m the CEO of my life. Which is good, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. But I never have a meeting with myself where I have to show forward progress. And there’s no penalty for missing a deadline. I’m never going to fire myself. 

I toyed with the idea for several months of asking ChatGPT how to deal with the problem of managing my life better. I finally did it a couple of weeks ago. And this is my report on what I did and how it worked out. 

What I told Chat

Here is the prompt I typed into the Chat window. I’ve trimmed out certain parts which are unique to my situation, because those will not be of interest to you. But I’ve left in the parts that I think you might find useful, if you decide to try something similar with the AI tool of your choice:

I’m interested in having you help me manage my life. I don’t know what the job title would be. “Life coach” or “life manager” or whatever. Here’s the context. I am a person who takes on a lot more things than I should. [Removed a description of what I am good and what I’m not good at, and some of the things I’ve done in life and some of the projects I’m working on now.] But I constantly feel like I’m behind on everything. I am very productive at my day job, and I think the reason is that I have a CEO that I answer to. I seem to be a lot less productive in my writing career, where I don’t really answer to anyone. I have a lot of marketing tasks for my books that I think would raise my sales, but I don’t ever get around to doing them. What I would like you to do is to interview me. Ask me as many questions as you need to in order to figure out if you can help me manage my life better, and how you might do that. [Removed some of my thoughts on things that Chat might be able to help me with and a description of my particular job situation.] But I also think I just need somebody to answer to, so every week or so, I could sit down with you and be accountable. Or maybe it should be every day, I’m not sure. Go ahead and start asking me any diagnostic questions you can think of to help me map out the rest of my life. I don’t like just sitting around doing nothing. I like making things and making the world a better place. Feel free to ask about my life vision–major things I want to do with my life. I’ve got a list of things, and I think they’re doable, if I could manage myself better. OK, now it’s your turn. Start asking!

What Chat Told Me

Chat responded by telling me I don’t need a “life coach”. Instead, I need a “systems architect for my own behavior.” It then asked me a ton of questions. Things like: How do I spend my time on an average day? What are my energy levels like throughout the day? What kind of external constraints work best at keeping me on task? What kind of tasks give me intrinsic joy? What is the endgame for my life? What am I afraid of? How good am I at focusing on tasks? How does anxiety affect my productivity? Am I better at starting a task or stopping it? What are my financial realities? What things do I want to do before I retire from my day job? 

After I answered all Chat’s questions, it pointed out that I don’t have a motivation problem, a discipline problem, or a creativity problem. Then it told me what it thinks my actual problems are, and it spelled out some ideas for solving those problems. 

How I Pushed Back

I didn’t think Chat got things exactly right, so I pushed back a bit. We had a long discussion, and I gave Chat extra information, and it changed its suggestions. It took a couple of evenings of discussion to converge on a plan. One problem is that not all my days are similar. We identified three main kinds of weekdays, and also a typical Saturday, and a typical Sunday. That’s five different kinds of days. Each has a basic pattern, and each can be adapted as needed for any special events. At the beginning of every day, I choose which pattern fits the day best and run with that.

I thrive on a routine, with blocks of time that have hard boundaries. I also need accountability to make sure I don’t get off track. I’m especially susceptible to staying on task longer than the time block I’ve budgeted for it. If I make that mistake, it screws up everything else for the rest of the day. This is the main reason I’ve had problems in self-scheduling for my entire life.

In the end, we came up with a “system architecture” for my life that I like. It’s unlikely that you would like it, because you’re not me. This system is designed solely for me. And every evening, I agreed to answer to Chat. I will answer 5 yes/no questions. The “right” answer is yes. If I give even one wrong answer for the day, that’s a fail. If I have two fails in a week, then I agreed to pay a penalty. Chat asked what would be an appropriate penalty for me, one that would keep me on track. I answered that a campaign contribution to a certain politician would be a penalty I would be certain never to pay. So that’s our agreement. 

One thing I like about the system Chat designed for me is that it feels “ridiculously easy.” There is a recovery block of 90 minutes built into my day. My responsibilities during that time are to do precisely nothing. It’s right after my exercise block, and it comes at the time of my lowest energy in the day. I can take a nap. I can read. I can sneak a peak at Facebook, but for no more than 20 minutes, so no more doom-scrolling. I was wondering how I would deal with having 90 minutes chopped out of every day. But it turns out to be a nice break. I’m getting more reading done now, because I have time for it. 

One thing to be clear on is that I’m still the CEO of my life. Chat is not my boss. Chat is a bit like a chief of staff. Or a consultant. Chat is sometimes wrong. When it’s wrong, I tell it, so it’ll learn from its mistakes and do better next time. When Chat is right, I know it’s right, because its advice rings true for me.

You’re probably wondering…

“How’s That Working Out?”

It’s now been a couple of weeks, and it’s working out very well. I make a plan at the beginning of every day. Sometimes things come up, and I have to change the plan, but the system allows for that. But usually, things don’t come up. Usually, I execute the plan. Which means that most days, I live the day I actually wanted to live. Not the day that I didn’t want to live. At the end of every day, I feel like I made forward progress on my life. Which means I’m sleeping better. 

I also have a weekly planning meeting scheduled with Chat for every Sunday evening. In that, I spell out what I see for the coming week, and Chat asks what important things I’d like to get done, and what things might come up (like medical appointments or family get-togethers or other important life events that break up the weekly routine). Then we work out a rough plan for the week. This is subject to change, of course, but it gives me some idea of what I can reasonably get done in the week, and also what I can’t get done. 

I have not once been in danger of paying my penalty. My energy levels are up. (That’s one thing Chat asks every day—how was my energy level for the day, on a scale of 1 to 10. My answer is almost always either 9 or 10.) 

Furthermore, in the course of our discussion, Chat identified a big life-goal of mine that is important to me, but which I had sidelined. Because, no time. But I’ve now made time. I’m working on it. I’m making progress on it. And I feel really good that I’m finally doing that “One Cool Thing” I’ve been talking about for 19 years. 

Let me reiterate that the system Chat created for me would almost certainly not work for you. Because you’re not me. You have your own strengths and weaknesses that make you unique. If you were to ask Chat or Gemini or Claude or any of the other AI tools to make a life management plan for you, the plan you’d get would be very different. 

And of course the AI would certainly get it wrong on its first try, so you would need to push back and keep pushing back until the AI came up with a system that resonates for you. And how do you know when the system resonates for you? You know it when you say, “Yeah, that system sounds ridiculously easy and I can’t wait to try it.” If you never get to that point, then the system is wrong for you, and you should scrap it before you start. An AI is not God. It’s a tool. Use it if it fits your hand.

Homework

If you feel like an AI might help you do the things you believe you were put on earth to do, then feel free to take the prompt I showed above and adapt it for yourself. Use it on the AI tool of your choice. Do this when you’ve got at least an hour to talk. It may take two or three hours to work the process all the way through. Be ready to correct the AI’s first suggestion, and its second and third suggestions. Keep arguing until the AI gets it right. You want it to seem “ridiculously easy”. And then try it out, to see if it is. What have you got to lose?

