Writing Fiction For Dummies

'...an easy-to-follow guide providing step-by-step instructions...' (Writers Forum, December 2009).

Randy Ingermanson is the award-winning author of six novels. He is known around the world as "the Snowflake Guy," thanks to his Web site article on the Snowflake method, which has been viewed more than a million times. Before venturing into fiction, Randy earned a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of California at Berkeley. Randy has taught fiction at numerous writing conferences and sits on the advisory board of American Christian Fiction Writers. He also publishes the worlds largest e-zine on how to write fiction, The Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine. Randys first two novels won Christy awards, and his second novel Oxygen, coauthored with John B. Olson, earned a spot on the New York Public Librarys Books for the Teen Age list. Visit Randys personal Web site at www.ingermanson.com and his Web site for fiction writers at www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com. Peter Economy of La Jolla, California, is a bestselling author with 11 For Dummies titles under his belt, including two second editions and one third edition. Peter is coauthor of Writing Childrens Books For Dummies, Home-Based Business For Dummies, Consulting For Dummies, Why Arent You Your Own Boss?, The Management Bible, and many more books. Peter also serves as Associate Editor of Leader to Leader, the Apex Award-winning journal of the Leader to Leader Institute. Check out Peters Web site at www.petereconomy.com.

Introduction 1 About This Book 1 Conventions Used In This Book 2 What Youre Not to Read 2 Foolish Assumptions 3 How This Book is Organized 3 Part I: Getting Ready to Write Fiction 4 Part II: Creating Compelling Fiction 4 Part III: Editing and Polishing Your Story and Characters 4 Part IV: Getting Published 4 Part V: The Part of Tens 5 Icons Used in This Book 5 Where to Go from Here 5 Part I: Getting Ready to Write Fiction 7 Chapter 1: Fiction Writing Basics 9 Setting Your Ultimate Goal as a Writer 11 Pinpointing Where You are as a Writer 13 Freshmen: Concentrating on craft 13 Sophomores: Tackling the proposal 14 Juniors: Perfecting their pitches 15 Seniors: Preparing to become authors 16 Getting Yourself Organized 17 Mastering Characterization, Plotting, and Other Skills 18 Editing Your Fiction 18 Chapter 2: What Makes a Great Story? 21 Choosing What to Give Your Readers 22 Creating a powerful emotional experience: What your readers desperately want 22 Educating your reader 23 Practicing the gentle art of persuasion 24 Making Life Hard on Your Characters: Conflict Plus Change Equals Story 25 The Five Pillars of Fiction 26 Setting the stage: Your story world 27 Creating characters 28 Constructing the plot 28 Formulating a theme 30 Expressing your style 31 Seven Ways to Deliver the Goods 31 The here and now: Action 32 Giving your characters a voice: Dialogue 33 Revealing thoughts: Interior monologue 33 Feeling with your character: Interior emotion 34 Seeing what your character sees: Description 34 Taking a trip to the past: Flashback 35 Supplying narrative summary 35 Chapter 3: Finding Your Audience and Category 37 Identifying Your Ideal Novel 38 Looking at what you love to read 38 Thinking about what you love to write 39 Defining Your Ideal Reader 40 Considering worldview and interests 41 Looking at gender 42 Writing for readers of a certain age 43 Defining your niche 43 Understanding Your Category 43 Genres: Surveying categories based on content 45 Understanding audience-based categories 50 Picking your category and subcategory 52 Finding Your Categorys Requirements 53 Targeting your word count 54 Accounting for major characters 54 Determining levels of action, romance, and all that 55 Identifying your storys emotional driver 58 Chapter 4: Four Ways to Write a Great Novel 59 Giving Yourself Permission to Write Badly 59 Creative Paradigms: Investigating Various Writing Methods 61 Writing without planning or editing 61 Editing as you go 62 Planning a little, writing a little 63 Outlining before you write 64 Finding a Creative Paradigm that Works for You 65 Understanding why method matters 66 Developing your creative paradigm 67 Using Your Creative Paradigm to Find Your Story Structure 69 Chapter 5: Managing Your Time and Yourself 71 Finding Time to Write 71 Establishing and sticking to a writing goal for this week and this year 72 Organizing your time 74 Setting Up Your Ideal Writing Space 75 Securing the best writing surface 76 Finding the right chair 76 Choosing a computer (if you want to use one) 77 Putting everything in place 78 Dealing with Distractions 79 Looking at Money Matters 80 Budgeting money for writing 81 Making your living as a writer: Dont expect this to be your day job (yet) 82 Part II: Creating Compelling Fiction 85 Chapter 6: Building Your Story World: The Setting for Your Story 87 Identifying the Parts of a Story World 88 Creating a Sense of Place 89 Making description do double duty 90 Fitting description in the story 91 Weaving emotive force into your descriptions 92 Deciding What Drives Your Cultural Groups 93 Revealing cultural drivers with immediate scene 93 Exposition: Explaining cultural drivers through narrative summary 94 Combining various elements to show cultural drivers 95 Choosing the Backd