Writing Your First Fiction, 350+ Tips and Techniques for the Savvy Writer

By Shayla McBride

The answer to your writer prayers! Dream of writing genre fiction? Need some help sorting out the basics? Speed your development from clueless newbie to competent, successful author with this award-winning how-to-write assistant. Writing genre fiction is a very specialized gig with rules and expectations that often aren't clearly explained. Save your writing life with this indispensable easy-read dictionary-style resource! Over 350 must-know tips and topics for the fiction writer at any stage in their career. Buy it now! There’s plenty for the writer farther along the learning curve, too. Novice writers will find answers to the basic how-to-write questions of style, technique and craft that are rarely discussed in one book. Most how-to-write books assume you’re past the “training wheels” stage. Shayla McBride admits to being a newbie writer for far too long, and wants this resource to get you up to speed without a lot of hair-tearing and hand-wringing (to say nothing of wine-swilling). In the beginning, a writer doesn't know what she doesn't know. Here you’ll find definitions and clarity along with plenty of how-to-write examples to aid understanding. Got a problem with your story arc? Character development? Stuck on the first paragraph? Stuck, period? Help is here!For intermediate writers, Writing Your First Fiction puts all the basics and a lot of mid-level information of writing genre fiction at your fingertips. Find technique, branding and promotion, social media and websites, agents and the Big Five, why self-pub might (or might not) be best for you. Find encouragement and candor, too. For the more accomplished writer, revisiting the basics is often a good idea. We're only human, and things don't always stick. There's so much to know! This easy-read, upbeat how-to-write resource gives you confidence and support when the evil, inevitable "I'm writing nothing but garbage!" syndrome kicks in. How to write to the next level is an eternal goal.Give yourself the gift of having someone in your corner who's been there, made all the mistakes and tells you how you can avoid them and go on to flourish in your chosen career. Shayla McBride covers the baby-step how-to-write basics that more advanced books neglect. Newbie writers need to know more aspects of the writing and publishing world than ever before in order to plot a successful course in becoming an author. Regardless of occupation, education or experience, all early fiction writers follow the same basic path. As a novice, you don't yet realize what you don't know. Short-cut that sometimes-rough path with this easy-reading, sometimes humorous, always candid dictionary-style how-to-write resource. Chock full of how-to-write examples, you'll come away with in-depth knowledge of the technique, process, and pitfalls of creating (without meltdown!) readable, sellable genre fiction from romance and mystery to YA, thriller and suspense. Considering self-publishing? Hybrid? Going wide? Writing Your First Fiction explores both the up and the very real down sides. Confused about character or plot development? A multitude of entries will help you clarify the how-to-write-better basics. Buffaloed by industry jargon? Need help with heat levels, scene construction? Editing and revision? POV and HEA and TSTL? How about sex, love and violence? It's all here! Consider Shayla your just-a-bit-curmudgeonly Auntie Shayla who'll spend hours happily discussing every aspect of the genre writing life. Shayla wants you to succeed. A perfect gift, even for an MFA. Gift yourself or another with focused insider how-to-write knowledge! Get it now and get your writing career moving!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shayla McBride
• Release date: Feb 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463570609

Shayla McBride

Shayla McBride lives on Gulfcoast Florida. At one point, after several years in the Peace Corps, she planned to live in Paris. France. But her kids live in Florida so here she is, living a sweet tropical life and not luxuriating in la Belle France. But, oh, for a decent bit of bread!Shayla's keen on gardenng (or at least keeping the greenery at bay), third-world travel, Asian street food, anything to do with kitchens (from total renovation to totally new recipes). She's a sucker for things literary, felines of all sorts, almost any red wine, darkest chocolate, and writing.New writers hold a special place in her heart; she was one for way too long. Now she seeks to help those on that path. After A is for Author, it's back to suspense fiction, destroing whole cities and taking people out.

Book preview

Hello!

I hope you’ll enjoy Writing Your First Fiction and get some good hints from it so your understanding of this complex and rapidly changing industry goes from zero to got-it. I updated this in 2019 to reflect some (but by no means all) industry changes. Particularly on the distribution side, things are moving at an incredibly fast pace. New tools for the writer at any level appear almost weekly. Blogs and podcasts abound.

