PattiWhen you see all of the great books for sale, it can be easy to assume that the author was born with the talent to write. While talent does play a part, that talent is only ten percent of the process.
Ninety percent of being able to write fiction comes from learning the skill and anyone at any age can learn how to write fiction and then sell it for profit online.
Make no mistake, writing good fiction is damned hard! But here’s the bare bones essentials in writing fiction.
Research
Sometimes writers assume that because they’re writing fiction, they can just make stuff up. This will only go so far because readers will suspend believability only to a certain point.
After that, they won’t. If your research isn’t correct, you’ll have readers rolling their eyes and putting the book down. But worse than that, they’ll tell others how off the research was and you’ll see that reflected in bad reviews and low sales.
Even if you’re writing a paranormal book, the world that the story is set in must be believable and all of the elements of this world must be believable. If you stray from that, then you’ll need a plausible reason.
One of the biggest mistakes that new and seasoned writers alike make when doing the research for fiction is getting caught in the research time trap. This is what happens when the writer spends hour upon hour researching information.
They spend so much time researching that it eats into the writing time. While research is necessary, it’s not writing – and you want to do your best to write every day.
Writing on your story every day keeps it fresh in your mind and helps keep you motivated. So don’t let research take up too much of that time.
Don’t research everything at once. Many writers think they have to know everything about everything in the fictional world. But you only need the part that you’re working on at any given time.
For example, if your book is set in the 1800s and you need to know about the clothing the men wore, you can stop and just research that part, and then move on.
But since research can be a time drain, what many well-known writers do is when they come to a part in a story that requires research, they’ll make a note of it right on the manuscript such as [NTS: need to know what type of pants men wore.]
The NTS stands for note to self. Usually writers will bold or underline that part or put it in another font color to make sure that it stands out for their attention. You’ll want to research online, at your local library, with books from the bookstore and by checking with experts if needed.
If your story features a detective solving homicides and you have him in an autopsy room asking questions, you’ll need to find an expert to weigh in on that scene.
You can find books written by former homicide detectives that detail everything from a day in the life of their career to why the detective would be in the autopsy room and what he’d do and see there.
One word of caution here is that television takes a lot of leeway with the truth in certain types of writing. If you write suspense, don’t take your clues about how cases are solved based on television shows.
Real life cases aren’t solved that way and readers will be able to tell the difference between someone who did their homework and someone who just picked up their research from a television show.
What’s forgiven by TV show audiences is not forgiven by readers of fiction. For example, the laws of physics.
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
**IMPORTANT TIP: In TV, if a bad guy shoots someone with a 12 gauge shotgun, it often shows the victim being thrown five feet backwards. In real life, that is not true. It cannot happen. If it does, then the person shooting the shotgun has to be thrown five feet backwards too. I’m not sure how TV gets away with it, but fiction readers won’t put up with that stuff.
Another example is explosions. Most explosions on television are these huge, massive fireballs. They claim it’s a C4 explosion, but the truth is, it’s gasoline. They use it for visual appeal. My husband spent almost twenty years in the explosives industry. He not only laughs about TV “antics” but it also frustrates him that they deceive the viewers so much.
The point here is, readers will pick a writer apart if things like this aren’t accurate.
Things you need to research before writing:
∙ Character jobs – this is especially true if you’re writing about a detective or law enforcement and know nothing of the profession. Or, what if you write about a bull rider. You need to know some basic stuff about the rodeo circuit and bull riders.
∙ Location – where they live, where they were born, etc. It is okay to create a fictional town in an existing state, but you probably want some of the elements to mimic a real town, so you’ll need to research that.
∙ Weather patterns – Whether you use a real location or make up one outside of Boston, you’ll need to know what the weather is like. ∙ Time period information – If you’re writing about the past, you’ll need to have a base knowledge of the era before writing. If it’s the future, of course you’ll create all of that yourself.
So if you have a blizzard happen in April in a fictional town in Maine, your readers will know if that’s feasible or not. And FYI, it’s important. Of course you can say it’s a storm happening late in the season and it’s never happened before, but make sure it’s a big deal in your story—to create obstacles for your character— make it important in your story.
You can use weather sites to check out what the temperature and weather is like in your fictional place. Always remember that while it’s okay to write what you know, always research what you don’t.
All the best,
Patti
