When new writers dive into fiction, mostly they just put words to page. Which is great!  It’s the way you have to start.  In order to find her voice, a writer must write and write and write.  There is no other way.  But what results is often a big blob of sprawling pages, where the storyline drifts here and there and yon; where many scenes and even entire plot threads dangle out in space, having no relation to the actual plot.  What you have is basically an amoeba. 

 And ah, that’s perfect!  I hear your surprise.  But from there you can take all that you’ve learned of your characters and storyline, and begin to fashion this plethora of words and multitude of pages into a real novel. 

 So often writers tell me, “I don’t want to hear about structure; it’ll hamper my creativity!”  And while at the outset I don’t dispute this, once you’ve reached the end of your first draft, if you don’t take a hard look at structure that amoeba will stay just that—a single-celled organism, which folks find kinda slimy. Your job, as a true novelist, is to take that big fat blob and carve away at it to find the true meat and bones of the book—the plot, the story, the main theme and major premise, as well as how the characters serve that and vice versa.  As Michelangelo said, David was always in the marble; he just had to sculpt away to find him.   It’s the same with your book–the jewel is there; your job is to scrape away all of the superfluous layers of verbiage to find it. 

 Structure is, most simply put, the arc of the storyline.  (Of course, we often confuse simple with easy.  Don’t make that mistake here!)  But this is how great novels are created, and all of them follow a pattern of rising and falling, ebbing and flowing. The trick is to know when to rise, when to crest, and when to begin the last push to the finish line.  Without an in-depth understanding of this, folks write novels that take fifty to a hundred pages to get into (which I see all the time), those with sagging middles (I’ve given workshops on this—agents and editors complain to me most about it as well), those which coast to the finish, or end with a bang only the writer goes on for another fifty pages. 

 I’ve given half-day workshops on the structure of novels, and writers are always surprised, overwhelmed, dismayed, and by the end of the session, ecstatic—a light bulb has flipped on!  When you understand structure, it takes so much of that grasping-in-the-dark feeling away.  It brings a confidence to the writer, as he knows where and when and how the story needs to build to crescendo, and where the rest stops are along the way; where the character needs trials and tribulations, and when he needs love; who are the allies and villains, and what needs to be learned in order for the grail to be reached.  Yes, a lot happening in this story with these people who were simply once talking in your head!  

 A great resource for this is Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey.  One word of caution here—it really helps if you’ve written a lot before immersing yourself in Vogler’s book. It confuses very new writers; again, you need to write and write and write and . . . I think I already said this before delving deeply into this topic. 

 But once you’re ready, study it.  Contact me for any questions about this–it’s one of the things I specialize in.   Read Vogler’s book.  Take a workshop or class on it.  However you dive in, dive in!  Your books will thank you for it.  Your creative mind will jump for joy. And ultimately, your readers, while not having much clue as to what novel structure actually is but can point to books that “lose them,” will tout you as a great author.   Your point exactly!

Writers ask me every day if self-publishing via POD and e-books is becoming more acceptable.   And of course, there’s no quick or easy answer.

 Ten years ago, you’d have gotten a rapid-fire (and unanimous) response to that: NO!  Even five years ago, you’d get the same answer (albeit not quite as adamant).  Today, well, oh, Lord.  We’re watching things change so fast everyone’s head is spinning. 

 Within the industry, there is still a huge distinction between authors who are Traditionally published (i.e., a house has purchased the rights to publish the book, including Advance and subsequent Royalty scale), as opposed to  those who self-published (the writer paying to have the book published) .  It’s a stigma.  The however is, we’re watching this perception change radically on the outside. 

 If your self-published book sells 35,000 copies or so, you will be welcomed into the insiders’ world with open arms and champagne toasts. Selling that many copies is, well, not impossible but it’s danged tough.  Some of my writers have broken in that very way, and done so superbly.  They busted their butts marketing, pure and simple.  Which is of course the name of the game whether you publish your book under your own name, or it comes out from Random House.  The marketing is primarily up to you. 

Traditional book sales are down and falling by the year.  Self-published titles are growing in number, and in sales.  A recent Publishers Weekly article entitled “Self-Published Titles Topped 764,000 in 2009 as Traditional Output Dipped” give the sales numbers on this–they’re somewhat staggering. 

Amazon launched a new program last year, publishing their own list of formerly self-published titles under their own imprint, via both physical book and e-book formats.  Where this will take us is anybody’s guess, but with a giant like Amazon touting the books, they will fly. 

