On December 28, the Wordplay: Helping Writers Become Authors blog came out with a guest post by Tiana Warner entitled Writing With a Touch of Madness. In this post, the blogger talks about what goes into making a novel. She highlighted traits in the author, such as obsession, passion, and persistence. She also noted that it takes a special breed to not only commit to writing a novel but to have the drive to see it through.
I would like to continue her train of thought, if I may. For many people, the idea of getting to that novel-length word count is daunting in and of itself. Add in multiple rewrites, drafts, and edits, and the process seems to stretch forward infinitely. There is also the task of finding a topic that drives you, of latching on to a subject that you can fill many pages with. You have to be able to lock on to a character and travel with them throughout their journey without getting into the boring or humdrum. Each scene has to have a purpose, it has to catch the attention of the reader and propel the story forward. But each scene can't be an action movie either; the tension and activity levels have to rise and fall.
So how do you create this perfect mixture? I don't know if there is really a way to make yourself into a novelist. I think that is something that is part of your nature, something that is built into the way you think and write. Now, with that said, I also think that our nature can evolve over time. If you write short stories again and again and again, eventually you might progress to writing a series of short stories, then on to making novels. Also, you might have rejected the idea of writing such a long piece for years, then wake up one morning determined to make it happen. People do change, and I believe this can be part of that change.
What do you think?
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