Essay Online

Like many authors, writing a novel was always an aspiration. When I finally started the process, in Shades of Darkness, Shades of Grace I had a great story that had evolved from real-life events. Still, the majority of my experience was writing nonfiction, a style that generally called for straight facts with less emphasis on descriptive elements. Exceptional fiction requires authentic details that pull the reader into the world in which the story takes place. I discovered that one of the best ways to do this is to construct the narrative around a calendar.

Wanting feedback on the story, I sent an early draft of the manuscript to an editor I’d learned of through one of my writing groups. While she liked the novel, she noted there was no specific timeline of years or events, and felt the story could essentially be taking place at any time. The editor suggested using a calendar with actual dates and specific years during which the story would be set. By taking this approach, it not only helped me plan the story better, but a historical reference of Jesse Ventura’s election as governor of Minnesota in 1998 or making note of the Aquatennial Festival held in Minneapolis each July could be woven into the narrative and enhance the authenticity of the book.

Implementing her advice, I constructed a five-year calendar over which the story in Shades of Darkness, Shades of Grace unfolds. The calendar not only worked well as an organizational and research tool, but it also served to focus the book over a definite time period. In real life, the events that inspired Shades of Darkness occurred over a much longer period of time, making for an unwieldy time frame that dragged on too long, offered no sense of closure, and risked boring the reader. By using a specific calendar, those events could be compressed into a much shorter and intense span.

Employing a real calendar also heightened the dramatic effect of the narrative. In a crucial incident near the end of book, Paul Pierson is arrested for domestic battery in a scheme orchestrated by his ex-wife. Threatened with spending the weekend in the county jail if bail money cannot be raised, the scene takes place over the New Year’s holiday of 2000/2001. Only by using a real calendar did I discover that if Paul were arrested on Saturday December 30, 2000 he could be looking at several days in jail. In 2001 New Year’s Day fell on a Monday, and banks would not have reopened until Tuesday, January 2. Utilizing real dates offered the dramatic dilemma of the Pierson family frantically pooling their financial resources to keep Paul from extended jail time.

Working off a calendar can also combat one of the hazards many authors confront &ndash writer’s block. Once I had the basic framework of the novel laid out across a calendar, if I was having difficulty with a particular chapter or scene, I could write another chapter and return at a later point to the problematic area with renewed inspiration. For many authors I’ve known, it can be easier to write out-of-order when the energy strikes than to force a writer to compose a manuscript in linear fashion. A calendar not only helps an author render a vivid story, but can be a useful tool in tracking the progress and consistency of the plot.

The initial version of the calendar was bare bones &ndash an outline of the main scenes that comprised the novel. From there I began writing individual scenes, building on them and incorporating the crucial details, many of which were discovered through research. Those descriptions that make a scene real might be as ordinary as the weather on Halloween or the once-in-a-lifetime occurrence of the Millennium, experiences any reader could relate to.

Details should engage the reader and connect them to the characters, setting, and narrative. This editor taught me a great lesson &ndash that for fiction to truly come alive requires authentic details. For many authors, those details can often be found within the framework of a calendar.

If you want to write a novel, but are putting it off until the kids are grown, I have two words for you: Don’t wait. It’s possible to raise a happy, healthy family and still follow your writing dream. And that’s true whether you’re single or married. Whether you’re a stay-at-home mom or work outside the house.

You may think I’m crazy - how can you find time to write when you’re already so busy you barely have time to sleep?

It can be done.

J.K. Rowling quite famously penned the first of her Harry Potter series in a coffee shop with her baby napping in a buggy. I wrote my first novel, Flip-Flopped, in two years by setting my alarm for 5 a.m. every day and squeezing in writing before work, and then stealing any other time I could. I’d write a scene while my son built a Lego castle, or do some editing while he was planted in front of the TV for a half hour.

A mother of two small children, Allison Pearson turned her frustrations as a mom into the best-selling novel, I Don’t Know How She Does It. She’s admitted that being a mom and trying to write a novel is difficult - “like having a secret third child in the house that you have to go and play with when the other two have gone to bed,” she’s said. Still, she managed to finish in a year, even with holding a job part of the time.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that you don’t have to sweep aside everything in order to write. There’s this assumption that writing a novel means countless hours of uninterrupted time-just you alone in a cabin somewhere with nothing but pen and paper and maybe a plate of Oreos. That’s not only impossible for most people, it’s not even preferable. Some of your best writing inspiration will come from life. If you make writing a part of your day-to-day routine, you’re far more likely to stick with it.

