Bare Bones: A Quick Guide to Writing Your First Novel
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About this ebook
Have a great idea for a book, but aren't sure how to write it? Overwhelmed by all the various "how to write" books out on the market? Do you have a busy life or a short attention span? Bare Bones: A Quick Guide to Writing Your First Novel is a compilation of advice for the fledgling writer. Katrina Kissinger is an author, editor, and a creative writing instructor with a stash of how-to-write books at her disposal. She's condensed everything she's learned over the last twenty-plus years into one very short book that will help you achieve your writing goals. She touches on: character, point-of-view, tenses, goal and motivation, conflict, pacing, revision, publishing, and promotion. Designed to be read in less than an hour, Katrina explains the important aspects of novel writing and uses examples from imaginary work to make points. A must-read for the inexperienced wanna-be author.
Katrina Kissinger
Katrina Kissinger is a creative writing instructor, author, and editor. As you can see, she's incognito in the photo. This is because she writes for adults under the Kissinger name and for children under a different name and doesn't want the two confused.
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Book preview
Bare Bones - Katrina Kissinger
Bare Bones: A Quick Guide to Writing Your First Novel
(Spend Your Time Writing, Not Reading)
by
Katrina Kissinger
Bare Bones: A Quick Guide to Writing Your First Novel
Katrina Kissinger
Copyright 2014 by Katrina Kissinger
Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior written permission from the author.
Cover art by Linda Bucklin. Distributed through Dreamstime LLC.
All examples in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual novels or stories is purely coincidental.
Dedicated to my clients and my writer friends, and to S. Arthur Yates for his suggestions that served to make this a stronger book.
Introduction: You Can Do It!
Guess what? I have great news. Anyone can become a novelist. The cussing garbage collector. The Bavarian seamstress whose English is impossible to understand. Your second grader who still sucks his thumb but sure has creative ideas. If writing a book has been an unrealized dream, it’s time to set your sights on the clouds. You can do this. Trust me. I have.
I’ve been writing for nearly thirty years, not counting my days in grammar school. I’ve spent thousands of hours studying what works and doesn’t work when it comes to writing. I’ve sold stories to magazines, had close calls placing my books with major publishing houses, and self-published some of my own work. I teach people how to write through a community education program and I’ve led workshops for various groups, schools, and writing conferences.
Because so many people want a succinct guide that takes the mystery out of writing and publishing, I’ve created this book. I don’t go into much depth. I will leave that up to you if you care to do more research. Consider this the bare bones of writing to get you from Point A to Point B in a relatively short period of time. If you have a free half-hour, you have time to read what you need to know in order to grab a hold of that cloud and start soaring.
Yes, you might discover your first book is not very good. In fact, it may even be terrible. But every writer has to start somewhere, and your second book will be better. Your third book, even more improved. The important thing is that you try. You can’t succeed if you don’t make any attempt at all.
I wish you the best of luck.
-Katrina Kissinger, author of When We Make Our Beds and Roses Taste Like Chicken
Chapters
Chapter One: Setting
Chapter Two: Time Periods
Chapter Three: Prologues
Chapter Four: Point of View
Chapter Five: Past and Present Tense
Chapter Six: Characters
Chapter Seven: Goal and Motivation
Chapter Eight: Conflict
Chapter Nine: Beginning, Middle, End
Chapter Ten: Backstory
Chapter Eleven: Show vs. Tell
Chapter Twelve: Pacing