So where does that leave you as per self-publishing your own book?  According to Doris Booth, CEO of Authorlink.com and manager of Authorlink E-Book Conversion Services, “The e-book boom makes self-publishing more viable than ever for authors and independent publishers. And it can be more lucrative for authors as well.  Everybody is jumping in. Major publishers, such as Harlequin, are opening their own self-publishing imprints. Barnes & Noble has cut deals with big self-publishing companies to showcase their titles. Others, such as HarperCollins, have opened their doors to ‘publishing partnerships.’  But, there’s always a  ‘but.’ Successful self-publishers must learn the right e-book formats to use, understand and be able to track complicated pricing structures, have a thorough knowledge of distribution channels, and develop heavy-duty marketing plans–or find an expert who can help put the whole package together. Without some tall planning and support, self-publishers likely will get the same old disappointing results as in the past. So walk carefully, but optimistically, into the digital world. One thing is sure. We are never going back. E-books are here to stay.”

A brave new world indeed . . .

Publishing’s brave new world has dawned.  Once upon a time, in the ancient days of yore, getting a book published was what amounted to a lifetime undertaking.  Those days of course are over.  With POD and now e-books, anyone can get a book published in what amounts to overnight. 

 Enter what also amounts to an incredible sea of god-awful books.  Because while it’s true the elite club was almost impenetrable before, the converse of today is that now writers put words to paper and publish it. 

 I know—not everyone does that.  As was once the norm, many writers still delve in deeply to learn the craft; to write and write and write some more; to join workshops and take classes and go to conferences and seek skilled editorial help (which in those once-upon-a-time days was provided by publishers).  In essence, to hone their skills and become better and better writers before their manuscripts ever become published books.  The flip side of that is to read and read and read as well.  I am always amazed at the number of writers who tell me they don’t read.  Boggles the mind! 

 But most of the writerly discussions and forums now talk about physical product and marketing. Which of course are both vital.  But those are secondary and tertiary.  Yes, when self-publishing, you have to have a nicely printed product, with a great cover, in order to start selling your book.  And the marketing is absolutely everything in the end—whether you are self-published or traditionally so.  You have to do your own marketing even if published by the big NY boys.  So yes, yes, both these things are necessary.

 Only here’s what’s happening with that ocean of books: Once you get past the shiny covers and into the text, folks quit reading.  While most readers cannot tell you why a character is flat, they can tell you that the character is flat.  And they stop reading.  Most readers can’t say why the plot didn’t hold together, but they can say they couldn’t quite follow it.  And while great prose isn’t something the average reader can dissect, she can tell you that the book was so enjoyable.  Now, if this reader is your sister or best friend, she’s probably just going to say, “I loved it!”  (Otherwise you need better friends and relatives:) 

 Here’s the kicker: Though you may sell a lot of copies of the first book, and therefore think it was good, those readers if not truly entertained won’t buy the second.  And your career as an author has just tanked.  Only the iceberg you hit was you. 

 In today’s market of billions of books, you have to stand out, above the crowd. And you do that with quality.  Many of my writers self-publish, and do bang-up jobs getting the book to be perfect before spending all those dollars on covers and marketing. They’re building audiences and becoming more and more successful.  Mary B. Morrison came to me after she’d self-published Soul Mates Dissipate, and knew she wanted to go to the next level. She did. She got a six-figure deal from Kensington and is now a NY Times Bestselling author.  Naleighna Kai did the same.  Her Every Woman Needs a Wife sold through at Zane’s Strebor Imprint at Simon & Schuster.  Her new book, The Pleasure’s All Mine, will be out this month.  (And it is wonderful!)

 So yep, you have to spend the bucks on the backend.  But unless you spend the time, effort, and dollars on the front end perfecting your craft, even in today’s new world of publishing, you might as well toss that money into the slot machine in Vegas.

Okay, we talked in part one about what Viewpoint is, and now let’s carry that a bit further.  For the vast majority of books, we’ll work in either first- or third-person narrative.  And for this part of our discussion, let’s focus on first-person. 

 So, why write in first-person as opposed to third?  Or vice versa? When should you use one or the other? 

