How to Write a Genre Novel 101
Or...Hey bud! How do ya get to Carnegie Hall?
How to Write a Novel 101
Backstory
(If you want to skip directly to the how-to part, scroll down.)
Having read God knows how many novels and having a degree in English literature, before I tried writing my first novel, I thought to myself… how hard could this be?
Ha!
I’ve written before about my late blooming novel writing. You can read all about that HERE.
So, I just blithely assumed I could write a novel. Well, maybe not War and Peace, but surely I could write something as good as your average crime fiction novel.
Well, as you might have guessed, I was wrong. When I sat down to write my first book, I think I wrote a few pages’ worth and then I got completely stuck. Mired, as it were, in the mud of my own confusion and ignorance.
Thank goodness I didn’t give up. I read a few books about novel writing and then sat down and cranked out seven “practice” novels. Over four hundred thousand words worth. Most of these were even edited by a paid editor. (She was a university student, and I didn’t pay her much.) So, I not only went through the process of creating a rough draft, but I also went through various edits to tighten up the story, make the prose clearer, and so on and so forth.
There’s a guy, James Scott Bell, who teaches (or taught) novel writing in California. I got a few of his books on Amazon. They helped. Then, I stumbled across a book by Randy Ingermanson. The name of that book was The Snowflake Method. It’s on Amazon. That book helped move me along the path because it gave me some names for things. But I wasn’t quite there.
I should mention that decades ago when my wife went to film school in the 90s, I read her text about screenwriting called Screenplay by Syd Field. That’s where I first learned about three-act structure.
Finally, I stumbled across Blake Snyder's Save the Cat. It saved my proverbial cat! It gave me the structure I needed to write dramatic novels that people would like to read.
But even Save The Cat is a little clunky.
Then, I just happened to listen to a guy who was a crime writer talk about how he writes novels quickly. He said something to the effect of…A novel is basically a bunch of people talking. Every now and then, there’s a pure action scene, but normally, those include quite a bit of talking, too. Also, you know that around the first quarter point, something big has to happen, and around the middle of the book, something even bigger has to happen that turns the story around in the other direction. Then, you get to the fourth quarter, and everything is resolved.
The simplicity of what the guy said wouldn’t have hit me if I hadn’t already studied dramatic structure. But I had, and when he said this, I thought…how incredibly simple!
A novel goes blah, blah, blah, BIG THING, blah, blah, blah, BIGGER THING, blah, blah, blah, REALLY BIG THING, and blah, blah, blah…the REALLY BIG THINGS are resolved.
Let me give you a quick example and then explain an easy way to implement all this.
Example
I’m writing a paranormal detective novel. It’s the beginning of a new series. So, I know that at the end of the first quarter, something big needs to happen.
Well, duh, it’s a murder mystery, so a good idea of the thing that has to happen might just be…wait for it…there’s a dead body!
Okay, so far, so good.
There are a lot of directions we can go from here.
Let’s choose one.
Let’s let the Midpoint (halfway point) be that a guy is arrested, but our protagonist (in this case, a young woman in her thirties), through paranormal means, thinks the cops have the wrong person. They don’t think so, though! So, she has to find the real killer.
That would make a very good midpoint. Not the only one, mind. You could also have a second murder either before the midpoint or at the midpoint. And the protagonist realizes they have a serial killer on their hands, but the authorities don’t see it like this. They want a quick resolution and conviction. And there are so many other things that can happen.
A really great way to learn how to create murder mystery plots is to look at a lot of murder mystery series on TV. Figure out what the bones of the story are and write them down. Put them in the following order:
Act I
Big thing that happens at the end of the act
First half of Act II
Midpoint
Second half of Act II
Bigger thing that happens at the end of the act
Finale (the murderer gets caught, and order is restored to the world)
Why do I say look at a ton of murder mysteries on TV? Because there are a lot of them, and it’s easier to see the structure of a TV movie or episode than it is to see it in a book.
When you get better at spotting the above, you can go the next step and figure out why some movies or TV episodes are better than others. Unless you understand and can suss out dramatic structure, you’ll probably think a movie or episode isn’t good because of something else—bad acting, bad cinematography, stupid music or sets. It’s virtually never those issues. Great structure (which makes a great story) will easily overcome bad acting.
There’s a series on Prime called Hope Street. It’s shot in a little town on the coast of Northern Ireland. The acting isn’t horrible, but it’s just okay, yet the series is a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it for so many reasons, not the least of which is that I got caught up in the story.
So, in addition to writing your story, start looking at a lot of TV episodes of various types and see if you can figure out the structure. (Or see if you can tell where they made egregious structural mistakes.)
Now, let’s move on to your story.
First, pick a genre. I write mysteries and police procedurals because I love them.
Next, pick a protagonist. I don’t care who you pick. Just pick one. Remember, this novel is a practice novel.
When I started writing and was trying to figure this stuff out, I read a lot of stuff that said I needed to create a backstory for all my characters, etc. Well, I don’t do that. I normally carry the protagonist around in my head for quite a while before writing about him or her. Not always, though.
When I started writing my police procedural, The Deep Six, I had no idea of anything except the location. I knew I wanted the story set around Choctawhatchee Bay. I just had a guy out on a fishing boat with his older brother. Then, as I wrote, I realized the older brother’s wife was there, along with a few college students who were on a dive trip. That was all I had. Yet the book turned out pretty good!
So, you don’t need much to get going. For that book, I didn’t even have a protagonist; I just had a location that I personally have always loved.
But, lets you start with a protagonist. Name them. But don’t stress about much else.
Since we’re writing a murder mystery, it pretty much goes without saying that your protagonist needs to be some sort of detective, professional, or amateur.
Next, you need someone for them to interact with, a Watson to your Holmes. Notice: the great comedy acts, Laurel and Hardy, Lucille Ball and Dezi Arnaz, etc, all had this. In comedy, it’s called a “straight man.” (Maybe nowadays, we should call it a straight person or a straight X. ⇐That was a joke!)
Okay, now we need a direction for the story. That direction is always toward the first plot point, which is the part of the story at the end of Act I and the beginning of Act II.
For our story, that’s going to be a dead body.
So, now we need three things.
1. Protagonist
2. Straight-person
3. Dead person
In my outline above, the midpoint was the cops arresting the wrong person. You could have the cops give up, or a second body appears, but something has to happen right at the quarter point.
Nex,t figure out a midpoint.
At that point, that’s all the thinking about structure that I do. (If I do that much.)
If I know the main character, helper character, dead person, quarter point (called Plot Point I in the biz), and the midpoint (called Plot Point II or just the midpoint in the biz), I’m good to go.
Next, I start writing, letting my imagination and subconscious run riot, although in a guided sense.
Carnegie Hall
Yeah, yeah, practice, practice!
Yeah, but it really is a matter of just that, PRACTICE!
Here are your marching orders.
1. Look at a lot of genre shows on TV and learn to map out their structure
2. Pick a genre to write in
3. Next, pick a main character, helper character, dead person, Plot Point I, and Plot Point II)
4. Start writing the story! Put the main character and helper character somewhere and have them talk about something. This will lead inexorably toward that first plot point, where the story takes a sudden turn.
Could It Be This Easy?
You’re confusing simple and easy.
Yes, it’s simple.
No, it’s absolutely not easy.
Now, it’s your turn!
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