Note: “Finding Your Fiction: Concise Steps to Writing Successful Fiction” – blog posts derived from my popular “Finding Your Fiction” workshop in association with St. Louis Writers Workshop and St. Louis Writers Guild. Completed guide will be available as an ebook, likely on Smashwords. (Feedback, incisive or otherwise, welcome.)
Introduction
You are a writer. You have been writing most of your life, writing term papers, developing business proposals, composing letters, email, and Facebook posts. But are you a writer with a capital W? Do you want to become a fiction writer?
Writing a step by step guide that will magically turn you into a successful fiction writer is of course impossible. But I can save you some time. A condensed guide like this one works well for motivated writers who want to focus more on their own writing than reading about how to write. For example, rather than list endless numbers of activities, I list only those I have used successfully.
But who the hell am I? Telling you how to write?
Among other things, I have won short fiction awards, I am the author of the novel Where the River Splits, and my work was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Information in this guide comes directly from my writing and publishing experience, other guidebook sources, and my popular Finding Your Fiction workshop sponsored by the St. Louis Writers Workshop and St. Louis Writers Guild. You can also merely google “Jeffrey Penn May.”
You could of course enroll in an MFA program. The “good ones” cost lots of money, and you get instruction from “established” writers. At the very least, they can teach you the basics. But there is no guarantee you will learn anything beyond the basics. Using guides like this one can save you time and money — a poor person’s MFA.
Guidebooks can help you avoid amateurish errors (professional errors are often hailed as “groundbreaking”). They can give you a strong foundation to build on and set you forth on a lifetime of exquisite misery — for there is no misery as grand as the struggling artist, poet, writer. Mastering literary tricks and infusing passion into your work requires you to sell your soul to the devil and endure a lifetime of pain, which is of course hyperbole. It does, however, require some initial talent and lots of hard work.
There are no “rules.” However, you should learn the rules before you break them. You should master accepted “norms” before deviating from them.
But wait! You want to make lots of money from your fiction. It’s possible. But only after you learn how to Write. Then, translating your fiction writing skills into commercial success is a matter of persistence, networking, politics, marketing talent, and luck.
Exercise I. Desire. Why do you want to write fiction? List favorite novels/stories. Why are they your favorites?
Exercise II. Schedule. Where and when will you be writing for at least 20 minutes without stopping and without interruption? Ideas come from the act of writing. Expect your 20-minute write to be complete rubbish. You may be pleasantly surprised.