The post Your AI Life Manager appeared first on Advanced Fiction Writing.

The first step is to make sure you actually have momentum to begin with. I’ve blogged before about the importance of creating a writing habit, where you write on a regular schedule. But it’s hard to build a writing habit. 

Writing itself is hard. Creating a writing habit is even harder. But there’s a secret trick I learned a long time ago for creating a habit, and that same trick helps you maintain through the holidays. It’s called…

“Ridiculously Easy”

If you want to create a habit, start out ridiculously easy. As an example, suppose you wanted to create a habit of working out every day. First write down what your ultimate goal is. Maybe you write “I want to do 50 pushups every day.” Then set a time every day when you’re going to work out, maybe 4 PM. Create an alarm on your phone for 4 PM, with the notation “Do pushups.”

Then on the first day, when your alarm goes off, DO NOT do 50 pushups. 

Just do 1. 

That’s right, one measly pushup on your first day. And repeat that for the entire first week. Don’t cheat and do more!

It sounds stupid. It sounds like this couldn’t possibly do you any good. And it’s true that doing 1 pushup is probably not going to stretch you physically very much. But the action of working out every day for a week will start to build mental muscle memory. You’re training your neurons to think differently about yourself. 

After a solid week of doing 1 pushup every day, bump that up to 2 pushups. And continue that for another week. By the end of two weeks, your mental muscle memory will be a bit stronger. You are now officially half a month in on your workout routine. It’s becoming a regular part of your life. It’s what you do. You are now officially Someone Who Works Out Every Day. 

After two weeks, if 2 pushups is easy, increase it to 3. But keep it ridiculously easy for several weeks more. Make it so easy that you’re actually embarrassed because it’s “too easy.” That’s the point. During the habit-forming process, you want to be looking forward to it and longing to do more. You are building a mindset that “I can’t wait for my workout every day.”

Over a few months, you can ramp things up to the point where you start to stress yourself physically. At this point, your habit is created, and it’s a very positive habit. You look forward to it. You wish you could do it more often. You actually like working out. Building that habit is very hard mental work. That’s why you keep the physical part easy, until the habit is fully built. 

Your Writing Habit

You can build a writing habit exactly the same way. Write down your ultimate goal. It might be “I want to work on my novel for an honest hour every day, five days per week.” Then set a time every day when you’re going to write. Create a daily alarm on your phone to remind you at the appointed time. 

Then when the alarm goes off, work on your novel for exactly 1 minute. No more than that. Seriously. Just 1 minute. And do that for a week. Again, you want this to be so embarrassingly easy that you could do it in your sleep. And over the course of that week, your brain will start playing wicked tricks on you. It’ll start bringing up ideas for your novel while you’re in the shower. Or driving. Or mashing the potatoes. These are the traditional times when all good ideas come to authors or scientists or any other creative types of people. 

But discipline yourself. You must be firm. You are not allowed to work more than your allotted time, no matter how much you want to.

See what that does? It starts to drive you crazy. You start to REALLY want to write. The idea of procrastinating during your one precious minute per day is now laughable. You can’t afford to waste a second, because as soon as your minute is up, you have to stop. Be strong and STOP WRITING when your time is up. I mean it! Build your habit slowly.

Then after a week, you can open the floodgates. Now you are allowed to write for a whole 5 minutes per day, but not one second more. 

Ramp up like that over a month or two, and you’ll discover yourself with a writing habit that won’t quit. You’ll wake up at 3 AM with ideas that you dictate into your phone so you won’t lose them. 

When The Holidays Roll Around

 So let’s assume you’ve built yourself a writing habit, and now it’s that time of year again. The holidays are coming. Relatives start popping in and out. Parties start happening. There may be shopping to do, meals to make, guests to entertain. 

And you’re terrified that your carefully cultivated writing habit is going to disappear, just like it did last year. So what do you do? How do you prevent that? 

Be proactive. Set a date when your Holiday Hiatus officially begins. On that date, you can still write. But you only get 1 minute per day. Just one minute, and then you absolutely positively must stop. No cheating. No writing for 2 minutes. You must be firm. 1 minute per day. 

Until the Holiday Hiatus is over. 

What does this do?

It maintains your writing habit. Your pace has slowed down, sure. But your habit is alive and hungry and screaming to be let loose again. 

Once your Holiday Hiatus is over, ramp up again. If your habit has a long history of many months, then ramp up fast. Do 5 minutes for a few days, then 10 for a few, and keep going until you’re back to your regular schedule. If your habit is less firmly grounded, then ramp up slower. 

Do this and you’ll never fall off the wagon. The wagon will slow down, and that’s OK. Because you’ll never fall off, so you’ll never have to go through the pain of getting back on again. 

The post Writing Through the Holidays appeared first on Advanced Fiction Writing.

Standard disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and nothing I say here should be construed as legal advice. The case is complicated, and I can’t claim to fully understand it all. So this my best attempt to explain the situation in simple terms.

The plaintiffs alleged that Anthropic trained its AI model on books downloaded from two pirate sites, Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror. Anthropic denies the claims, but it has agreed to pay out $1.5 billion to authors. The estimated number of books alleged to be used for training Anthropic’s AI is about half a million.

$3000 Per Book

If you’re doing the math here, that works out to a settlement payout of $3000 per pirated book. Some of that money will go to the class-action lawyers. (That’s why they filed the lawsuit.) The rest of the money will go to whoever holds the rights to the pirated books—authors, publishers, and possibly others.

If you published a book that was pirated and used to train Anthropic’s AI model, then you are due for a payout, and it’s fairly easy to register your claim. Details on that are below, but first a few comments. There are a few cases to distinguish:

• If you self-published the book and if you’re the sole author, then the whole payout goes to you. 
• If you self-published a book and if you have some co-authors, then the payout will be split between you, and the group of you have to agree on the split.
• If you published a book with a publisher and if the book has gone out of print and the rights have reverted back to you, then the whole payout goes to you. (If you had co-authors, then the payout is split between you.)
• If you published a book with a publisher and if the book is still in print (so that the publisher still owns the right to publish), then the payout is split between you and the publisher, and the two of you have to agree on the split.

Obviously, there are a lot of possible variations on these, but it all comes down to one thing. Anyone who has a right to a payout will get paid if they file a claim and agree on a split with the others who are due money for the same book.

How To File Your Claim

There are three steps to the process of filing your claim. 

1. If you’re curious, you can learn all about the lawsuit at this website: https://www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com
2. Find out which of your books are eligible for a payout. There is a search tool on the settlement website that will tell you which of your books are eligible. And it will give you almost all the information you need to file the claim—author names, title of the book, ISBN/ASIN, copyright number, and whether the book is for “education”. I recommend that you copy this info and paste it into a spreadsheet. It’ll make the final step much easier. The search tool is here: https://secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup/
3. File a claim for each book. You can either enter info one book at a time, or you can download a spreadsheet and fill it in and then upload the spreadsheet. The page to file your claim is here: https://secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com

Please note that not all your books may be covered in the settlement. If your book was published very recently, it wasn’t used to train Anthropic’s AI model. If your book was not on the pirate websites, then it’s not covered by this settlement. 