 New writers tend to jump straight into first-person viewpoint.  On the surface, it seems to create more immediacy, and to flow more easily. But that’s actually very deceiving.  What I mostly see (and acquisition’s editors reject out of hand—see Gary Goldstein’s response below) is a writer just telling the story through ‘I did this, then I did that, then I did the next thing.’  In short, without a high level of skill (which takes a long time to perfect), what you get from this is exactly that—telling.   And the point of great writing is not to tell a story; it’s to involve the reader in one.  New writers especially need more distance than first-person allows, in order to learn the tools of great fiction and implement those through characters (who are not the writer herself!) as they journey the course of a novel.  That’s the biggest issue, front and center.  Yes, wonderful books are written from this viewpoint, but from authors who have a firm grasp on their craft, and have been learning and growing as writers for a very long time. 

 If done well, first-person does effect an immediacy that is hard to beat.  The however is, you can gain that same sense from third-person narrative. Again, it just speaks to the proficiency of the writer, and how adeptly he uses both talent and skill. The former is inherent; the latter is learned.  We’ll discuss how to get that immediacy using third-person next time. 

 First-person, by its very nature, limits the scope of what a writer can do.  By definition, if you’re writing in this vein, you can have only one viewpoint character—the Protagonist.  And that’s it.  So only that which our Protagonist sees, feels, hears, smells, and thinks can be created on the page.  Nothing that happens elsewhere, to other characters, can be shown.  Our hero has to learn of those things from others.  In some genres—Literary, some Mainstream—this isn’t a problem, because the story belongs to the Protagonist. But in others—Mystery, Thriller, Horror, etc., etc.—you’ve really painted yourself into a corner, as scenes in which our hero doesn’t participate can be crucial to the storyline itself. 

 I see a ton of manuscripts these days with multiple first-person viewpoints—a cardinal sin.  And while new writers chafe at the idea of rules, those are, of course, there for a reason: they work.  Yes, rules are meant to be broken, but only after one learns to use them effectively, and then weighs that which is lost against that which is gained.  And rarely does that balance shift to a good reason for breaking the rule. 

 One of the big stumbling blocks regarding this is the internal voice itself. Every time you shift to another character’s viewpoint, the internal voice has to change (we’ll also discuss this about third-person).  It must be individual; that person’s true way of thinking, feeling, seeing his world.  It must be gender and age specific.  Almost always in such books, the ten-year-old girl sounds, internally, exactly the same as the fifty-year-old man.  Boy, does that pose a problem!  And they almost always actually sound like the voice of the author .  Just as good dialogue sounds different from one person to the next, this is even more important inside a character—where she lives. 

 The only book I can actually point to where this was well done was Steinbeck’s The Winter of Our Discontent.  The first-person viewpoints are so seamlessly done, I was well into the novel before even realizing that he had done so!  Now, that’s good writing.  And while we all may aspire to be Steinbeck someday, we have to work at it—in stages. 

 Gary Goldstein, Senior Editor at Kensington books, recently commented on my first Viewpoint blog about this very thing:  “Approach first-person narratives with caution. First-person boxes you in, storywise, whereas third-person gives you more freedom to take the story in different directions.  I’ve been seeing a lot of manuscripts that jump from first to third and I reject them all. The only writer who can pull it off, in my humble opinion, is James Lee Burke.” 

 Burke is a modern master.  And he didn’t get there overnight . . . 

 Next time we’ll delve into why third-person viewpoint is your friend!

Think of the books you love, and chances are, it’s the main character you remember.  Hopefully, the secondary cast is memorable as well, but chiefly, we’re looking at the protagonist, the hero—the person who drives the story.  So many elements go into this.  Entire books are written about how to create them, but let’s keep it simple for now.

So what in a nutshell makes for a great character? 

A memorable character grabs you right off the bat. This is the person onto whom the reader has latched to journey the course of a novel (and even a work of narrative nonfiction).  And that has to happen immediately. The voice of that person has to resonate within the audience; something has to catch hold for the reader to sign on for that journey. 

Do you have to like this person?  Well, yeah.  Some books are driven by an anti-hero, a flawed or outside-of-mainstream person. But still, you like her.   It’s the rare book that is successful where you don’t really like the protagonist.  It happens, but not often.  Most of the time readers give up early, in frustration or disgust.  Because caring about this character is what keeps readers riding along, rooting for him to win, get better, surge onward.  I can’t tell you how many manuscripts I’ve edited where there is no one to like, where the folks are so flawed, with no sense of ethics or strength of character, that you just don’t care if they ‘get theirs.’  Does someone have to be strong to be liked?  Not in the beginning.  But you better get him moving in that direction quickly.  And if that’s the case, what qualities does he have to draw the reader in?

