jeriendhal | Novel Class: First Night

Well, after carefully alloting twenty minutes for a five minute drive, I discovered I'd gone to the wrong high school for the class, drive home, checked the details online and got mapquest directions, then zoomed out again. I was ten minutes late, but two people arrived after I did so I didn't feel terminally embarrassed. Grabbed the sheaf of handouts and looked them over, and then started listening.

The teacher definitely takes the industrial method of novel writing. She boasts of writing 64 books in twelve years, and the class is focused on "salable" books, giving the publisher what he wants. Complete with work charts and objectives.

It sounds horribly sterile, but she actually did have several good points. Point One: When you start writing, make sure you've got your overarching theme set up, one that can be laid out in the first chapter. Point Two: Unless you're really good, stick to only one or two main viewpoint characters. Not everyone is LMB when she's writing A Civil Campaign. About the only thing I really think I object to is her assertion that you should shop your novel around to multiple publishers simultaneously. She claims to send her's out to a dozen at a time, sending polite notes to the losers when it gets picked up by a particular house. Everything I've heard makes that a definite no-no for first time authors, though I suppose she's got enough of a track record to get away with it.

Oh, and she whole heartedly agreed when I mentioned the danger of the Eight Deadly Words. :)