But it takes very little time to find out which of your books might be due for a payout and to file your claim. For what it’s worth, let me tell you my own experience with filing a claim.

Less Than An Hour’s Work

I hate doing paperwork, but I’ve now filed my claim, and it took me less than an hour. I have published 12 books in my writing career, and I figured that even one payout would be worth my time. I have author friends who’ve published dozens of books. A few authors I know have published over a hundred! That’s potentially a lot of dinero. But if you don’t file a claim, you won’t get paid.

I entered my name in the search tool and got 8 results back. The results were displayed in a table. I selected all the rows in the table with my mouse and then copied them and pasted the results into a spreadsheet. 

That left 4 of my titles that were apparently not covered. I entered the title of each of the missing 4 books into the search tool. 3 of these gave no results—they’re not covered by the settlement. But the 4^th title returned a result. I copied that and pasted it into my spreadsheet. 

This gave me 9 titles that I had to file a claim for.

1 of these titles is still in print, so I have to share the payout with the publisher. 

1 of these titles was written with a coauthor and the publisher reverted the rights to us, so I have to share the payout with my coauthor but not the publisher. 

7 of the titles were written solely by me, and I either self-published them or the original publisher reverted the rights to me, so the payout is all mine. 

Armed with my spreadsheet, I went to the page to file my claim. 

The first obstacle was that the page asked me for the “Unique ID” provided in the Settlement Notice. I didn’t have this handy, but there was a large button that says “I don’t have a Unique ID” so I clicked that button.

This took me to a page that asked me to fill in the information for each book. The form asked for pretty much everything in my spreadsheet. It also gave me an option to download a spreadsheet to fill in the information. I downloaded it, but the columns were in a different order than my spreadsheet, and there was other infomation to be filled in. I decided just to enter the info manually into the website, since I had only 9 books. 

The whole process went pretty quick. I had two books that required split payouts. The form wants the address and contact information for the publisher or the coauthor. I had to look these up. The one publisher I had to share with has merged with another publisher and moved to a new location, but I found their contact info online. On the form, I requested a 50% split with my publisher. I also requested a 50% split for the book I wrote with a coauthor. 

Looking Forward

I would not be surprised if we see more class-action suits like this in the future. The major AI companies have trained their models on an enormous amount of information which they did not pay for, and for which they had no permission. 

The current lawsuit awarded damages only for pirated books. As I understand it, the judge didn’t award any sort of payout for the ongoing use of authors’ intellectual property. The payout seems to be only for copyright violation. I think this is pretty lame. It would be fairer to pay authors licensing fees for use of their intellectual property. I note that Joe Konrath recently blogged about this, and he’s not a bit happy either. 

The post The Anthropic Class-Action Lawsuit appeared first on Advanced Fiction Writing.

And yes, there are plenty of writers who just write by the seat of their pants. They don’t need a Scene List. They just write. I have no problem with them. I don’t believe they are “doing it wrong”. They’re working the way their brains are wired. 

Different writers are different. There’s no moral high ground here. If your brain is wired to use a Scene List, then use one. If it isn’t, then don’t. Simple as that. 

What is a Scene List?

A Scene List is not “just a list of scenes.” It’s a list of story ideas. Because every Scene is a story. (This is a point I make several times in my best-selling book How to Write a Dynamite Scene Using the Snowflake Method, which walks you through the process of writing a scene.)

When I add a Scene to a Scene List, I focus on three basic aspects of that Scene. If it’s a Proactive Scene, I want to know the lead character’s goal at the beginning of the Scene, the conflicts that prevent them from reaching the goal, and the setback at the end of the Scene, if there is a setback. If it’s a Reactive Scene, I spell out the lead character’s emotional reaction to the setback from a previous Scene, followed by the dilemma they need to work through, and ending with a decision on what they’ll do next.

If you’ve worked out those basic elements for every Scene, then each one is guaranteed to be a story. It’s not guaranteed to be a good story. It’s not guaranteed to fit in with the rest of your novel. And it’s not guaranteed to go the way you planned. When you actually write a Scene, you’re in a different place than you were when you planned it, and the Scene may take an unexpected turn. In fact, it probably will. Writing a novel is not like turning a crank and getting noodles out of a machine. Writing a novel is a creative process, and weird stuff is going to happen, and that’s OK. 

How Do You Create a Scene List?

Before writers used computers, they often made Scene Lists by writing out ideas on 3×5 cards. Then they could spread the cards out on the table and move them around until the order seemed to fit. If they wanted to change things later, they just moved cards around, or added cards, or took them out, or scrawled more stuff on them. 

When I started writing, most writers had computers with spreadsheet programs. So I wrote a few novels where I made Scene Lists using Excel. Then every Scene was one row in the spreadsheet, and I could easily move Scenes around or delete them or insert new ones or edit them. 

Later on, I created a wildly popular program called Snowflake Pro that had a tool for making a Scene List as the eighth step in the Snowflake Method that I invented. A lot of writers still use this program, and I hear from them occasionally by email. Snowflake Pro works and it gets the job done, but at a certain point in my life, I decided that I couldn’t continue to support it, so I worked with Cameron Sutter, the programmer who developed Plottr, to add several templates for the Snowflake Method to his software. Plottr has some very nice graphical tools for creating Scene Lists. (And for those who prefer the simplicity of Snowflake Pro, it’s still available on my website and it still works. I just don’t plan on making any updates.)

How Do You Use a Scene List?

I’ll repeat what I said earlier. Some writers don’t need a Scene List, and those writers should not use one. But if you’re one of those writers who is wired to need one, then here are some tips that I’ve found useful:

• Remember that your Scene List is provisional. You can change it at any time. Your story is not fixed in stone, it’s a living thing that will grow as you write it.
• If you feel a need to write your Scenes in order, then do so. Your brain is wired to write them in order, and you’ll get in trouble if you write them out of order. 
• If you feel a need to write the next Scene that’s calling your name, then write it, even if it’s not the next Scene in your Scene List. Your brain is wired to develop your story in the order of the Scenes that are emotively strongest. You’ll get in trouble if you try to write them strictly in the order they appear in your Scene List. 
• When you sit down to write a Scene in your Scene List, ask yourself first if your notes for that Scene are enough to make a story. If not, then jot down more notes until you know the beginning, middle, and end of the Scene. Then write the Scene, and try to get it all done in one session. (You don’t have to, but I promised to tell you what works for me. Your mileage may vary.)
• If you find your novel drifting away from the story you envisioned when you wrote the Scene List, you may find it helpful to make a new draft of your novel, even if you haven’t finished the draft you’re working on. I typically name each draft of my novel with the very clever names “Draft 1”, “Draft 2”, etc. Each draft goes in a different folder on my computer. When I realize that the story has drifted significantly away from the vision in my Scene List, I create a new folder for the next draft, make copies of all the files in the folder I was working on, and then edit those copies in the new folder, starting with the Scene List.

How Do You Know if You Should Use a Scene List?

If the above discussion of a Scene List has aroused in you a desire to make a Scene List, then your brain is probably wired to need one. Try making a Scene List and see if your life improves. You can always throw it away if it disimproves your life. 