That can be lots of things.  Self-effacement and humor work wonderfully. We can all relate to our own foibles, created in the life of someone else.  That makes a character human.  Add humor to that and we’re in—everyone likes a good laugh.  Even if he’s killed the governor, we’ll stay to see if he can right his wrongs.  Exception here though: this doesn’t hold true if he’s killed pets or children.  And he better have had a very compelling reason for his deeds (which we find out very early on). 

The best characters are multi-faceted, and the author has weaved in background, texture, nuances, which are integral not only to the character but the storyline as well.  The characters are in service of the plot, and vice versa, or they become beside the point (indeed, if this doesn’t happen, the reader is left scrambling to wonder what the heck the book’s about).  We don’t want a laundry list of the character’s background and history.  It’s vital for you, as the author, to know everything about everybody in order to paint them on the page.  But this needs to filter up organically—where it “fits” in the story and brings about that relationship of characters to plot.

In order to do this, you have to know your characters, inside and out.  The old adage of ‘Write What You Know’ stands firm here. I see so many books where the main character is an astronaut, or a brain surgeon, or a Donald-Trump-alike.  And the author has no clue what those sorts of lives are like, or how being such a professional is a part of the very texture of the person.  While yes, readers love characters who bring to the table worlds quite different from their own, they must believe this world, and believe the character who is functioning in it. 

Joshilyn Jackson is a current master of this.  In The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, our main character is involved in the world of quilting.  It’s integral to her character, and the story as well.  Joshilyn emersed herself in this world in order to write Laurel, and she acknowledges the Quilt Mavericks for schooling her in the craft.  So, you don’t have to be a tennis pro in order to write one, but you danged sure better spend a lot of time both on and off the court with those in that profession, in their world, to bring one believably onto the stage. 

In the end, your hero has to change and grow.  This brings back the service of the plot to the character.   She has in the end righted the wrong, reached the grail, saved the day in some way—both internally and externally.  The odds were steep—if she didn’t succeed, the result of failure would affect her, her world, those around her, terribly.  In James Dawsey’s Masters and Savages, Whitfield Stone begins as a slave trafficker (post Civil War, where the Old South has moved to Brazil—a part of history I didn’t even know existed before this book!  But about which Dawsey had already written a scholarly work, The Conferderados).  The events of the voyage are horrendous, and as Hemingway said, under pressure we find of what a character is made.  In the end, our Southern anti-hero has come full circle, into redemption. 

And we, the readers, along with him.

But What Stays the Same?

The times they aren’t a changin’—they already did. We all know the statistics, especially the much-touted Amazon Kindle, selling more e-books at Christmas than hard copy. And while this is a bit misleading (how many folks got new Kindles as presents, and downloaded books over the holidays?), it does represent the new reality: The e-book revolution is here.

Folks are blogging all over the place about what this means, and while that’s the topic for another discussion, what does it mean to you, the writer?

I had an email today from one of my writers, who decided to make his book available through Kindle. To his surprise, in a short time, he’s already sold over 2000 downloads. With almost no promotion. Sound too good to be true? The reality is, he hit on a number of important cylinders, all at once.

Michael Marks’ book, Dominant Species,  is Military Sci Fi. At a time when publishers (and therefore agents) are focused on Fantasy, Sci Fi, while not being ignored, is soft. Fantasy and Sci Fi sit on opposite sides of the teeter-totter; when one is up, the other is down. But that doesn’t mean readers have abandoned their first loves, and in this case, the demand for Sci Fi remains high to the reading public. It’s one of those odd conundrums in publishing, where what major houses are turning out is not the same as what readers want. (But don’t tell that to publishers—they’re all fixated on what is hot this second.)

Marks started with a great concept, and knows his stuff (he’s a Marine, and an avid Sci Fi fan). “Write what you know” remains a great axiom, no matter which genre is sizzling at the time. He had written—a lot—as well as reading a ton (axiom number 2). And last but absolutely not least, he dug in after being stunned by all the elements of great writing he didn’t know, learned his craft, revised, revised, revised (axiom number 3, with a bullet). The litany of reviews raves about the depth of characterization; about how intrinsically the writer put the reader in the scene. Talk about making me smile! And as a good buddy of mine who’s a senior editor at a major house is fond of saying, “Plot is important but without characters you care about, the best writing and plotting in the world ain’t gonna save your ass.”

