What I Want to Write in My Books
Years ago I decided I was going to write a novel. I did it for National Novel Writing Month. That means for the month of November (30 days) I was going to write a 50,000 word novel. It was an adrenaline rush where a lot of coffee or tea was consumed and every morning, except Sunday, I wrote my 2,000 words. It was the best times, it was the worst of times, but I did it!
In order to ready myself for the event, in October I read No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty, and in reading that I ran across an exercise where I made two lists. In the first list I had to write about what I liked in a novel and in the other list I wrote what I definitely did not like in a novel. When it came to the kind of books I chose to write (I participated in NaNoWriMo five times and finished each time) I decided to write according to these lists. Over the next few blogs I will go over what matters to me in writing. Specifically, these are the kinds of things you can expect from me when I write.
In case you want to get to the lists right away, here they are:
I like these in a novel
Fast moving action
Short chapters, short paragraphs, relatively short and uncomplex sentences
Humor-especially the main character
Wild sci-fi ideas
Other worlds or dimensions
The unexpected
Strong characters I can identify with
Writing from various perspectives (i.e., George, the ant on the log, etc.)
Mystery (trying to get to the bottom of what is going on)
Gleanings of wisdom or insight or even knowledge
Happy endings
Epic tales
Funny superheroes
Lonely people finding a mate
Sometimes archaic speech. Like O. Henry
A perspective that there is a God in the world
Symbolism, repetition of an idea
Male protagonist
I don’t like these in a novel
Very little action
Long chapters, long paragraphs, long sentences
A lot of description
Bedroom scenes
People having tea and making small talk
Weak characters (you can’t really figure out who they are)
A lot of eating or drinking
Only one locale
Depressed characters (unless they are still funny)
Unhappy endings
Bad things happening to good people (unless there is redemption later in the story-like Job)
Westerns
Horror
Sermonizing
Everyday boring settings
Married people cheating on each other
Long drawn out fight scenes
Children being treated badly
Women being treated badly
I hope to go into more detail about many of the items in these lists, partially as an exercise for me to think about what I value in a book, and partially for my readers to get to know me a little more.
‘Till next time,
Aaron