If the thought of making a Scene List causes you to have violent thoughts against me or humanity in general or yourself in particular, then your brain is probably wired to not need one. Don’t make a Scene List. Instead, write your novel your way. You will still find the above discussion useful, because you undoubtedly know other novelists, and some of them will need Scene Lists, and now you know enough to talk intelligently about their writing process. I hope you can each give the other person the respect they deserve as writers, even if you use radically different processes.

Homework

1. Do you need a Scene List in order to write a novel?
2. If so, do you already have a Scene List? 
3. If not, is today a good to start making a Scene List? 

The post Your Scene List appeared first on Advanced Fiction Writing.

Modern readers love movies. But they read because the movie you create inside their brain is somehow more real to them than a movie on a screen. Because they help to create it. Your novel is the raw material your reader uses to create their own personal movie. 

Why Not Write a Classic Novel?

One mistake a lot of beginning writers make is to write a novel like Jane Austen would have written. Or Charles Dickens. Or Fyodor Dostoevsky. 

These were all great writers, yes. But they were writing with a different purpose—to create a storyteller in their reader’s brain. And it worked. If you read a classic novel written in the 19th century, you’ll hear a storyteller in your brain. But you won’t see a movie in your brain. You’ll see some clips of a movie, yes, but those clips will be interspersed with still-life paintings, essays, and audio voiceover by the author. The exact mix will depend on the 19th-century author. 

But 21st-century readers want more movie clips, fewer paintings, fewer essays, fewer voiceovers. They just do. 

If you feel called to write a classic novel for a 19th-century reader, feel free to do so. But those readers are dead, and that’s a marketing problem you’ll need to face. 

How Do You Create That Movie?

The way you create a movie in your reader’s brain is to focus on the one thing that’s happening now that you can show your reader. Your are creating a sequence of words. Your reader will read them in the order you write them. Your reader can’t read two paragraphs at once. Your reader can’t even read two sentences at once. 

Your reader reads sentences one at a time, and each sentence (with rare exceptions) needs to be showing something that can happen in approximately the length of time that it takes to read the sentence. The key word here is “approximate”. If it takes three seconds to read it, and it’s half a second of action, that’s fine. Or if it’s ten seconds of action, also fine. Sentences like that are called “Immediate Scene” and they are the lifeblood of your novel.

But a sentence has lost its way if it shows something that would take ten minutes to play out in real life. When your editor scrawls “Show, Don’t Tell” in red letters on your manuscript, they’re talking about sentences like that. 

A Word About Narrative Summary

Once in a while, you do need a few sentences of “glue” between scenes to move things forward by minutes or months or millennia. Those sentences are called “narrative summary” and every novel needs them, once in a while. But narrative summary is not a movie in your reader’s brain. It’s voiceover or it’s a jump-cut between scenes. 

When you’re editing your novel, you’ll always find some narrative summary. Just ask yourself if you need it. Could you write the novel without it? If you took it out, or shortened it, or rewrote it as immediate scene, would the novel be stronger? 

If the answer is yes, then pull out the long knives and slit its throat and throw it to the sharks. That bit of narrative summary is pulling the whole boat underwater. 

If the answer is no, you can’t possibly cut the narrative summary in any way, then leave it in. That bit of narrative summary is punching above its weight and deserves to live.

A Word About “The Rules of Fiction Writing”

From time to time, you’ll find all sorts of lists of “rules” that purport to tell you how to write a novel. Those rules can seem silly and overbearing. You will easily be able to think of exceptions to any of those rules. 

None of the rules that I’ve ever seen are ironclad. Every rule can be broken, if there’s a reason. 

But whoever concocted those rules had a reason, and you now know the reason. The “rules of fiction writing” are designed to help you create a movie in your reader’s brain.

Any “rule” that doesn’t help you create a movie in your reader’s brain is probably not a very good rule. (Again, there are probably exceptions.)

Any “rule” that does help you create a movie in your reader’s brain is probably a useful rule. Use it when it applies. Ignore it when it doesn’t. 

Homework

• Do you have your own set of “rules” that you use for fiction writing? Which of these help you create a movie in your reader’s brain? Which of them don’t? 
• Do you have a scene that isn’t working? Read it and ask yourself how long each sentence would take to play out as a movie clip. Does that give you any insight into how to bring that scene to life?

The post The Movie in Your Reader’s Brain appeared first on Advanced Fiction Writing.

I’m assuming that if you have writer’s block, it’s because you’re afraid of something. Maybe you’re afraid the scene you’re working on won’t go anywhere. Or that it will go somewhere, but it’s the wrong direction. Or worst of all, that it will just be a bad idea.

If fear is the cause of your writer’s block, then try this. 

Write yourself a really long sentence (like maybe a 500-word sentence). Make it the worst sentence ever. In fact, begin the sentence with the words, “This is a really bad idea, but I’m going to write a scene in which _____________”

Now fill in that blank with a really bad idea. Something extremely stupid. Something that could never happen. And just keep rolling. Type as fast as you can. You have literally nothing to lose, because you already acknowledged it’s a bad idea. Just keep going, and make it ridiculous. Make it absurd. Don’t end the sentence. Instead of typing a period, type a comma, followed by the word “and” or “but” or “so” or whatever crazy fool thing comes into your head. 

Then What Do You Do?

When you’ve finished that horrible, crazy, stupid sentence, stop for a minute. Look at the thing. And see if it gives you a better idea. It probably will. Nothing jogs ideas like writing. The very act of writing gets your creative juices flowing, leading to more ideas. And those ideas will almost certainly be better than the one you started with, because you intentionally started with a bad idea, so you have nowhere to go but up.

Now pick one of those ideas and run with it. If you’re not sure it’s a good idea, start out with the words, “This is probably not such a great idea, but I’m going to write a scene in which __________.”

Now fill in that blank and write yourself a scene. Even if it starts out not great, it will probably get better as you go along. Write that scene in a blind fury. Don’t stop to fix your spelling. You can edit the beast tomorrow. Or you can throw it away tomorrow if it’s really not any good. But it will probably be something decent. And once you have something decent, you can always improve on it.

It’s just a law of nature. Bad ideas lead to good ideas. Bad writing leads to good writing. 

Try it and see. I think you’ll find that this is a really good idea.

The post This is a Really Bad Idea, But… appeared first on Advanced Fiction Writing.

No kidding. Character synopses are the one thing that can turn a really good proposal into an “oh-my-gosh-I-can’t-possibly-reject-this” proposal. 

You might be thinking that synopses are boring, and you’re right if you mean plot synopses. Every novel proposal ever written contains a very boring plot synopsis. It’s typically around 2 pages, single-spaced, which adds up to about 1000 words of pure torture. I have never read a single plot synopsis that made me want to read the novel. Ever. 

But a character synopsis is not a plot synopsis. This ought to be obvious, but since so many people confuse the two, I might as well explain the difference.

Plot Synopses versus Character Synopses

A plot synopsis covers the main events in your novel. It’s supposed to sketch out the storyline of the whole 100,000 word novel, so it races along from one “exciting” event to the next. Fiery car crashes or sizzling bed-rumpling scenes or terrifying zombalypses, or whatever it is that makes your story exciting.