As self-publishing has become the rage (due in large part to the fact that anyone, absolutely anyone, can now become a “published author” via inexpensive technology), agents, editors, and readers alike bemoan the dismal lack of quality in books. And while it’s true that so many are stringing together enough words for a book, spending one’s dollars on cover art and PR will only get you so far.

What has always been, and will come to the forefront again, is great writing. The cream does rise to the top. Readers aren’t stupid (you can’t imagine how many people grouse to me all the time that they can’t find a well-written book. But I can steer them to many). They want quality, in this vast sea of promoted schlock. They may be fooled once, but if so, won’t buy that writer’s books again—no matter in what format.

What’s selling my writer’s book is a great storyline, a wonderful plot, truly compelling characters, and a created experience that puts readers smack dab into the middle of it. In short, great writing.

As we go through these changing times, one thing remains constant. In the future, it’s the same thing that will cause readers to buy certain authors; that nebulous quality that puts some scribes above the rest:

It’s the writing. It’s the writing. It’s the writing.

Viewpoint is the single most disruptive issue in writing a novel.

The veterans of writing are nodding here, while everyone else asks, “Why the heck is that?”

I see lots of manuscripts, and they come from many sources-publishers, agents, folks wanting to take their novels to the next level in order to publish. And almost all of them have a central core issue-viewpoint. It’s a tricky, tough, sometimes ephemeral monster that can elude the best of us.

But, viewpoint is a beast that can be tamed. We just need to break it down a bit. I actually give half-day workshops on this topic, and we don’t have near that much space here, so we’ll do this in parts.

For this first one, let’s just focus on what viewpoint is.

We all know the three points of view: First, second, third person. But point of view is not exactly what I’m talking about. Viewpoint, on the other hand, is the specific eyes, ears, tastes, thoughts, etc., of the narrator in your story. That can be one character (first- or third-person singular) or multiple folks (third-person multiple) telling the story. I hesitate to use the word “telling” here, as that’s not what we want from our novel-we want showing, evoking, creating. And the very best way to hone that down is by mastering viewpoint. In doing so, you will be forced to show, create, and evoke. And therein lies the recipe for a powerful book.

So, at its very essence, our viewpoint character is the one through whose eyes, ears, tastes, touches, thoughts the reader experiences the events of the novel, rather than being told about one. Your goal then, as a writer, is to get behind the eyes, deeply into the head and psyche, of the person narrating your book. And that is where the trickiness comes in.

When we first go to write fiction, almost all of us sit down and begin by telling the reader what’s going on: Cindy is a nurse in southeast Chicago. She is really tired from her shift, and it’s freezing when she walks to her car. Her husband left her a year ago, and she is just now trying to date again. Ray, her son, is twelve years old, precocious, and smart.

Sound familiar? That’s not character viewpoint-it’s the author’s. It reads like the author’s notes to herself, rather than a book. Or worse, as author intrusion-where some voice from the sky just comes down and tells the reader what’s happening.

Were this in Cindy’s viewpoint, it might go something like this: Cindy sighed heavily as she walked from her shift at Chicago General into the bitterly cold night, wind whipping ice particles into her face. Whew, her feet ached. The ER hadn’t stopped, all nurses kept hopping. And then there was that gentleman asking for her phone number at the end. That hadn’t happened in a while. She smiled, thinking of what Ray would say. Her twelve-year-old had been admonishing her to date for a while, ever since his dad disappeared last year.

Cindy’s author has now put the reader in the scene with her, evoking the cold night, her aching feet, a hint of excitement from a man’s attention, coming chiefly through what her son would think. We get a whole slew of emotions and facts to set this up, all in the character’s viewpoint. Oh, yeah, someone did write this, but our job is for the passage to seem like Cindy is doing the talking.

And yes, while it is true that you, as the author, are virtually God in relation to your book (with the ability to create and destroy), your job is to do so in much the same manner as the Wizard of Oz, pulling strings from behind the scenes (and hoping against hope some little terrier of a reader doesn’t pull back the curtain). The way to avoid that happening is to hone your skills so that readers (and especially readers who are also writers) stop and say, “How the heck did she do that?”

In the next part, we’ll start out discussion of exactly how to achieve that goal.

You can ask Malone questions about this or anything else regarding writing and publishing at : maloneeditorial@hotmail.com

Why do characters fall in love? Other than begging the question of why any of us tumble head over heels, what purpose does doing so serve for either a novel or narrative nonfiction? Why is this of such importance to a great book? Or in the words of the song, what’s love got to do with it?