But the basics of good fiction writing? They really don’t change much.

This book may have over 350 essential topics but that’s only the beginning. Want even more? Want to go deeper? Sign up for my Newsletter.

www.shaylamcbride.com

No spam. I’ll never sell your name. You can opt out at any time.

Enjoy your writing journey.

Shayla

https://www.amazon.com/Shayla-McBride

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goodreads.com/author/show/17104651.Shayla McBride

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FOREWORD

It’s estimated that over eighty percent of Americans think they have a book in them. You may be one of those hopeful 275,000,000 citizens. Or maybe you live outside the U.S but have a similar dream. Either way, welcome to the great, rarely disected ambition of writing your own original work of fiction.

It’ll be a piece of cake, right? After all, you use a lot of words every day. You’ve written reports, essays, shopping lists, holiday family updates, e-mails, tweets. You read, everything from check-out line trash to print and e-books. After you finished a recent work of fiction, you thought: I could do better than this. In fact, I think I will.

A dozen starts later, you realize it’s not quite that easy. You can see the story, but everything’s gauzy. You can’t find the words. Those on paper aren’t right. It takes a lot of words to make a novel, the right words, in the right order. Your initial effort is disorganized, repetitive, and meandering. Boring. The one thing a novel can’t be is boring. Why’s it such a mess? You’d never realized books had to be edited. Can yours be saved? Should it be saved?

When you begin writing, you don’t know what to look for. You don’t know the basics of construction, the techniques or the genre demands, the terminology, or reader expectations. You don’t realize what you don’t know.

So many questions, so few easily accessible answers. You’re not alone. Everyone who’s ever embarked on the journey of creating genre fiction from their own imagination follows the same basic path and has the same questions.

What you write, your style, will be unique to you. The process itself isn’t. Your questions about writing are neither stupid nor unusual. Every person who writes, including me, has had them. I’ve tried to answer a lot of them—350-plus, but who’s counting?—to make the mysterious world of fiction writing more explicable.

As with most writing advice, nothing in here is one hundred percent true for all situations or all writers. Almost nothing is absolute. This book is based on my experience in laboring to attain a publishable level of writing skill. Plus a lot of research and interviewing, talking shop with hundreds of writers at all stages of their careers.

Through teaching classes, counseling writers, and being part of critique groups, I know newer writers pretty much do the same things, and most do the same things in the same order. All wonder how they’re doing without knowing how or where to find the answer.

Most of the subjects addressed here are available in expanded form on-line, in other books on writing and through classes, both on-line and in person. Check the back matter for authors, associations, or blogs mentioned. Don’t know what back matter is? Look it up here!

This is a demanding gig with a long learning curve. It’s fair to state that you will never stop learning, no matter how much success you attain. Even New York Times best-selling authors have said they’re ready to take their craft to the next level. The information in here is phrased for beginners, although those of you working farther along the continuum will find items of interest, as renewals or reminders.

My first suggestion: read this book in sips, not gulps. Because you don’t have to read in order, and I don’t know how you’ll consume this, there’s some unavoidable repetition.

As with ballroom dancing, gymnastics, or oil painting, there are baby steps to take. Any craft has basics to master before moving forward, and writing is one of the most demanding of crafts. As Ernest Hemingway once wrote,

We are all apprentices in a craft we will never master.

Thank you to my editor Maureen Sevilla, who helped to clarify my murky prose, successfully argued the case on several opposing points, and generally made this polyester sack into a designer handbag. The author is always responsible for the finished product: mistakes are mine. Maureen’s the best kind of editor: prompt, thorough, good-humored, consistent, and focused only on making the work the best it can be. Find her at http://maureensevilla.com. Her book on writing, MAXIMUM IMPACT—Writing Short, is available online.

(!) after a word means the subject is addressed elsewhere in the book under its own heading. For readability, once the (!) subject has been addressed under its own heading, its (!)s will not reappear.

# starts and ends an example #

* denotes a footnote to that entry only

♥ (a heart, which may not convert on all e-readers) Is a me-to-you comment, mostly 100% personal opinion or feeling, candid and curmudgeonly Auntie Shayla to you.