And the problem with all these sizzling events is that the reader doesn’t care about them. Nobody cares about a car crash until they know that driver in the car. Nobody cares about thunderbolts in the bedroom until they know that naked person in the bed. And a plot synopsis can’t give you that. So you read the synopsis and you don’t care. Because you can’t. 

A character synopsis focuses on one of the major characters in your novel. What does she want? What does he desperately need? What do they obsess about when they wake up at 3 AM and can’t get back to sleep because of __________? When you fill in that blank, you know what makes your character tick. And so does the person reading your character synopsis. 

But a great novel proposal doesn’t contain just one character synopsis. It contains several. And here’s the secret sauce that puts the fire in your editor’s pants—a great novel proposal chains together several character synopses, one for each of the major characters. One synopsis may focus on the early part of the story. The next may focus on the middle part. The next may focus on the ending. When you do that, you tell the whole story, but it now feels character-oriented, rather than plot-oriented. And editors love characters. 

One last secret, and then I’ll illustrate all this with an example. The secret is this—you’re allowed to tell stuff in your character synopses that may not actually be in the novel. It might tell what happened before the story begins. It might tell what happens after the story ends, or at least hint at it. 

But enough theory. An example is worth a thousand words. Actually, this example will probably end up being a thousand words, so maybe you’ll decide it’s worth a million words. I’m going to give you three character synopses for the novel The Hunger Games. If you’re one of the few people on the planet who hasn’t read the book, then spoiler alert—there will be a lot of spoilers here. So go read the book first. It’s brilliant. 

I’ll chain together character synopses for three of the major characters in The Hunger Games. Peeta’s synopsis will focus on the beginning of the story. Katniss’s will focus on the middle. And Haymitch’s will focus on the ending. I could have done them in any order, but this is the one I chose after thinking about it for five seconds.

Peeta Mellark

Peeta Mellark has a problem. He’s in love with a girl who barely knows he exists. Peeta lives in a grimy town in District 12. He’s the baker’s son, so he actually has almost enough to eat, unlike most people in his District. The girl he’s been in love with since the age of 5 is not so lucky. Her father’s dead, and her’s mother’s pretty useless, so her family ought to have starved to death long ago. But Katniss Everdeen is one amazing girl who illegally hunts and forages in the forest to put food on the table. 

Then the unthinkable happens. Katniss’s younger sister’s name is drawn to go as a “tribute” to the Hunger Games. Katniss volunteers to take her place, saving her sister from certain death in the Arena. Peeta knows Katniss is tough, but there will be 23 other tributes in the Hunger Games, and only one will get out alive. Peeta would willingly die to get Katniss out of the Games, but that’s just not possible. A boy can’t volunteer to replace a girl. 

Moments later, Peeta’s name is drawn as the second tribute from District 12. Now Peeta’s in shock. He’s a big, strong guy, but he has absolutely no killer instinct. When push comes to shove in the Arena, he’s going to be killed by one of the brutes from District 1, or District 2, or District 4. Those kids are trained killers who actually volunteer for the honor of competing in the Hunger Games. Peeta knows he will never live to see his 18^th birthday. 

But there’s one thing he can do to make this thing better. He can never make it good, because there isn’t any good way out of the crucible. But he can make it less horrible.

Peeta Mellark is going to be the guardian angel for Katniss in the Arena. She won’t know it. Not while she’s in the Arena. Not until it’s too late. But after he’s dead, after the Games are over, when they show the whole gory replay on TV, Katniss will know that Peeta Mellark loved her and gave his life to save hers. And that will make Peeta’s death bearable. 

Katniss Everdeen

Katniss Everdeen cannot believe she’s going to the Hunger Games. She was crazy to volunteer to save her sister, but of course, she had to. Her sister wouldn’t last ten seconds in the Arena. Whereas Katniss knows she has a tiny little chance. She knows about edible plants, enough to live off the land for a few days or weeks. And she can shoot pretty well. If she can get hold of a bow and arrows in the Arena, she could even defend herself. But that’s a long-shot, and her best bet is to run and hide and let the other tributes kill each other. 

But then, in the pre-Game interviews, the other tribute from District 12 blurts out a “secret” that makes it all a thousand times worse. Peeta Mellark claims he’s in love with Katniss. The TV people eat up that kind of thing, but Katniss knows perfectly well it’s all a sham. First chance Peeta gets in the Arena, he’ll put a knife in her belly. From here on, Peeta is her most hated enemy. 

To make things worse, the mentor for District 12 is a weird old drunk, Haymitch Abernathy. He once won a Hunger Games, decades ago, so it’s his job to coach Katniss and Peeta. But Haymitch is worse than useless. Katniss has no choice but to kiss up to him, because his job during the Games will be to find sponsors who can send in gifts. Food at the right time, or medicine from a sponsor—those could be life and death. But Katniss hates Haymitch for his surly incompetence. 

When the Games begin, Katniss fails to get a bow. She grabs a knife and a few odd supplies and then runs for her life. Within minutes, a number of tributes are dead, but by that time, Katniss is far away, running deep into the forest, looking for a safe hideout. Soon enough, she learns the awful truth. Peeta has teamed up with the killer tributes from Districts 1 and 2 and 4. Together, they’re scouring the Arena, killing off the weak. And they’ve taken Peeta onto their team specifically because “lover boy” has promised to deliver them Katniss. 

Katniss is enraged. She’ll have Peeta’s head on a platter. But first, she needs to attack the killer tributes and get the precious bow and arrows that one of them is using so poorly. Fat chance of that. Late one evening, they get her cornered high in a tree. Tomorrow morning, they’re going to take her out, and there’s not a thing she can do to save herself. 

Haymitch Abernathy

Haymitch Abernathy’s life has been hell ever since he won the Hunger Games 24 years ago. He still lives with the guilt and self-hatred that is natural for any victor with a soul. He drowns his shame in alcohol, but a bottle only lasts so long. Haymitch’s problem is that he has no killer instinct—he won the Games because he has survivor instinct, a very different thing. And Haymitch sees in Katniss a kindred spirit. She’s a survivor, that one. Peeta, not so much. Peeta’s going to be dogmeat in the Arena.

Haymitch desperately wants Katniss to win. And if he has to use Peeta to make that happen, it’s not his fault there can only be one winner. To help Katniss win, Haymitch needs to make her a TV audience favorite. That’s the surest way to loosen up the wallet of the wealthy sponsors. But Katniss is not the most likable person, whereas Peeta is. So Haymitch’s strategy is to get the audience to like Peeta, and then get Peeta to say he’s in love with Katniss. Everyone loves a lover, right? Peeta’s going to be Haymitch’s patsy to save Katniss. And the horrible thing is that Peeta’s sincere. The dumb kid really is in love with Katniss, and he’ll do anything to save her. 