Many new writers want to gloss over this part of human existence, focusing instead on “deeper” or “more profound” pieces of the human condition. And while that’s all fine and good, even if you’re not writing Category Romance where love and lust provide the backdrop to whatever else occurs, matters of the heart bring with them all sorts of luscious twists for your characters.

Characters drive your story. Faced with all manner of psyche-bending events, your hero undergoes trials and tests that force him to change and grow, force her to tackle problems on the outside, which mirror those on the inside. This turns the plot in another direction, bringing with it a new host of problems our hero has to face. The best characters have to solve the inner before resolving the outer, and those tribulations form opposite sides of one whole coin. And nothing turns a character inside out more effectively than a love situation. For other than a few freaks of nature, the Bard hit the essence when saying that the course of true love never did run true.

Everything, in any book, has to be there on purpose. We use love won or lost to propel our hero onward. Often loss happens in the beginning of a story; it’s what causes the main character to sign up to drive the herd to Montana. Or to board the Starship Arugula for the outer reaches of the galaxy. And even though she may be running from her heartache, in the end, she must find resolution for that sorrow, or drift endlessly at the mercy of the Intergalactic pirates. Because it’s in the very efforts required to heal that shattered heart that our hero finds his own essence, his own strength, and lives to fight the bad guys (or his own neurosis) another day.

Many plot threads run through any book. That’s what gives a story layers, richness, and depth. Each and every one of those threads must weave together into the main theme throughout the course of the story, ultimately tying up (or failing to, on purpose) in the end. The cowboy doesn’t always get the girl. If he doesn’t though, and you’re worth your salt as a writer, you intend to set him up for book two in the series.

Love, lust, whatever you want to call it tends to lay bare all of our fears and hopes and shortcomings. It causes the strongest man, or the most sensible woman (or vice versa) to come undone, to act in ways contrary to normal. To have their friends shaking their heads and saying, “What the bleep is wrong with you!” And it gives you, the author, that plethora of ways to plunge them into chaos-the essence of what makes a book tick. Your Political Thriller will have more meat if the morning the President’s hand covers the red phone, he’s just learned his wife had an affair with, well, whomever-pick a pivotal and hopefully antagonistic character in the novel. Your Literary novel will resonate as the geisha falls in love, destroying not only her livelihood but likely her life as well. Your Fantasy will be enriched as our witch must save not only the town from evil, but the man who kept her from being burned at the pyre as well.

Love ups the stakes. And upping the stakes is what makes your story move. Keeps it going. Causes the characters to grow.

Finally, it never dies. Okay, so love can be killed (again, bringing with it that whole new Pandora’s box of plot twists), but the impetus to love never dies. We go to our graves with it. A good friend had to move her ninety-two-year-old mother to a nursing home. After finishing with the paper work, she went to find her mom-who was stepping down the hall, an elderly man (of about her age) holding her arm. Once inside her new room, my friend asked if this man was helpful.

Her mom said, a gleam in her pale eyes, “He let me use his walker.”

Ah, yes, that’s what love’s got to do with it.

Stories are the backbone of what makes us human. So it’s as natural as the sun coming up that we tell them, write them, listen and read them. Hemingway said he’d let go of many things through writing, and readers worldwide have learned great truths through the literature of our history.

But if you go at writing a novel from that standpoint, it’ll get so bogged down in “seriousness” that everyone (agents, editors, readers) will quit it faster than you can say Pulitzer Prize. Because in essence, novels are meant to entertain.

Haven’t you ever picked up that new, “big,” important novel and after a chapter gone, “Blech!” And for a variety of reasons. Because if a novel doesn’t grab you up and transport you to a different world (even if that’s within the main character’s mind), your loyalty to it will disintegrate like a Hollywood marriage.

To entertain is something of a nebulous term itself, as we all have different tastes. Which is one reason we have so many different genres and subgenres of fiction. While you may not be caught dead reading a category Romance, Chick Lit might tweak your fancy all day long. You might hate Westerns, but love literature set in the West (Elmer Kelton’s work comes to mind, although he would argue the point, saying he writes Westerns. I would counter that his work transcends genre). Although not apparent on the surface (or in the bookstore), publishing operates through very rigid lines.

The point being, the novels you love to read, and more importantly for our purposes to write, might have meant a host of things to you, but first and foremost, they entertained you-if only in your own head.

