Michael Potts's Blog: Bits and Pieces: Book Reviews and Articles on Writing, Horror Fiction, and Some Philosophy - Posts Tagged "fiction-writing"

Although many people associate "world-making" in fiction with fantasy writing--J.R.R. Tolkien is the supreme example--it is essential to any work of fiction. This is especially true in the novel. The trend in much of fiction is to write sequels, and in fantasy and young adult fiction they are de facto required by some publishers. Horror fiction has not gone that far, but there are more series in horror fiction than in the past--Jonathan Mayberry comes to mind. Suppose you do not want to write a sequel and are starved of ideas for your next project.

One source of ideas is the world you created in one of your earlier works--at least a novella length piece is necessary for the requisite amount of world-making. Pick a setting from your fictional world, pick a different time in the same setting , or pick a different character and come up with an idea from the world you have already developed. This will save you time on understanding the setting of your novel or short story and allows you to derive new stories with different charcters in that same world. A good example is Ken Follett, who followed PILLARS OF THE EARTH with WORLD WITHOUT END. Both novels are based in his fictional town of Kingsbridge, England, along with its monastery (and later in the first novel) and cathedral. The second novel is set over 150 years later with different characters--and both are masterful novels. He did not have to develop his setting further--in the first novel the Kingsbridge Cathedral was built, so it was present in the second novel at the beginning. I am currently working on a third novel which is not a sequel to my first two--but like them, is set in middle Tennessee near the fictional city of Randallsville and the town of Morhollow. I know that setting well, since Randallsville is based on Murfreesboro, Tennessee and Morhollow is based on Smyrna, Tennessee where I grew up. I know the rural areas and the kind of people who lived there. Why should I change settings when there are rich sources of stories already present in the same world? If I am stuck coming up with an idea for a novel, I ask, "What would this (person I knew in the past) be like if he were, for example, a serial killer?" or "What if two local boys murdered a woman because she hurt the grandfather of one of the boys?" There are many sources of stories in a well-developed world, so a good job at world-making should provide a potentially endless source of story ideas.

"You should write for the market. You should write what people want to read. Forget about that "making a beautiful work of art stuff."

The above is the message I get from so many writing "gurus" who e-mail me to buy their works of writing advice. All falsehoods have a measure of truth in them, since what is false is parasitical on what is good. Otherwise, the false would have no appeal.

The truth in the above advice is that it is a good idea to be familiar with contemporary trends in literature, and that includes which books are selling well. If a popular subject or theme intrigues you, write on it--you may have a better chance of selling your book. There is nothing wrong with taking one's own interests into play (including monetary interests) in considering a book topic, and unless you are self-published, most publishers consider the money aspect of utmost importance. While that was not the case when publishing was "a gentleman's profession," it is the case today. Writers must learn to live with that.

What is wrong about the advice in the first paragraph is that it can be interpreted as a call to forget about artistic quality. Do you, as a writer, care about your craft? Do you care about putting out the best written work possible? Do you want to write a beautiful and lasting work of art or a flash in the pan that dies out along with the bestsellers of novelists known in their day, but who are now long-forgotten? If you as a writer go only the commercial route, you will burn out unless you are passionate about the works you are writing. You can be concerned about the potential commercial success of a work as long as you do not sell your artistic soul to the highest bidder. Do not shortchange yourself and your readers for royalties. Do not be so snobbish that you are only going to focus on "artistic purity" at the expense of a chance to actually sell your book. Always write your best quality work without compromising your artistic standards. The "Golden Mean," the middle way, is often the best course of action to take.