On Fiction Writing: A Brief History

Several years and millions of words ago, an idea was borne from thought to reality by the efforts of handful of writers who believe in their craft: a place where people serious about the craft of fiction writing could gather and discuss issues close to their heart and relevant to their work.

As every good idea does, it needed a home in a place where writers and books and the people who love to read them would gather.

It began as a group in a quiet corner of a busy thoroughfare on the Goodreads platform.

On Fiction Writing

In this group, we discuss storytelling and the hazardous road to publication in its many guises from the standpoint of craft and technique. This group is not a showcase or an arena to promote our particular works. We seek to debate how we research, structure, plot, draft, edit, write, and rewrite our novels. How we format, condense, and prepare synopsis, proposals, blurbs, and hooks. And how we plan our assault to the seemingly impregnable fortress of the establishment: agents and publishers.

Our founder, a quiet ...stop laughing, please!.. but serious man of letters, author Carlos J Cortes.

Exceeding hopes, the group grew, and best of all: it acquired as member a group of writers who were serious about their craft.

From this humble beginning came first the 2009 anthology, Ménage à 20: Tales with A Hook (Twenty Goodreads Authors).

A 2010 anthology release had been planned, but what with one thing and another and the vagaries of the publishing world, it did not happen.

Meanwhile, Carlos and Renee Miller, another of the writer/moderators of OFW had been having other ideas. They wanted to write a book on fiction writing.  Not just another book, but a definitive work on the state-of-the-art of fiction writing, from the germ of an ide to getting published, in todays changing world of publishing.  

What came of that effort was ‘the writers best friend’, The Writers Companion, published in 2011.

Now, follow-your-heart and all other platitudes aside, writing is a serious business. 

It was obvious from the beginning of OFW that to attract serious writers to a place where they could not only discuss and work at their craft but also be rewarded for their effort, one needed to provide a platform, one that would be able to provide and sustain dynamic content.

And so, after much hard work, profanity, sweat sleepless nights and alcohol … 

Beginning January 2012, On Fiction Writing will have a new home:

Onfictionwriting.com

We hope to see you there in the new year.

NaNoWriMo 2011: Another Year, Another Novel

Tomorrow is the official end to NaNoWriMo 2011. For me, it's another year nearly over and another novel begun.

It takes a lot more than thirty days of writerly abandon to write a novel, but it's a good start. There will be months of hard writing and editing ahead, but the hard part is done.

The first draft looks and reads more like a chapter-by-chapter plot outline with chunks of dialogue, place and character descriptions and a few action scenes plugged in here and there as sign-posts.

The opening lines that were so casually written, erased and rewritten in the margins of my outline will probably find their way to the cutting room floor in the editing room in my mind, but for now they stand as a sign that the planning stage is over and real work of writing has begun.

There will be days of nearly blank pages, of using more red-ink than black before it is done. There will lost ideas and poorly constructed paragraphs, missing punctuation, mindless meddling with perfectly good sentences ... and adverbs looking for a place to hide.

Right now it's time to brew another pot of coffee, grab another plate of seasonal cookies and get back to writing.

So, so long NaNoWriMo. It's been fun.  Bon Voyage, and we'll see you next year.

I Hate First Drafts

I freely admit it! I Hate First Drafts... because they suck! 

Whether it's your first or your fiftieth novel or novelette or short story or... It makes no difference. When you're busy writing it, you'll think its the most brilliant and original thing you've done to-date.

... but when the ink dries and you've taken a deep breath, you realise upon re-reading your literary masterpiece just how much it sucks.

But guess what?

I believe that in the grand scheme of things, its supposed to. 

Believe-it-or-not, this is a good thing. 

By admitting this and giving yourself permission to suck, it allows you to get all the worst of the bad ideas for your novel/screenplay/short story/etc... out of your system. 

• Regardless of the hours spent in research, character development and world-building. 
• Regardless of the outline, the storyboard or all the fiddly bits you thought out and planned to put into it.

When you begin the first draft, don't worry about them or the gaps and gaffes and obvious nonsense. Play freely with all the little flights of fancy.

... And ignore the person with the red pen behind the little green screen in your mind.

Because the process of writing doesn't really begin until after the first draft is done.