So, how do we do that?

Of course, you must have the elements of great fiction to begin with. That takes time, study, guidance, and lots of writing. The tools of great writing-whether fiction or non-can be learned, and they must be. Characterization, plotting, organization and structure, voice, tone, etc.-all of these must be there in order for a novel to fly. And the devil truly is, as they say, in the details. Because it’s by mastering these elements (so deceptively simple, no?) that we bring the magic forth from great fiction. I could write a book on each of these topics, so we’ll save them for subsequent months. But you have to learn those skills first, before your okay or even good novel will be great. The elements of great fiction provide the foundation upon which you stand to launch that fabulous story into the heavens of bestseller-dom.

From there, the intangibles come in.

Ask yourself: did I have fun writing this passage/chapter/book? Do I care about my characters? (So often cardboard characters are mouthpieces for one belief system or another, and the author quite obviously didn’t like them to begin with. If you, as the author, don’t like your folks, how can we, as your readers?) Am I bored when going through revisions? (Be prepared to read your own book a thousand times, as you rewrite/revise/polish. If doing so bores you, just think how jaded agents and editors will react.) Does the middle drag? (I.e., is your book the victim of ’sagging middles’? Again, we’ll address this another month.) When you read it aloud, is the prose ratchety, awkward, stumbling? Or does it sing with poetry if Literary, or move at a crisp pace if genre?

Is the book all of one piece?

Keep these questions in the front of your mind (taped to your monitor will help). Revisit them regularly.

Most importantly, with all of these tools solidly in your arsenal, then let your creativity run. Give that horse its head, hold on, and enjoy the visceral thrill of the ride.

That’s what makes for great fiction.

Writer’s conferences abound. And it’s tough sometimes to know at the onset whether a conference would pay dividends, at this specific time in your writing career. A., most cost a pretty shiny penny, and B., also require time and often travel.

So, to go or not to go? My writers ask me all the time whether a conference would help them. And in almost every case, my answer is an unequivocal yes.

First off, I speak at a lot of conferences. And with every one at which I’ve presented, the conference coordinators strive to give writers break-out sessions that are truly helpful. Whether these sessions deal with the elements of plot, or how to write a great query letter, or simply picking an agent’s brain, there’s a ton that can be learned here. Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned writer trying to break in, you can always pick up more tips and pearls to help hone your work into a shining gem. The folks who present know the game, and are there to teach it to you. You can learn not only from the presenters, but also from other writers as well, who are sifting the wheat from the chaff as they go along their paths. Sometimes you learn what not to do by visiting with them! But we can all learn from one another.

Second, publishing on the inside is a far different business from how it appears on the outside. The industry is actually very specialized, from what an editor at a house does in this day and time (and those jobs are differentiated depending upon whether said publishing house is of the big New York variety, or a smaller, regional press), to how books are selected for individual lists, to what agent sells to which imprints at the particular houses and to which editors working where.

In other words, this is a multi-layered industry, and nothing is much as it seems from the outside looking in. Now, you don’t need to understand the inner workings of publishing in order to break into it with a bang-up book, but it sure helps to get a grasp of the way it works. You can’t just write a fabulous book, sit back, and say, “Publish me!” Having at least a working knowledge of how the business runs helps you to sort through where you might fit, with the kind of work you write.

Finally, conferences are networking bonanzas. Although this is a word-on-the-page business (and the right words absolutely have to be on the pages, in the most creative ways), it’s also and somewhat oddly very much a people-oriented industry. I can’t tell you how many writers I’ve introduced to agents or editors (or both, sometimes forging a publishing deal over coffee, right there) at conferences, which led to book sales. Agents and editors are folks just like everybody else, and it helps them to put a face with a name as well. But most importantly, they can sift through quickly whether a book is right for them.

Most conferences offer manuscript evaluations with the presenters — fifteen minutes or so of one-on-one time, after the evaluator has gone over your work. The only way I know for an aspiring writer to meet an agent or editor, face to face, is to sit down or mingle with one at a conference.

So, take the plunge. Research different conferences and go. Find one in your area, or across the continent that has agents and editors and authors you want to meet. An added bonus is you’ll meet like-minded folks, and realize you’re not alone on this crazy road to writing and publishing — a great boon for anyone who knows what it’s like to sit quietly in a room for time on end, writing and writing and writing . . .

You can ask Malone questions about this or anything else regarding writing and publishing at : maloneeditorial@hotmail.com