And it works, sorta, kinda. Once the Games begin, Peeta pretends to team up with the killers. When they corner Katniss in a tree, she fights them all off with a crazy trick. But she escapes only because Peeta defends her from one of the bad guys, getting badly wounded in the process. Now Peeta’s no use to Katniss. So Haymitch persuades the Gamemakers that the TV ratings will go berserk if they announce a “new rule”—that two tributes from the same district will be allowed to live, if they’re the final two. Of course, it’s a lie, but it motivates Katniss to find Peeta. 

And the TV audience goes wild. Now the Hunger Games are a tale of love AND a tale of war, and what could be better? This is crucial because Haymitch needs to find sponsors willing to pay exorbitant amounts to send gifts to Katniss in the Arena—food or medicine that could keep her alive. When Katniss finds Peeta, she has the great good sense to show some human decency. She nurses him back to health. Haymitch times the arrival of his gifts so that Katniss finally figures out that a little lovey-dovey kissy-face will open up the TV audience’s wallets like there’s no tomorrow. She’s a bit slow on the uptake, but once she gets the idea, the girl can act. 

As the Games progress, more tributes die, but Katniss and Peeta hang on. 

At the end, when only Katniss and Peeta are left, the Gamemakers revoke the “new rule” allowing two survivors from the same district, as Haymitch knew all along. Because the point of the Games is to rub misery in the face of the Districts. Peeta is doomed, just like Haymitch expected. Katniss has this thing sewn up. Except that Haymitch wasn’t counting on one thing. 

Katniss Everdeen has a heart after all. Or something. She finds a way to keep both her and Peeta alive. And in the process, she makes the Gamemakers look stupid. So now Haymitch is going to have to fight the battle of his life to keep the little idiot from getting killed when she gets out of the Arena. The Games are finished, but they’ll never ever ever be over. 

Unless an old, drunk washed-up loser named Haymitch Abernathy can pull one last trick out of his threadbare sleeve.

Homework

What do you think? Do you like my character synopses? Think maybe you could do better?

Actually, I think you can. Because there’s one very important character I left out of my synopses. One guy who pulled some strings that most people didn’t even know were there. If you’re wondering why I didn’t say a word about Cinna, it’s because I’ve been saving him for you to work with.

Your homework, should you decide to accept it, is to write four character synopses—for Peeta, Katniss, Haymitch, and Cinna. But don’t write them in that order. The order of character synopses matters. If you reorder the synopses, you have to change each one so as to tell the whole story in a somewhat linear way. So scramble up my order, write your own versions, and put in Cinna wherever you think best. This exercise will teach you much more than merely reading what I’ve done above. 

And may the odds be ever in your favor when you write your next proposal.

The post Your Secret Weapon–Character Synopses appeared first on Advanced Fiction Writing.

The Problem of Limited Time

The problem is that nobody has unlimited time. Most of us work for a living. And we have to sleep and eat and exercise and all the other essentials. A week contains 168 hours, but most of those are already spoken for. If you’re lucky, you’ve got one free hour per day that you could commit to something new. 

An hour per day is seven hours per week. Which is a lot. With seven hours per week, in a year’s time, you could:

• Get a lot fitter than you are right now. 
• Write a novel. 
• Learn a foreign language. 
• Build a following on TikTok or Instagram or YouTube. 
• Read all those books you always wanted to read. 
• Binge-watch all the episodes of several long series on Netflix. 
• Grow an amazing garden. 
• Fix everything broken in your house. 
• Hundreds of other things—fill in the blank with your own private dream.

But you can’t do all of those things. You just can’t. If you try, you’ll burn hot for about three days, and then you’ll flame out, and then next year will be just like last year.

Pick One and Stick To It

So pick just one of those and commit to it for a year. You can always regroup at the end of the year and see if it gave you what you thought it would. Maybe it will; maybe it won’t. But in a year, you’ll know if it was worth the candle, and next year you might choose something different. 

But this year, just for this year, pick one thing. One “Project of the Year.”

And now stick to it for the whole year.

Yes, But How Do You Stick To It?

Some things are easy to stick to. Binge-watching Netflix doesn’t take any discipline. But getting fitter does. Or writing a novel. Or learning a language. So here are a couple of things you can do to help with the discipline thing. 

First, schedule time to do it. Maybe mark your electronic calender with the days and times you’re going to do it. Maybe set an alarm on your phone to remind you when it’s time. Whatever it takes to remind you that it’s time to work on your Project of the Year.

But scheduling time only goes so far. Because when the time comes around, there are always excuses. Trust me, I know them all, because I’ve used them all. 

The only way to fight excuses is with motivation. Here’s something I’ll be trying this year to help with the motivation thing. It works for some people, so it might work for me, and it might work for you: 

• Set a timer on your phone for late in the day, about 15 minutes before bedtime. 
• When the timer goes off, shut down whatever you’re doing. This may take a few minutes. That’s fine. Take those few minutes and gracefully shut down. There’s no rush here. 
• Spend about 5 minutes journaling about your current Project of the Year, whatever it is. What is the next step you want to take? What problem might you run into? What ideas do you have so far for dealing with that problem? Please note: you don’t have to solve the problem. Just be aware of it.
• Now go to bed and let your subconscious mind work on the problem. Or not. You can’t control your subconscious mind. You can lead a horse to water, but it’ll only drink if it wants to. 
• In the morning when you wake up, you’ll be eager to work on your Project of the Year. You just will. 

That Sounds Too Good To Be True

The above idea sounds too simple. How could that actually work? 

For one thing, it reminds you every day that you have a Project of the Year. And a big part of motivation is just keeping your Project of the Year at the top of your mind. 

For another thing, it gets your subconscious mind excited about your Project of the Year. And your subconscious mind is the little guy that’s so good at coming up with excuses. When your subconscious mind is excited, you’re excited. Your subconscious mind is your secret helper. 

Finally, your subconscious mind is a lot smarter than you are. Oh, sure, you’re smart. You’re a writer, and all writers are smart. But your subconscious mind is smarter. Mine has solved countless math problems while I slept. Which is useful to me, because I solve math problems for a living—that’s what my day job is. And I know from experience that when I wake up in the morning and my subconscious mind has solved a problem, I’m incredibly eager to get to work to fill in the details. 

Homework:

If you’re in on this, here’s your homework in 4 easy steps:

1. Pick your Project of the Year. Just one. Not two, not three, and definitely not seven.
2. Take a look at your life and figure out how many hours you have per week for your Project of the Year. Can you find 3 hours per week? Or 5? Or maybe even 7? If you can’t find enough hours, are there some things you said Yes to in previous years that you could now say No to?
3. Schedule time to work on your Project of the Year. Pick days of the week and a time block in each of those days. Write it down in your journal or on your calendar. Maybe set an alarm on your phone to remind you. 
4. Schedule 15 minutes at the end of every day to cue up your subconscious mind to think about your Project of the Year. This is NOT time to work on the Project of the Year. This is time to think about it and get your secret helper excited about it. 

Let me know how this works out for you. And let me know if you find ways to make it work even better. 

The post Every Yes is a Thousand Noes appeared first on Advanced Fiction Writing.

The one-sentence summary is the first step in my wildly popular Snowflake Method of writing a novel. But even if you don’t use the Snowflake Method, you still need a one-sentence summary.