NOTE: Writers commonly use word count(!) when talking of manuscript length. I’ve employed, throughout this book, the popular shorthand practice of using K for thousand: 75K instead of 75,000.

Return to Table of Contents

A

If your writing attracts your reader’s attention, your style probably needs editing. Suspect all your favorite sentences. Each sentence must serve the whole. —Kenneth Atchity

A STORY

The main, primary, story or plot line(!) you are creating. This is the tale the reader paid for. In longer fiction, there can also be a B story(!), even a C or D. But those are shorter, perhaps involving your secondary characters(!), thus less important, and should not overtake your primary plot arc(!).

A novella or shorter work, under 40K (word count), generally has only the A story. All have a beginning, a middle, and an end that wraps up all plot threads. The end of a story is no place for a cliff-hanger. For the American reader, a positive, unambiguous finale is best, unless you’re writing noir(!), urban fantasy(!) or a dark series.

The thing about the A story is that you ought to advance it, one way or another, in just about every scene(!). The shorter the work, the more you ought to adhere to this. If you find yourself in a series of scenes that meander or don’t deal with the main plot concerns, either re-write or delete(!) them.

Too many plot lines can really mess you up. What’s your A story? How many words will your work be? What’s the genre(!), your character arc(!)? Many factors influence story lines. The back cover blurb(!) or on-line book description(!) sells that story, the reader expects to get it.

Extraneous story lines that wander or don’t add to the overall tale can be irritating, and you never want an irritated reader. (But those wanderings can make a possible novella idea as a future side story.)

♥ Deleting huge chunks of your work can be traumatic. I’ve found that an outtake file makes such excision easier: it doesn’t feel as final (although I rarely revisit the file).

AAR

Association of Authors Representatives, is the major U.S. organization representing literary agents for writers of all sorts. Not every agent wants to rep every genre, so always check out their interests before considering them. There are agents who specialize in inspirational(!), cookbooks or nonfiction (not our concern) or romance(!). Even within the same agency, not all agents will seek the same type of work.

The AAR Code of Ethics sets the standard all reputable agents should follow. If you go the route of seeking representation, as it’s called, finding a member in good standing of the AAR is one of the things you should do. Some non-member agents and agencies claim to follow the AAR ethical standards (but for some reason do not pay for membership).

If an agency offers you advice or representation for a fee, even a so-called reader’s fee, head in the other direction. Legitimate agents do not charge reading fees, or any other up-front fee. The temptation to pay money for an honest and professional evaluation is understandable but resisting temptation is character building, so resist this too-good set-up. Editors, however, do work for a fee and can evaluate or edit for you.

A website titled Editors and Predators* is a reliable source for calling out problem agents and agencies when you reach the point of seeking representation. As the information contained therein changes frequently, there’s little point in spending time on it until you’re well along on your writing journey.

There are agencies who are now offering to publish your work as a service. This raises the issue of conflict of interest: are they representing you to other publishers, or are they profit-driven publishing houses? Seems to me it takes the agent’s neutrality away and could put self-interest in the driver’s seat.

♥ Editors(!) do charge for their services, but that’s a different situation. They are actually employed by you for a specific task and will not be getting any royalties from your work.

* See addendum in the back for some useful websites, books on writing, and a brief list of authors mentioned in this work.

ABILITY

First: you have the ability to succeed in this endeavor. You might be dyslexic or colorblind or have severe arthritis or trembly hands, but you can build the knowledge, technique, and mental connections to write genre fiction. This is largely a head game, with a lot to learn.

Don’t let the hype scare you away. Yes, it’ll take time, maybe years. If you can read and write, if you’ve had the self-discipline to graduate from high school and hold down a job, you can most probably do this. Do not bash yourself about if it doesn’t come easy. Few of us are natural storytellers. Even Hemingway wrote massive amounts of stuff he discarded.

Ability is also the talents you give your characters that will allow them the opportunity to succeed in the fiction story you’re writing. Throughout the book, I’ll refer to certain characters as examples, and here I’ll use Flavia deLuce*, an eleven year-old budding chemist who concocts odd potions in an abandoned laboratory at Buckshaw, the moldering English stately home she occupies with her two nasty sisters and her ever-preoccupied father.

