Beth Barany - Plan Your Novel Like A Pro: And Have Fun Doing It!

Writing a novel isnt easy. If it were, everyone would be doing it. Anonymous

Its your dream to be a novelist, to touch readers hearts and minds, to excite and wow them, to transport them. And to build a career with your books.

But you dont know where to begin. Starting is hard. Things like creating an outline, scenes, or conflict may be confusing or strange or no fun at all. Perhaps crafting compelling three-dimensional characters stumps you.

Or maybe youve been stuck in the middle of writing your first novel (or fifth) for way too long.

Thats hard.

We know. As working novelists, weve been there many, many times.

But there is hope.

This book is for you if you want to work on your novel while managing the rest of your life. We know you have other activities and people you are committed to. Your life doesnt stop just because you want to create art. You may feel like your daily life is an obstacle, but it can enhance your storytelling.

This book is also for you if you have tried writing without any guidelines but didnt get very far. It can be hard to write when you dont know what youre writing about, how to develop a story, or why your writing means so much to you.

You may have tried planning your novel by following rules set out by other writing teachers and found that they didnt work for you. Some writing instructors insist that their way is the only way, the best way, but in fact, there is no best way. There is only the way that gets you writing and that is different for every writer.

Plan Your Novel Like A Pro is designed to help you discover your very own creative process for planning your novel. The only way youll uncover what works for you is to experiment with different tools. Try everything, discard what doesnt work for you, and keep what does. We offer plenty of strategies and tools in this book. Above all, this book is for you if youre looking for a way to listen to yourself, whether thats listening to the whispers of your gut, your heart, your intuition, or some other creative part of you.

Plan Your Novel Like A Pro focuses on genre fiction, genres such as romance, mystery, thrillers, science fiction, and fantasy. We focus on these types of stories since they are the kind both of us (Beth and Ezra) write and know the most about, but we imagine that writers of other kinds of stories will find helpful exercises and advice among these pages.

Creating art can be hard and frustrating. It may require you to stretch in ways you never have before. We all start in a place of not knowing. Yet, we humans have been creating art for more than 100,000 years, the age of the oldest art found. (Painted on cave walls in Spain. See citation in the Resources section.)

There is hope.

The friction between the desire to create and the challenge of creating assists our art making and is often what allows us to create our best work.

Start with breathing and noticing what you are feeling, whatever those feelings are. It can be healing to allow yourself to notice and feel whatever it is. Feelings are not good or bad, but rivers of energy that flow through our bodies. We can harness those feelings for our storytelling, but only if we feel them first.

Next, take a breath, or several, and appreciate all the work youve done to get to this place. Appreciate your passion, your focus, and your love of story, and whatever else excites you about writing a novel.

Likewise, appreciate the pain, frustration, disappointment, and even hopelessness youve experienced to get to this point. Without the effort, how would you know if the work was worthwhile?

When we appreciate our current experience, whats happening now, we can choose a new present. What new present do you choose?

You can choose by asking: What would I like? Or, what do I want? Perhaps,

• A completed novel that you can hold in your hands?
• A creative process or model you can use again and again?
• An author career youre happy about and proud to be building?

If you said yes to any of these three things, or to something similar, or even if youre not sure what you would like, then you are in the right place. We are here to help you discover your creative process and lay the foundation for your writing goals.

This book is designed to guide you through the process of planning of your novel. Its a road map to follow, so you can focus on creating.

Story evolved as a way to explore our own mind and the mind of others, as a sort of dress rehearsal for the future. As a result, story helps us survive not only in the life-and-death physical sense but also in a life-well-lived social sense. Lisa Cron, Wired For Story: The Writers Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence

This isnt an ordinary book on novel planning. While it contains many of the ingredients you may have seen in other writing guide books, its different because we focus on your creative soul, your heart, and your sense of self and story.

The world needs your stories. Your stories matter.

Your readers are waiting for your unique voice. You matter.

Like many writers, you may have been deeply touched by stories told to you or books you read when you were young, and now you want to influence readers yourself.

Stories are how we make sense of the world and prepare for any potential scenario we may face. They are a form of mental rehearsal. They are how we teach life lessons. As Lisa Cron says so aptly, based on neuroscientists understanding, humans are wired for story. Id even say that its the most powerful way we learn how to be human, how to ask and answer the questions about how we want to live in the world, and how we can shape our world.

Your stories can influence the fate of future generations, the fate of humanity, and the fate of our planet.

This book comes out of the passion of Beth Barany, thats me. Im the primary voice of this book, though some of the lessons are by my husband, Ezra, who edits everything I write. And vice versa. (Heres a sentence he added in. His edits are everywhere!)