Welcome to A Novel Approach. If this is your first issue, I encourage you to check out my back issues for more tips on how to write a novel. It's my fondest hope that I can help other writers do the best they can do.

If you have any specific aspects about novel writing you'd like me to address in future issues, please feel free to contact me and let me know what those are. Thank you for your interest, and here's to better writing!

How to Write a Story - Finding the Storyteller in All of Us

Many of my readers are in the same place. I've been there often enough, too. Usually, if I give my mind long enough to let the idea simmer, the story comes out (whether I'm ready or not!).

But sometimes, it needs a little prodding. If that's where you are, here are some ideas to find your inner storyteller to help you.

Racing to the Starting Line

My daughter and I are in the midst of plotting out novel ideas for NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month, which begins November 1st. Because we both write, we tend to bounce ideas off each other, and inspire characters, settings and action just by talking about what's in our heads.

Today was a great example. I've just been gone for a long weekend (to a photography workshop - another hobby of mine), and we missed chatting with each other. Both of us are feeling the pressure of November rapidly approaching. We want to be ready with enough plot to jump in running.

So, I told her the idea I was playing with (a children's fantasy) and asked for input. Then she told me her idea (an adult crime-fantasy-chick-lit sort of idea). (Funny how I, the adult, am writing for kids, and she, the teen, is writing for adults.)

Both of us have only the bare bones of ideas, yet by discussing those ideas and what our characters were like, we came up with some great plot twists.

So, if you're having trouble with turning your idea into a story, try talking a little about it with someone who either also writes, or someone who reads the sort of thing you want to write. Just having a conversation tends to get the creative juices flowing.

Don't over discuss, though, or you might get tired of the idea before it becomes a novel.

Getting Through the Woods

Of course having a great idea (or bunches of them, in my case) isn't going to teach you how to write a story. Especially not if that story is novel-length. You have to turn that idea into a main character (protagonist), a main bad character (antagonist), then give that main character a goal and put the antagonist is his or her way to reaching that goal (your main conflict).

So if you don't have a writing companion the way I do, your next step should be to play around with the idea you have and try to find the main conflict that makes it a story.

For example, I have an idea about a woman who researches industries, ideas and places for novelists - a book researcher. Only problem is, she sometimes gets herself into deep trouble in the middle of her research.

Great idea, but there's no conflict involved - yet. So I start asking "what if" questions. What if she was researching horse racing and found out someone had discovered a new way to help a horse win that wouldn't show up in blood tests after the race? (I read Dick Francis and he's written something to this effect). Wouldn't the people doing the cheating be inclined to kill anyone who tried to tell on them?

Now that's a main conflict. And voila, I have a main character, a main antagonist (or two or three), and a main conflict.

Storytelling 101

My final tip for this time out is this: If you want to know how to write a story, try telling stories to family and friends. Out loud.

Then, when you've practiced that a bit, try doing the same on paper. As if you're telling it out loud to your friends or family. Make it like a conversation, to begin with, and perhaps it won't be so daunting.

Here's an example:

Begin with your day. As long as a few interesting - or strange - things happened, your listeners will be interested. Start with how you just had to run errands today, even though you were tired. And you couldn't find what you needed without making three stops, instead of one.

Then, on the way home, someone almost runs you head on into oncoming traffic. You screech off the side of the highway, rattling the car and everything in it, and sit still until you stop shaking enough to drive again.

You get home to find the cap on the half-gallon jug of vinegar was put on wrong at the factory and your precipitous stop knocked it over, spilling half the jug all over the back of your SUV. You mop up, snarling under your breath. Choking on vinegar fumes.

Later, you take your daughter's friend home in the vehicle that now reeks of something pickled. And when you return to your car to head back home, it won't start. The battery's dead.

Was it the vinegar which ate through some wiring and shorted the battery out? Or the jolting the battery took on your rough ride to a halt on the shoulder of the highway? Or just your "luck of the day" because you were having a bad day?

Yes, that was really one of my days. And I'm sure it'll make good fodder for one of my stories someday. In the meantime, it makes my friends and family laugh to hear how my day spiraled into crap and left me with a vehicle smelling like a pickle.

And it helps me practice the art of storytelling.

I hope these tips help you learn how to write a story, too. Go on. Tell a tall tale. Practice makes perfect - or at least it makes you better and better.

Don't ever think you can't tell your story. It doesn't have to be perfect with every word you write. That's what rewriting is for. Here's a quote to prove it.

I generally write a first draft that's pretty lean. Just get the story down. ~ Nora Roberts

Just go to my write a novel page and sign up with me. Don't forget to use the link on that page to sign up on the NaNoWriMo site, too. You can find me on their site and become one of my buddies by looking for magic-mountain, my NaNoWriMo site name. (I know, silly of me to use something like that, but now i live in the mountains again, it kind of feels like magic, and it certainly inspires my writing!).

Hope to see you there!

P.S. Because I'm doing NaNoWriMo while we're also getting to the point where I can help with building our house a lot, I may miss an issue (or two) of the newsletter next month. My plan is to write them ahead of time, but just in case, I'm letting you know I'll be swamped.

"See" you again soon!