Flavia’s many things: curious, intrepid, organized, fearless, and clear-sighted (in an eleven-year-old’s way), and constantly inserts herself into murder mysteries. Her attributes are intelligence (eccentric at times), curiosity, mendacity, energy, naiveté, and an odd brilliance when applied to figuring out whodunnit. She’s the perfect character with perfect abilities, ones that the author selected with care.

Give your characters attributes that will help them navigate your story, and (eventually) triumph in the challenging situations you’ll put them through. Make these tools part of their personalities right from the start; no point in your twenty-something code-writing geek turning into a ripped, charismatic hottie in chapter twenty just so the heroine can find him mesmerizing. Don’t laugh, I’ve seen it happen. The geek should have at least suggestions of the potential from the start. Better, he should have internal qualities the heroine eventually finds even more attractive.

* The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, first in an award-winning mystery series by Canadian author Alan Campbell.

ACTION

Action is an external manifestation of the plot moving forward. Action hooks(!) the reader. One dictionary definition: the fact or process of doing something, typically to achieve an aim. Break that down. Process...doing something...achieve an aim. Holy cow, writers, we’ve also got the definition there of a paragraph(!), a scene(!) and a story arc(!).

Action ranges from baking cookies or gossiping over a glass of wine to training a dragon, stopping an assassin or blowing up entire planets. All action in a work of fiction should come from previous situations or scenes into the present scene. Following action should be reaction time. What point action if nobody notices?

Not all scenes have physical action in them; they can have internal events such as the protagonist(!) thinking or planning in a reaction scene(!). But everything serves a purpose. Putting the kettle on means something.

# Amanda puts the kettle on. The doorbell rings. When our heroine answers the door, Jason the hero is standing there…the kettle whistles...he waits for an invitation...she sighs and invites him in for a cup of coffee. #

# Or she grabs him by the shirt front, yanks him inside, and pins him to the wall with a lip-searing kiss. #

# And then tells him she needs help steaming off some wallpaper. #

Action. Purpose. Result. Of a sort.

If the scene is the opening one, action implying the necessity of a decision is a great way to start. It’s called in medias res(!), and it’s designed to hook the reader into devouring the entire work. The example below opens the Prologue(!) of a recently released novel.

# Sebastian tightened his grip on the steering wheel of the little MG. The lorry behind him touched his rear bumper and jolted the car forward...—Jeffrey Archer, Be Careful What You Wish For. #

Most readers will want to know what happens next to Sebastian, and why a lorry is trying to push him off the road. As the first lines, they’re unambiguous and they hook. Which is the purpose in starting with an action that requires some kind of immediate reaction. Archer probably started with something completely different, but he decided on this scene and this hook.

Action must be realistic in terms of the motivation(!) and the setting. Yes, James Bond’s adventures are often actions that simply aren’t possible, but this is a specific sub-genre of the spy hero genre(!): let’s call it the James Bond genre. But let’s not get lost in the wilds of Bond, we’d never get out.

Early writers often back away from action, I think because it’s almost always larger and more direct than life. Action in many cases suggests confrontation and violence, and few of us relish that in our daily lives. As normal human beings, we shy away from confrontation, tension, strife, unpleasantness, and scenes in the traditional sense of high drama, emotion and danger: all of that is action. And it needs to go into your novel.

As a writer, leaving behind your daily life to write and realizing that readers pick up a book to escape their own (boring, mundane, stressful) lives is a big first step. Your big task as a writer is to entice the reader into your world and keep her there as if shackled to the pages. You do this, in part, through action. Compare these versions:

# Amelia went down the ladder. #

# Amelia crept down the ladder into the darkness. Her sweating hands were barely able to grip the splintered rungs. #

Which would grab the reader more? Which gives more insight into Amelia’s emotional state, her physical reaction, and the danger she thinks she faces? What words illustrate or change the mood? How does the change in verb ramp up the tension(!)?

Action should be a logical outcome of what came before. If it’s your first scene (of, say, a thriller or spy novel or adventure) then you create as much tension(!) as possible without going into back story(!). In action-based genres, the reader expects to start in medias res(!). No gentle lead-in, just pow! and we’re off with Sebastian in peril in his tiny MG. Explanations can wait (really, they can), the reader needs to be hooked and hooked fast.

