This Year You Write Your Novel

The first-person narrative can know only what the speaker knows. This tale is limited by the mind and senses, the situation and sophistication, the gender and education, of the narrator.

The first-person narrator is the doorway through which all the information of this story will pass; therefore the sense the reader has of this character must never be challenged.

Emotions inform our responses to the physical world, and our language reflects those responses:

Every time characters in your novel speak, they should be: (1) telling us something about themselves; (2) conveying information that may well advance the story line and/or plot; (3) adding to the music or the mood of the scene, story, or novel; (4) giving us a scene from a different POV (especially if the character who is speaking is not connected

As in life, your characters develop mainly because of their dealings with one another. The complex and dynamic interplay of relationships throughout the course of the novel is what makes change possible.

A character is made up of many attributes: the way he talks; her age and education; his level of cleanliness; his bravery or cowardice; their love of life or sex or food.

Now read your book from first page to last. If you find that you must make pencil markings, correct spelling, add missing words, retool sentences. . . be my guest.

there’s another level of description and condensation that you must be aware of—you should not confuse the reader’s understanding of character responses with overly ornate and ambivalent detail.

My only ritual for writing is that I do it every morning. I wake up and get to work.