What is a One-Sentence Summary?

A one-sentence summary is a sentence of up to 25 words that sets up the Story Question in your reader’s mind. Please note that the one-sentence summary usually is not the Story Question itself. The one-sentence summary causes your reader to ask the Story Question.

And what is the Story Question? That’s easy. The lead character of novel has some goal that they want to achieve by the end of the novel. Either they want to get something, or do something, or become something. The Story Question asks whether the lead character will achieve their goal. 

An Example One-Sentence Summary 

Let’s write an example one-sentence summary for one of my favorite spy novels, The Eye of the Needle, by Ken Follett. A little background is in order. 

It’s the spring of 1944, and World War II is anyone’s war to win—or lose. The German army is defending Europe, and the Allies have captured much of Italy. Everyone knows the Allies are going to attempt an invasion of France by crossing the English Channel. But nobody knows where the attack will land. Calais is the closest point on the French coast for an attack, but Normandy is less well-defended.

The German armies must defend both Calais and Normandy against attack, but they have limited forces. Their job would be much easier if only they knew where the attack would land. 

The Allies intend to attack Normandy. To fool the Germans, they create a large fake military camp on the ground in East Anglia, making it appear that they will attack Calais. The camp can easily be seen from the air and has thousands of fake tanks, airplanes, and buildings. The Allies generate fake radio messages from the camp, and run a bombing campaign against Calais.

The ruse works, and the Germans focus their defense on Calais. The Allies attack Normandy and create a foothold in Europe that eventually leads to victory. 

All of the above is standard history. What could have gone wrong? Suppose a German spy had investigated the fake military camp and discovered the ruse? Suppose the spy notified the Nazi high command? Then the Germans might have shifted their defenses to Normandy, and the war might have ended differently. We’ll never know, because it didn’t happen. 

But Ken Follett decided this possibility would make an exciting novel. Here’s my one-sentence summary of the storyline: “Shortly before D-Day, the only German spy in England discovers that the Allied invasion force threatening Calais is a fake.” 

That’s it. Just 20 words. I’ve left out all the story background. I’ve left out the names of all the characters. I’ve left out the Story Question. The one-sentence summary leaves out almost everything. But what goes into it? 

The Ingredients of a One-Sentency Summary

  These are the usual ingredients I use for cooking up a one-sentence summary. I don’t always use all of them, but I usually use most of them:

• Time or place information to establish the setting. 
• A paradoxical description of a major character.
• A surprising event that suggests the Story Question. 
• At least one emotive “kicker” word. 

In my example one-sentence summary, the phrase “shortly before D-Day” tells us the time, and the words “in England” tells us the location. We don’t need to be more precise than that. 

The paradoxical description of a major character is “the only German spy in England.” This is paradoxical because it’s rather shocking to hear that there might be just a single spy in the entire country. The reader probably won’t know for sure if it’s true, but it’s possible. And this fact massively raises the stakes on the story. This is the only spy who can inform the German high command, so everything is riding on him! 

The Story Question is obvious: Will the spy be able to warn his superiors about the fake invasion force, or will he not? The one-sentence summary doesn’t “tell” the reader the Story Question. It “shows” the reader enough information to figure out the Story Question. And having figured it out, the reader is now engaged in the story. 

The “kicker” word is the last one in the sentence—“fake.” The first 19 words of the story appear to be about an invasion force, and everyone knows there was an invasion. So the first 19 words make it seem like this is just another war story. Then the word “fake” turns everything around. Readers who know the history of the Normandy invasion will realize that this must be FUSAG—the famous fictitious First United States Army Group, under the command of George Patton. Readers who don’t know the history of the invasion will wonder what’s going on—and if they care about World War II, they’ll want to know more. 

Why Do You Need a One-Sentency Summary?

There are many reasons you need a one-sentence summary. Here are some of the most important:

• It keeps you focused when you’re writing your first draft, potentially shaving months off the time it takes to get it written. 
• It helps you edit your manuscript, because it tells you what to leave in, and what to take out. 
• It sells your book to your agent, who now knows how to sell it to your editor.
• It sells your book to your editor, who now knows how to sell it to their publishing committee. 
• It sells your book to the publishing committee, who makes the final decision on whether your editor will be allowed to publish your book. 
• It sells your book to your marketing team, because when you hand them a great one-sentence summary, you’ve done half their job. 
• It tells your cover designer how to create the perfect cover for your book. 
• It sells your book to potential readers in your target audience. In ten seconds, they know your book is exactly what they’ve been dying to read. 
• It scares away potential readers who are not in your target audience. You absolutely don’t want them reading your book and then leaving a review explaining why it’s not the book they were expecting. 

What if You Don’t Have a One-Sentency Summary?

There’s no better time than yesterday to write one. If that didn’t work out, there’s no time like the present. If that’s not in the cards, then tomorrow still works.

Some writers know their one-sentence summary from the get-go, before they even write the first word of their novel. Other writers like to discover their one-sentence summary as the story unfolds in their mind, bit by bit. They may need to write the whole first draft before they know what their story’s about. And that’s fine. 

The truth is that even writers who planned their story in advance will find some surprises while writing the first draft. By the time the manuscript is written, the story has usually evolved. In that case, it doesn’t hurt to refine the original one-sentence summary—or scrap it altogether and write a new one, a better one. 

I like to write a one-sentence summary before I start writing. But then I refine it after I’ve written the first quarter of the first draft. Then I refine it again when the book is half done, and again when it’s three-quarters done. And (hopefully) one last time when the first draft is complete.

There’s no harm in revising your one-sentence summary several times. It’s a bit like a fine wine—it gets better with age. 

Homework

• Do you have a one-sentence summary for your novel? If not, would you like one?
• What is the time and place where your novel is set? 
• What is the most important goal of any of the characters in your story? (It doesn’t need to be your protagonist who has the goal.)
• How can you define that character in a paradoxical way? 
• What is the “kicker” you can put at the end of the sentence that makes the story special? 
• Give yourself one hour and write the best one-sentence summary you can within that time limit. It can be awful, if that’s the best you’ve got, but it needs to be 25 words or less. Less is more.

Some Example One-Sentence Summaries

What makes each of the following one-sentence summaries work? Can you do better?

• A 17-year-old girl pretends to fall in love with another contestant in the arena where she and 23 other teens must fight to the death. (The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins.)
• A young English woman with little prospect of marriage must fend off a rude young aristocrat who thinks he loves her. (Pride & Prejudice, by Jane Austen.) 
• At the height of the cold war, a Russian submarine captain decides to turn over his latest-generation nuclear sub to the Americans. (The Hunt for Red October, by Tom Clancy.)
• A rogue physicist travels back in time to kill the apostle Paul. (My first published novel, Transgression.)

The post Your One-Sentence Summary appeared first on Advanced Fiction Writing.

If you get to know your characters by writing the first draft of your novel, you’ll write the first 200 pages before you really know your characters. And that may mean you need to thoroughly rewrite the whole book.

That seems inefficient. Isn’t there a faster way? 