Most readers of genre fiction aren’t keen on pages of back story(!), long passages of introspection or minute analysis of motivation dating to childhood. They want things to happen. They want to see people tested, challenged, and they want to see them triumph...but not too fast or too easily.

♥ Don’t shy away from action, or conflict(!). Look for ways to up the ante. As with all aspects of learning fiction writing, this awareness may come to you in stages. Just so it comes.

ADJECTIVES & ADVERBS

# Amelia desperately, agonizingly wanted to leave the untidy, moldy, cluttered, gloomy cellar. But the heavy, solid, thick trap door had shut with a horrifying, terrible, surprising, ear-splitting crash. #

Almost universally, early writers rely on adjectives and adverbs to convey meaning. A work that’s one-third adjectives is unreadable to most people. How to see your adjectives in real time? Highlight every modifying word; they’re italicized above. You should have, on a page, only a few spots. If you have a rash, or blocks of the dread highlight, you’re relying too heavily on these words to make the reader understand and to make your writing colorful.

The example above was a tell, not a show. It's an overview instead of an inside glimpse. Here's one fix:

# Amelia screamed as the trap door slammed down, plunging the cellar into darkness. Fingers trembling, she fumbled in her pocket, brought out her cell phone, and switched on the light. It was worse than she'd feared. The place was a filthy trap. Who even knew she was down here? She blinked back tears. #

One adjective: filthy. Active verbs: screamed, slammed, plunging, trembling, fumbled, trapped. Point of view: close. This isn't reporting, this is genre fiction narration(!). See what you can do with the first example. Just take a piece of paper and work out your own solution.

How to fix the adjective blight? Just be aware you’re doing it. Use more active, carefully chosen verbs and nouns. If it still seems tame, put back in maybe one modifier (see above). Quickly, you'll become aware of how often you're depending on adjectives and adverbs. This is good. It’s a step toward more direct, vibrant writing.

♥ Readers are smart and savvy. You don’t need to inundate them with detail or beat them over the head with what you meant for them to get it.

ADVICE, GIVING & RECEIVING

As a writer, you’ll quickly figure out that, yes, it’s far better to give than to receive. Realize that one person’s advice is just that: one person sharing their opinion. Don’t take all advice to instant heart; think it over. A writer’s learning curve is long and essentially endless. There’s always something new to learn, something old to improve. Before you apply the offered advice you have to be sure it will improve your work.

But you do need advice. Why else did you buy this book? First, the fact that you know you need a bit of help is very smart and will save you both time and anguish. Just know that when you are ready to really hear the advice (and isn’t this true in all areas of your life?), it will slot in.

Second, take most advice only after asking yourself: Does this person know more than me about the craft of writing? Do I respect her writing? Is she kind (amazing how important kindness is) and thoughtful? Is this person a source of reliable information?

Find smart, savvy, happy people who are willing to give you some time and attention. Listen and learn. Read books. Attend classes. Write. Join writers groups. Learn to listen to critique and evaluate, then analyze it, then apply it or discard it. Learn to edit. Work hard. Be humble. Don’t rush to publish. Learn, first, to write and edit(!).

A time will come when you are in a position to offer honest and valid critiques to another writer. In truth, if you’re a heavy reader, you probably already know a lot about good writing. Giving a critique is very tricky. Kindness does count, but so does honesty. Always remember that this is someone’s beloved labor; explain what doesn’t work for you, but avoid detailed advice on how to fix it. That’s the author’s task.

♥ Not all advice will be right for your work. Don’t rush to change unless you understand why you’re doing it and agree with it. Trying to be all things to all people via critique won’t do your work any good.

AGENDA NOVELS

Feeling passionately about a particular sometimes-contentious subject (political, religious or cultural) is fine. Writing about that tetchy subject in a work of fiction in order to set the world straight in a 70K word thinly-disguised letter to the editor is not the best way to address the issue. While writing from the heart is one of the recommended ways to create a story, writing from an agenda rarely improves the tale.

I’ve read a couple of these novels in recent years, and the author’s agenda came through in clunky, over-the-top scenes that would’ve been far better served by a more dispassionate treatment. No reader wants to find an agenda-driven lecture in her reading material.

