“Pointers from the Pros” gives tips from authors and publishing industry professionals on everything from craft to querying to their experiences on the road to publication.

I spoke at the 35th annual Southeastern Writers Association conference in beautiful St. Simons Island, Ga., two weeks ago and took copious notes at the sessions.  Although I couldn’t go to all the faboo classes, I’m sharing some tips from some of the ones I was lucky enough to attend.

Here is what awesomesauce chica lit author Berta Platas* had to say in Beginning Novel Writing.

THE BASICS

• Novel: a long work of narrative fiction
  • could be based on a real event, but you change it up
• Novella: a 60-100-page work of narrative fiction
• Short stories: under 60 pages
  • Novellas & short stories are not published on their own—but in anthologies
• Genre: a category of story type—where you’d find a particular book in the bookstore
• Stories can be character- or plot-driven (strong suspense).
• Pace-heavy books most often get made into movies.

CHARACTERS

• Your hero cannot be perfect—perfect people do not exist.
• Give them flaws—but not too many.
• Internal conflict: conflict within the character’s own self
• External conflict: some outside factor is stopping the hero from attaining his goals
• Be mean to your characters—it’s hard, but do it!
  • Figure out what your characters are most afraid of—and then stomp on it.
  • What are they afraid to lose?  Take it away from them.
• The main character has to change or you have no story.
  • If the MC does not change, then there has to be a reason.

GOAL, MOTIVATION, CONFLICT

• An easy way to craft interesting characters: goal, motivation, conflict
• Goal: What does the character want?
• Motivation: What causes the character to want this?  What drives her to seek it?
• Conflict: What (or who) is standing in the way of the character attaining her goals?
• Do this for your heroes as well as your villains.
  • Everything your villians do, they have reasons for (in their minds)
  • They think their actions are right or justified in some way.

IN THE FLESH

• Flesh out your characters—interview them (character sketch)
  • You don’t have to use all of it, but if you’ve got everything down somewhere, you will have more believable characters
• This will also keep your characters true to who you know them to be.

POINT OF VIEW

• Who is the best character to tell your story?  It may surprise you, after you flesh them all out.
• 1^st person POV – uses I/me/we/us/our/etc.
  • This is limiting in that you can’t see anything the main character isn’t seeing.
• 3^rd person POV – uses he/she/they/their/her/his/etc.
  • Close third is 3^rd person limited feels like 1^st person, but it isn’t.
  • You can have other POVs with 3^rd person limited.

• Multiple POVs allow you to see different parts of the story.
  • When doing this, however, the voices need to be very clear.
• Be careful not to “head-hop”—going between multiple perspectives within one scene or chapter = confusing.

OTHER SUGGESTIONS

• Stick to 10-page chapters (helps the pacing).
• Make sure there’s a hook to each chapter. (“She opens the door and sees something amazing.”  Makes you turn the page.)
• Give your character a friend, in order to impart info.
  • But don’t have a cast of millions; keep it as slim as you can.
  • Sometimes these secondary characters have subplots
• Don’t give walk-off characters backstory.
• Don’t have unnecessary actions or details because your reader will invent reasons and fixate them.
• Kill off all your characters—and then bring them back to life as needed. 🙂

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*Click here for my SWA Presenter Spotlight on Platas.