I recently read Natalie Goldberg’s book, Writing Down The Bones, and if you need a writing craft book that will point out your insecurities and help you see how all the writing-adjacent stuff you’re doing to prepare for writing is actually stopping you from your writing, I recommend reading this piece of work, especially if you want to write but haven’t started, or are feeling self-conscious about a piece of writing in progress or on submission. Writing Down The Bones says, in no uncertain terms, to get out of your own way and write.
Sounds simple enough. Right?
When you don’t have the spark of inspiration or any direction in a piece, or when you’re searching for a new angle or truth, free writing — the process of writing with abandon — is like conditioning, a way to stretch the writing muscles that allow you to reach down into yourself to discover the messages hidden within. While free writing, the goal is to channel yourself through your pen, to let your insides pour out onto the page to get to the heart of what you want to share.
Free writing can be a great technique for finding your stride along the storytelling journey, even for figuring out what kind of story you want to tell. But once you understand what story you want to tell and what you want to say about it, your task is to get the story on paper. Those amorphous ideas, the themes, the characters, the situations, the places, all must be given life within the pages of your novel or risk being left unsaid or inaccessible to readers.
This week, I offer three items to jumpstart your story once the idea presents and you’re committed to the writing.
Let’s dive in.
The Single-Sentence Pitch
If you haven’t started writing your novel yet and need a focus point to get started, write your pitch. Your book pitch (also called an “elevator pitch”) is a single sentence about your story or narrative that confirms the benefit of reading, hints at the major conflict, and sets the tone and mood of the work. From the pitch, you will entice your future readers, or other publishing professionals like agents and editors.
Example (from my novel-in-progress):
In an alternate society that suppresses individuality, a young woman joins one band’s cross-country quest for artistic freedom and discovers her own vision of the American Dream.
For the reader, the benefit of reading becomes one of hope and aspiration for the American Dream. The reader knows the major conflict is hero versus society (individuality versus confirmity), and the tone is socially critical while the mood is aspirational.
For me, though? The pitch tells me exactly what kind of story I’m writing. I suspect you have a feel for the kind of story you may read within these pages, perhaps one that is hopeful, serious in nature, likely exploratory and philosophical. You know, when I’m finally finished writing said pages
While you’re welcome to use my imperfect example pitch to pen your own pitch sentence, your television may also provide some great inspiration. When you’re scrolling Netflix, take a few minutes to write down three to five compelling pitches for movies to use as creativity fuel later. The pitches should intrigue you, make you interested in watching. What is doing it for you? What elements can you pull out of your Netflix (or other streaming platform) examples?
Write a pitch sentence, or two, or three. In the crafting of your pitch, you’ll discover the tone and mood of your piece and the major conflict, if you haven’t identified those elements yet.
The Blurb (or Description)
While a single-sentence pitch is a solid start to the novel-writing process, one teensy sentence can’t communicate the story arc of an entire book without leaving out a few critical details. My pitch example includes no character names, no specific settings, no time stamp. From the pitch, the story is theoretical, rather than grounded in the real. It’s important to move beyond the pitch and figure out what the story’s shape will be.
Your blurb, that short paragraph or section that describes your book and is usually found on the back cover or the inside flap, will show you the shape of your story.
Example (from my novel-in-progress):
After suffering a series of setbacks resulting in professional failure, Evelyn Hayes finds herself back in The Ridge in a drafty old farmhouse at the edge of town. She and her long-time boyfriend are scraping by when his band gets the invitation of a lifetime. Soon after, Evelyn is dragged along a cross-country roadtrip, temporarily living in a camper. The tour starts as well as anyone can hope, but a string of bad luck leads to unexpected tragedy, derailing plans for the foreseeable future. Dejected and depressed, Evelyn faces a choice: Return to The Ridge and start over in the refuse of her life, or push forward with passion and purpose and the know-how to bring it all together in the name of art.
What does the blurb do that the pitch doesn’t? Contains the arc.
From the blurb, readers know that: Evelyn is the hero and is starting from a place of failure; she join’s her boyfriend’s band for a roadtrip; some not-great stuff happens to the group, including some kind of tragedy; Evelyn must choose between stopping at failure and plodding forward in pursuit of (assumed) success. Now we don’t just have a premise. There’s a fully fledged story baked in there. From the blurb, you can see the gentle edges of an outline, including the probable curve of the narrative arc.
The blurb explains the “what’s in it for the reader,” should they choose the novel. And while my blurb example may not be worthy copy for the back cover or inside flap, it provides me with enough narrative fuel to see my story from beginning to end.
Scene Sentences
You have your pitch; you’ve constructed your blurb. They’re good. You got what you needed from those items.
So, what’s left? Scenes.
A novel is simply a collection of scenes following common characters and a common narrative thread. When I need to work out a few scenes so that I can sit down and start writing right away, I use the Friends model.
If you watched Friends while it was on cable (or watch re-runs of the sitcom now), you may have noticed all episodes are titled similarly:
The one with/where . . . [enter object/situation].
When scratching out the basics of scenes, I use the same method:
- The one where Evelyn and Reggie arrive and see the house for the first time.
- The one where Evelyn (ironically) lives the dream.
- The one where Evelyn gets a job.
You get the idea.
The best part of this method is that you don’t need to scratch out more than five or so “the one where” scenes to start seeing the momentum apparent in the writing. From the scene bits, there’s movement. The characters are not stagnant; they are doing stuff, noticing things, being people.
Writing down a few “the one where” scenes is expansive enough for the pantser within and coordinated enough for the inner plotter. For me, it’s a happy medium between order and chaos. There’s enough for me to chew on every scene so I stay within a logical story structure. And since these statements are brief, there’s also plenty of room for me to stretch my creativity.
TL;DR: You mustn’t know everything, but you should know something.
If you’re having trouble getting started with your novel, write an elevator pitch, a blurb paragraph, and a few “the one where” scenes.
As you write, you’ll build momentum. And once you have momentum, you can ride out the journey.
Happy writing.
<3 Fal
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Fallon Clark is the book pal who helps you tell your story in your words and voice using editorial, coaching, writing, and project management expertise for revision assistance, one-on-one guidance, and ghostwriting for development. Her writing has been published in Flash Fiction Magazine. Check out her website, FallonClark.com, or connect with her on LinkedIn or Substack.