Yes, there is. If you use my Snowflake Method, you’ve already got a nice tool for getting to know your characters. But not everyone’s brain is wired to use the Snowflake Method. 

So what if you’re not a Snowflaker?

If you’re not a Snowflaker, you can interview your characters. That’s a great way to get to know them. And in fact, even if you are a Snowflaker, you can also interview them, and it’s a great way to fill in some of the missing details in your Snowflake document.

How To Interview One Character

First, let me thank one of my very first friends in the writing business, John DeSimone. I met John at a writing conference in 1990, and we quickly became writing buddies. We talked on the phone often over the years. John introduced me to my first agent. And he also was the first person to tell me about interviewing his characters. 

John later got an MFA in creative writing, and he taught writing for years. He’s organized writing conferences, worked as an editor, and worked as a ghostwriter. And of course he’s published some novels. You can see what he’s up to at his website.

Interviewing a character is extremely simple. Here are the steps:

1) Decide which character in your novel you want to get to know better.

2) Open up your word processor and start a new document. 

3) Ask your character any question that comes to mind. A good one is, “What’s your main problem at the start of this novel?”

4) Let your character answer, however long or short they want to go. 

5) Ask another question based on that answer. You can be friendly or antagonistic, or both, or neither. Pretend you’re writing a feature article for your favorite news outlet. Make your character talk. Listen to how they express themselves. Continue until you’re done. 

Which Characters Should You Interview?

I find it useful to interview any character who gets significant air time in my novel. 

Definitely interview your lead character. One of the hardest parts of writing a novel is figuring out where your story is going. When you interview your lead character, ask them where they think they’re going. Then in your story, force them to go somewhere else. 

I think it’s even more important to interview your villain. Why? Because it’s all too easy to make your villain a two-dimensional bad guy with no redeeming features. When you interview your villain, you have a chance to dive deep, to figure out why they’ve gone bad. And how they justify their actions. How they convince themselves that they’re actually the good guy, the hero of the story. When you know that, you’ll automatically have a better story. 

It also makes sense to interview any viewpoint characters. If you’re writing even one scene from any character’s point-of-view, it really helps to know how they think. And you learn how they think by listening to them talk. You get them talking by asking them questions.

An Example Character Interview

OK, enough theory. Here’s the beginnings of a character interview with a guy most of you are familiar with, Luke Skywalker, from Star Wars. This is not an official interview. Luke is not my character, and I had nothing to do with the Star Wars movies. This is purely for educational purposes. 

This is how I imagine I’d get to know Luke if I was just starting out to write the very first Star Wars movie, and if I didn’t really have a good idea where the story was going. 

In this interview, I’ll use my initials (RI) and Luke’s initials (LS). And away we go…

RI: Hi Luke, you’re a young guy working on a farm. Tell me what you’d like to be doing in five years. Where do you see your life going?

LS: Don’t get me started! I’m going nowhere. I hate working on this farm. This is the most boring planet in the galaxy. And I’ll probably die of boredom before I’m thirty. 

RI: Why don’t you just leave? You’re not helpless.

LS: I can’t leave! I owe it to my Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. They raised me when I was an orphan, and now I have to help them keep the farm going. Even though I hate it. 

RI: I don’t get it. Yes, you owe them something, but you’re not an indentured servant. You’re an adult, and farming isn’t in your blood. Can’t they hire somebody? Or get a few droids to help out?

LS: They can’t afford to hire anybody. And droids are expensive. So I’m stuck here. My best buddy went off to join the rebels last year, but I’ll be here forever. 

RI: Explain to me about the rebels. Is there something going on I don’t know about?

LS: What cave did you crawl out of? Don’t you know? The whole galaxy’s in revolt. The evil Emperor has finally gone too far. There are whole planets that have rebelled. There’s something called the Rebellion, which I’m not supposed to talk about, but it’s real. And it’ll be over before I ever get off this planet to join. 

RI: That sounds great! The Rebellion will knock off the evil Emperor, and you’ll be safely here, away from danger—

LS: What are you talking about? The Rebellion hasn’t got a prayer of winning. There’s this new thing called the Death Star. It can knock out a planet with one giant zap. And then on to the next one. Everyone’s terrified of it, but nobody’s doing anything about it. 

RI: Well, then obviously you don’t want to get involved. If the Rebellion has no chance of winning, you’d just get yourself killed, and that would be—

LS: NO!!!! I can’t just do nothing. That’s stupid and lame and wrong. I could help. I’m a good flyer. I could go to battle and fight the Evil Empire. 

RI: With all due respect, you’re just one guy. I’m sure you fly very well for a farm boy, but you’re not military-trained, and anyway one guy against the Death Star doesn’t sound like a fair fight. If you want my advice, don’t get involved.

LS: I don’t care! I’ve got to do something! You make me sick, talking about running and hiding. 

RI: Hey Luke? Chill, OK? Frankly, you sound a little childish. You talk big about fighting the evil Emperor and taking on the Death Star, but you can’t even stand up for yourself and tell your uncle you need to get off the farm. I think you’re all talk, no action. 

LS: You don’t talk to me like that, you hear? Cause if you do, I’ll … um … 

RI: You’ll do what, Luke? Throw milk on me? Tell the teacher I called you names? I don’t think you’re the violent type. I don’t see you using force to get what you want. 

LS: Wait, what did you say? 

RI: Are you going to throw milk on me?

LS: No, after that. The part about using force. How do you know about that?

RI: I have no idea what you’re talking about. 

LS: You never heard of The Force?

RI: No, what’s The Force?

LS: Well, I’m not supposed to talk about it. Uncle Owen would be really mad. But I heard a rumor that there used to be these amazing guys called the Jedi Knights. And they mastered something called The Force. And they were like, unbeatable in battle. 

RI: Sounds like an old wives tale, Luke. Maybe you should get back to milking cows, or whatever you farm boys do on a desert planet. Because look, I already told you what your real problem is, and—

LS: My problem is I’m stuck here on the farm!

RI: Sorry, no. Luke, your real problem is that you think you’re stuck here on the farm, and you can’t see that there’s absolutely nothing holding you here except your own scaredy-cat self. You say you want to leave, but you don’t really. You’re a bratty little kid, Luke. You don’t want to leave bad enough to just do it, and consequences be damned.

LS: Not true! I should … punch you for that!

RI: Yes, you should. But you won’t. Because you’re just a whiny do-nothing kid, and you’re never going to amount to—ouch! That hurt! Hey, come back here, and I’ll punch you right back! Where do you think you’re going?

LS: I have no idea. But I’m out of here.

What Are You Waiting For?

Are you itching to start your first interview with one of your characters? What are you waiting for? You have a whole universe of potential characters waiting to be discovered. 

Go to it. And may the … 

No, no, I’m not using that cliche. It’s been done to death. But remember one thing. At one point in time, nobody on the planet had ever said, “May the Force be with you.” 

Until George Lucas met Obi-Wan Kenobi. I like to think they met in a smoky bar, had a bunch of drinks, talked about life and war and philosophy and love and power and fear and hopes and dreams. And about two hours in, working on their fifteenth beer, Obi-Wan Kenobi said something about the Force. 

And George was listening. 

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