{"id":1877,"date":"2012-06-08T16:22:41","date_gmt":"2012-06-08T23:22:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=1877"},"modified":"2012-06-08T16:22:41","modified_gmt":"2012-06-08T23:22:41","slug":"how-to-build-a-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2012\/06\/08\/how-to-build-a-book\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Build a Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

\tMost people have had the frustrating experience of purchasing an item at the store, bringing it home, and opening it up only to discover a box of confusing parts and a single sheet of paper with obscure drawings and words that were most likely translated by a computer from their original Chinese. If we don\u2019t just pack it all back in the box and trudge to the store to get a refund, then we spend hours\u2014mostly by trial and error\u2014putting the rickety thing together, never quite sure if we should worry about the extra bits that we wind up storing in our garage.<\/p>\n

\tWriting a book, particularly a work of fiction, is in many ways similar to putting together that set of shelves from Wal-Mart. We\u2019ve seen books before, just as we\u2019ve seen bookcases before. This marginal familiarity is both a help and a curse. The help, in that we have hope that we will be able to do the job. The curse, in that we\u2019ve never really paid attention about how such a thing is actually put together.<\/p>\n

\tUnfortunately, in building a book, unlike in building a bookcase, there are no kits you can buy. Instead, you\u2019ll be looking for a forest so you can cut down the trees yourself. .
\n\tIf you happen to find other like-minded people who are crazy like you and want to build books, one of the first things you\u2019ll hear from them is that in writing a story, you must always \u201cshow\u201d rather than \u201ctell.\u201d It becomes a mantra, but what does it mean? <\/p>\n

\tOne important aspect to book building is to be an observer of human beings, and a thoughtful observer of oneself.; thus, rather than writing something along the lines of, \u201cGeorge was mad\u201d which tells us how George is feeling\u2014in building a book, one learns that it is far better to write something like this: \u201cGeorge stomped from the room, slamming the door so hard the dishes rattled.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tGiven that we\u2019ve all seen people get angry, and doubtless we\u2019ve been angry ourselves, the way to build a book is to let the characters act out their emotions. Then we see how they\u2019re feeling without any need for telling. You\u2019re making a thousand words in place of a picture. <\/p>\n

Incidentally, a thousand words will fill about four double-spaced pages. Your first novel needs to be around eighty thousand words. That works out to about 320 double-spaced pages.<\/p>\n

\tWriting requires discipline. Dedicate yourself to spending a certain amount of time, or creating a certain number of pages, every day. Don\u2019t wait for inspiration. Just write. Fill up a page or ten and do it every single day without fail. If you do a page a day, you\u2019ll have built a book in only a year. Just let it come out and don\u2019t worry too much about how it sounds until after you\u2019re done. If you try to rework as you go, you\u2019ll never finish.<\/p>\n

\tAs to plot, learn about the Hero\u2019s Journey. There are books you can get in the library that will tell you all about it. Joseph Campbell, the mythologist, was one of the first to notice it and you\u2019ll find it is the framework upon which most stories are built, whether it is the story of Moses in the Bible, a murder mystery, a romance, or the first Star Wars movie. In a well-known quote from the introduction to his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces<\/a><\/em>, Campbell describes the basic plot outline: \u201cA hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.\u201d <\/p>\n

One of the best ways to learn how to make a story is to read a lot of them. Pay attention to how other craftsmen before you created tension, wrote dialogue, and showed conflict. <\/p>\n

\tAnd don\u2019t tell your own life story. You can adapt events from your life in your book\u2014that is what they mean when they tell you to \u201cwrite what you know\u201d\u2014but generally speaking, you\u2019ll find it is impossible to sell an autobiography unless you\u2019re the first man on the moon. So when you create your book, keep your audience in mind. Would you pay money for the book you\u2019re building?<\/p>\n

\tJerry Pournelle, the science fiction author, has written that writers should be prepared to throw away their first million words (4000 pages), because it will probably take them that long to learn how to write. Think of it as a woodworking project. Probably your first few tries at building something won\u2019t turn out so well. But if you keep at it, eventually you learn how to make a bookcase that won\u2019t fall apart.<\/p>\n

\tDon\u2019t forget: writing is like ditch digging. You don\u2019t pay someone to give you the privilege of digging ditches. They pay you. The same with writing. It\u2019s just a job. If someone offers to publish your book but they want you to pay them money, run away. <\/p>\n

\tTo find a publisher, go to writers\u2019 conferences. They\u2019ll cost you, but the investment in time and money is worth it. You\u2019ll meet editors and agents face to face and you can tell them your ideas. Eventually one or more of them will ask to see your creation. <\/p>\n

And don\u2019t give up, no matter how often you get turned down or how long it takes. The difference between authors who are published and those who aren\u2019t is simply this: those who are published didn\u2019t give up.<\/p>\n

Send to Kindle<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most people have had the frustrating experience of purchasing an item at the store, bringing it home, and opening it up only to discover a box of confusing parts and a single sheet of paper with obscure drawings and words … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1878,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877\/revisions\/1878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}