Holiday gifts for the budding novelist
Margaret Atwood recently posted a list of “ten gifts to give beginning novelists” on her blog. http://marg09.wordpress.com/2009/12/06/ten-gifts-to-give-beginning-novelists/
That inspired me to post my own top ten list of gifts to give that budding novelist in your life:
1. A Passion for Narrative by Jack Hodgins. This is the guide I use in my workshops in the UBC CW optional-residency MFA program, and the guide I recommend to the writers I mentor. Jack Hodgins is my own mentor, and a legendary teacher of creative writing. He was just awarded the Order of Canada this year.
2. A thick notebook and a fabulous pen. While most of our writing happens on the laptop these days, good old fashioned pen and paper are still the writer’s most important tools. The best ideas most often hit us at unexpected times, when we’re away from our work station and our minds are not focussed on our writing project: while washing dishes, taking the bus, in bed. So its important to keep a notebook handy. Also, keeping a journal on a given writing project helps the mind stay attuned to and looking for potentially useful details.
3. The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them), by Jack M. Bickhman. Most of us stumble over similar issues as we learn this very complicated craft. This no-nonsense guide points out many of these common problem areas.
4. How to Write a Damn Good Mystery by James N. Frey. A gift to give a writer even if he or she has no intention of writing a mystery. The reason? The structure of a literary novel is tricky to nail down, as it should match the subject and themes of that particular project. So we’re reinventing the wheel each time we take on a new novel project. Taking a close look at genre fiction often helps to clarify basic dramatic structure, and gives the budding novelist a template to work with. The writer can then jump from there, to create his or her own structure, unique to the project.
5. Structuring Your Novel by Robert C. Meredith and John. D. Fitzgerald. A good basic guide to finding the structure for your novel.
6. Self-editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King. It’s important to take your own manuscript as far as you can before trying to find a home for it. That means a novelist must learn to edit his or her own work. Again, this book is a good basic guide to building those necessary skills.
7. A peer-critique fiction workshop. This can be a pricey gift, but there is no better way to learn how to write fiction than to take a fiction workshop where you are critiquing the work of others. Here is where you really hone those self-editing skills.
8. A brainstorming buddy. Inspiration is hard to come by. A friend who really gets the creative process and who has the time to brainstorm with a writer is a wonderful gift. My brainstorming sessions with my own buddy, my husband Mitch Krupp, often shave months off my writing projects.
9. Encouragement. Writing a novel is a very difficult, time-consuming effort, and there are few rewards for that effort, other the process of writing itself. Many potential novelists simply give up. So encouragement from a friend to keep going is a huge gift.
10. Time. Give your budding novelist the one thing he or she really needs: at least an hour or two a day to work on that damn novel. Novels most often take years to write. But if a novelist writes just 250 words a day, he or she can pull together a rough draft in a year. Most of us, however, have a hard time carving out that hour or two from our hectic days. And many of us, women with families in particular, often feel guilty about it. So you might volunteer to take on a daily household chore so that the budding novelist in your household has the time to make that dream happen.
That inspired me to post my own top ten list of gifts to give that budding novelist in your life:
1. A Passion for Narrative by Jack Hodgins. This is the guide I use in my workshops in the UBC CW optional-residency MFA program, and the guide I recommend to the writers I mentor. Jack Hodgins is my own mentor, and a legendary teacher of creative writing. He was just awarded the Order of Canada this year.
2. A thick notebook and a fabulous pen. While most of our writing happens on the laptop these days, good old fashioned pen and paper are still the writer’s most important tools. The best ideas most often hit us at unexpected times, when we’re away from our work station and our minds are not focussed on our writing project: while washing dishes, taking the bus, in bed. So its important to keep a notebook handy. Also, keeping a journal on a given writing project helps the mind stay attuned to and looking for potentially useful details.
3. The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them), by Jack M. Bickhman. Most of us stumble over similar issues as we learn this very complicated craft. This no-nonsense guide points out many of these common problem areas.
4. How to Write a Damn Good Mystery by James N. Frey. A gift to give a writer even if he or she has no intention of writing a mystery. The reason? The structure of a literary novel is tricky to nail down, as it should match the subject and themes of that particular project. So we’re reinventing the wheel each time we take on a new novel project. Taking a close look at genre fiction often helps to clarify basic dramatic structure, and gives the budding novelist a template to work with. The writer can then jump from there, to create his or her own structure, unique to the project.
5. Structuring Your Novel by Robert C. Meredith and John. D. Fitzgerald. A good basic guide to finding the structure for your novel.
6. Self-editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King. It’s important to take your own manuscript as far as you can before trying to find a home for it. That means a novelist must learn to edit his or her own work. Again, this book is a good basic guide to building those necessary skills.
7. A peer-critique fiction workshop. This can be a pricey gift, but there is no better way to learn how to write fiction than to take a fiction workshop where you are critiquing the work of others. Here is where you really hone those self-editing skills.
8. A brainstorming buddy. Inspiration is hard to come by. A friend who really gets the creative process and who has the time to brainstorm with a writer is a wonderful gift. My brainstorming sessions with my own buddy, my husband Mitch Krupp, often shave months off my writing projects.
9. Encouragement. Writing a novel is a very difficult, time-consuming effort, and there are few rewards for that effort, other the process of writing itself. Many potential novelists simply give up. So encouragement from a friend to keep going is a huge gift.
10. Time. Give your budding novelist the one thing he or she really needs: at least an hour or two a day to work on that damn novel. Novels most often take years to write. But if a novelist writes just 250 words a day, he or she can pull together a rough draft in a year. Most of us, however, have a hard time carving out that hour or two from our hectic days. And many of us, women with families in particular, often feel guilty about it. So you might volunteer to take on a daily household chore so that the budding novelist in your household has the time to make that dream happen.
posted by Gail Anderson-Dargatz at
10:39 AM