AGENTS

Back in the day, an agent was essential to a fiction writer’s success. These gatekeepers still have value to the industry, but the situation for the writer has altered greatly. No more do we have to have an agent. Now we seek an agent only when we want to publish through a larger press.

If you self-publish, no agent wants to talk to you until you’ve sold thousands and thousands of books through your own efforts. At that point, why would you need an agent? (There actually may be good reasons why, and any interested agent will tell you.)

Finding an agent is, on the face of it, straightforward. You go to the AAR (Association of Authors’ Representatives) website and search for an agent who handles your genre(!). If you write graphic thrillers with plenty of sex, no point querying(!) a Christian-oriented agent. If you’ve written an adult Amish romance, an agent who seeks urban horror will not suit. Once you’ve found a score or so of agents, you’ll start the query(!) process.

Do not expect fast results. That is why you query them a half dozen or dozen at a time. Sadly, most agents will never respond, an appalling lack of respect on the part of people who say they want to work with us. Those that do will probably reject your query as not right for our agency, not right for our needs, or a variation thereof. Don’t take it personally.

A query is a job interview. It’s not a chance to put on a rainbow clown wig and leap through the door honking a horn. Agents are busy people and they appreciate professionalism. Sending an agent cookies, photos of your five Chihuahuas in Lolita shades, or a hand-knit tea cozy will get you a quick trip to the trash file. This behavior is the mark of an amateur.

There are formats for an effective query which you can find on the internet, in a how-to book, or in a class. By now, if you have a completed work of fiction of the appropriate word count(!), you should also have some writer friends who can offer suggestions.

I really can’t stress enough that you follow the rules on a query. Do what the agent requests. If she wants a one-page synopsis(!) and the first ten pages, do not send anything else. And make sure the bottom of your tenth page has a hook(!), even if you have to re-write.

♥ Don’t stop writing. Put aside the work you’re querying about and get on with the next book. Get in the habit of creating fresh work.

ALGORITHMS

The algorithm is what enables search responses on the web. They are highly-guarded words or phrases that, combined with other data, form a recipe that allows the search engines to offer selections to a searcher. That’s the simplest explanation. Books live and die through algorithms. But they also live or die by other things such as reviews and sales, as well as the various promotional efforts the author makes.

There are scores of books and maybe a half million YouTube videos and podcasts and blog articles on how to deal with algorithms. There is even a firm that deeply analyzes data from Amazon that will help guide you in various aspects of writing and promotion.

The most significant thing you can do is select the right Keywords (!) when you put your book up for sale. As algorithms are tweaked constantly and at times completely overhauled, it’s a good idea to revisit your listings from time to time and see if your keywords and categories are still valid.

See also Browse Categories, Keywords.

ALL IS LOST

Also called The Black Moment(!). In a work of fiction, it’s when the protagonist(!) faces her most crushing moment. Evil has the upper hand. The heroine or hero is facing their worst nightmare. The question the reader has when finishing this scene is "How will she get out of this one? , or OMG, she’s gonna die!".

Naturally, she’ll use the attributes and talents you’ve given her, plus the experience she’s garnered in the story, and she’ll figure it out in her own inimitable way. But it won’t be easy. It can’t be easy. She has to struggle for every success.

In the all-is-lost, your protagonist has to not only be at her wits’ end but she has to be without her usual back-up. She really is at her most dangerous hour. She suffers pain and despair and debilitating fear and self-doubt, or even self-contempt. Loss of hope, knowledge that if she fails, things will get even worse, and permanently. Think of how terrible Frodo felt as he loses courage to throw the ring.

This usually happens roughly 75% (or a bit later) of the way through the manuscript. It’s the bottoming-out time, with no easy solution. Don’t think it’s only physical threat. Some of the worst threats are psychological or emotional. If your character doesn’t have significant emotional stakes, the story won’t be very interesting to readers.

Building to this point is difficult for many writers. The euphoria of the set-up(!) is over, and the realities and demands of the story arcs are displaying holes you hadn’t realized existed. Maybe when you get to your fiftieth published work, plot holes won’t be a problem, but for now, and forever for many of us, they will