Some tips for combining motherhood with a writing career:

1. Schedule it in. A friend of mine has a regular 8 - 9 p.m. date with her computer. Barring a broken leg or the house burning down, she never misses it, and she rarely goes over. Knowing she has a limited time spurs her to be productive.

2. Lower your standards, at least when it comes to housework. Could the floor go one more day without sweeping? Could you use bottled pasta sauce instead of making it from scratch? Yes, June Cleaver always did everything perfectly, but she didn’t write a novel. She also wasn’t real.

3. Involve your kids. Plunk them down next to you with crayons and paper while you write. Dub it your “creative time.”

4. Be the tortoise. Forget every story you’ve ever heard about how this or that author wrote a book in a month. Writing your novel will take as long as it needs to take. If you stick with it, you’ll eventually get to the end.

5. Delegate. Women often get stuck with the housework because they feel they’re the only ones who can do it “right.” Give jobs away to your husband or kids, and resist the urge to re-do them - even if the towels aren’t folded right or the stove doesn’t gleam the way it should.

6. Consider starting small. If writing a novel seems overwhelming, start with a short story or even some of the super-short “flash fiction” that’s popular right now. The bonus: It’s easier to get short pieces published on the Internet, so you can amass clips.

7. Banish guilt. As women, it’s hard for us to take time for ourselves. If you’re feeling guilty about spending time writing, remember the saying, “kids learn what they see.” What your children will see is you plugging away at making one of your dreams come true. Isn’t that at least as important as a perfectly clean house?

Even with a dozen published books to my name, I sometimes need a dose of inspiration when I sit down to write. Above my desk, I’ve posted a paper with various pieces of fiction-writing wisdom I’ve collected over the years. Some of the advice may sound odd, but I’ve found it all helpful. Here it is:

1. Write as if no one’s reading. If you always imagine a reader perched on your shoulder, you’ll be afraid to take chances. At least for the first draft, ignore that imaginary reader and free yourself to write whatever crazy, impossible, lousy things occur to you. You can always fix it later - in fact, you SHOULD fix it later. But you’ll have nothing to rewrite if you’re too intimidated to write in the first place.

2. Show up at the page. Writers write. They sit down - ideally every day but at least as regularly as possible - and write.

3. Don’t polish the turd. If you find yourself spending a lot of time trying to save an idea, a chapter or even a sentence, it usually means it’s time to move on. You’re wasting your time trying to beautify something that, well, just plain stinks.

4. Make bad things happen to good people. Novels are driven by conflict, and that means bad things have to happen to your characters - these people that you’ve created and have grown to love over the course of your novel. Your main character can have a happy ending, but along the way, he or she has to deal with sorrow, disappointments and possibly even danger.

5. Murder your darlings. That sentence you LOVE? The sex scene that you’re sure will win you the Pulitzer? The pages that moved you to tears? Be prepared to kill them. In a novel, it’s the piece as a whole that matters - not so much the individual parts. Sometimes your best writing will have to see the sharp end of your editing blade to make things work.

6. Let Sean Connery write your sentences. As James Bond, he’s a man of action: things are not done to him, he does them. That’s how you should structure your sentences. Jason did not get stabbed by Susan - rather, Susan stabbed Jason. The weapon was not found by police - the police found the weapon. Writing in the active voice keeps things moving…and your readers reading.

7. When in doubt, pick one, any one. At some point in your story, you’re likely to face a fork in the road. Should Marianne get in the car? Or should she take off running down the road? Should she slap the guy? Kiss him? Reveal that she’s always secretly loved him? When you’re faced with a decision you can’t seem to make, just make it. Pick one, start writing, and see where it goes. If it doesn’t work out, you can always cut it and try again (see #5).

8. Keep your friends close and your reviewers closer. It can be helpful to get feedback as you go, but choose your readers carefully. Giving your precious pages to someone who is frustrated at their own inability to write a novel is like handing them a loaded gun … pointed right at you.

9. Rewriting is writing. You may have heard the old saw that “writing is rewriting,” but I like to flip it. Rewriting is just as valid a form of creativity as your first draft. Sometimes it takes more than a polish - it takes reaching into your gut and daring to make whatever changes need to be made, no matter how extensive they may be.

10. Skip and go naked. Be free. Have fun. Through the hard and often lonely work that is writing, remember to feel the joy. Unlike money, fame or even publication, it’s the one payoff that’s guaranteed.