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I don't have any original content. I just wanted to post some articles from this writing newsletter thing that gets emailed to me because I found them relevant and useful.

2) Organizing: Tactics of the Winning Novelist

In my November column, I talked about the threeessential skills you need if you want to succeed in thewriting business -- Vision, Strategy, and Tactics.
In December, I discussed Vision and gave you somesimple tips to help you define the Vision for yourcareer and for each book.
In January, we tackled Strategy and I gave you a longterm strategic plan for managing your writing business.
This month, let's talk Tactics.
Tactics are the little things, the specific actions youtake to build your skills as a novelist and then towrite your novel.
Let's be clear that those are separate tasks: buildingyour skills and writing a novel. An analogy might help:

Being a novelist is a lot like being a marathon runner.Before you can actually RUN a marathon, you need tofirst TRAIN for it. Typically, that takes a long time-- months of training to build the fitness andendurance to run an entire marathon.
But once you've reached that level, you can run moremarathons with ease.
Of course, you'll continue to train between races, butnow your training will be aimed at helping you runBETTER, rather than merely helping you FINISH.

In the same way, before you can write a novel, you needto develop your skills as a fiction writer.
But once you've got the skills to write one novel, youcan write as many as you want with ease.
You'll always be improving your skills, but afteryou've written your first novel, you'll be working towrite BETTER, not merely to FINISH.

I've identified five tactics you can use to build yourskills as a novelist to the point where you're ready towrite your first one.
These tactics are simple. In fact, they're "obvious." Success in life can be as simple as doing the obvious.You'd be amazed how many writers ignore all these tactics.You'd be amazed how fast you improve, once you startdoing all five.
Here they are:

Tactic #1: Write on a consistent schedule.
Writing a novel is a marathon. A sprint here and a dashthere won't get you to the finish line. Writingconsistently for weeks and months WILL get you there.
Decide how many hours per week you can dedicate towriting. If you're a beginner, this might be only oneor two. I recommend that beginners make it a goal toget up to five hours per week by the end of the firstyear of writing.
Your writing schedule is for WRITING. Not for researchof your story world. Not for studying how to write. Notfor reading magazines about writing. Not for readingblogs or hanging out on e-mail loops for writers. Notfor going to writing conferences.
All of those are fine things, but they aren't WRITING.
You get better at running by running. You get better atwriting by writing.

Tactic #2: Keep a log of your writing time and wordcount.
This sounds too simple (or possibly too anal) forwords. It isn't.
Writing fiction is a JOB, at least for professionalnovelists. Someday, you'll be working with a publisherwho has a publication schedule mapped out for two yearsin advance. You'll sign a contract with that publisherto deliver X amount of words on a particular date.
That date is not a fantasy. That date is reality. Ifyou miss that date, it costs your publisher money. Yes,they build in some slack in the schedule. No, you don'tever want to use any of it. Not one minute. Yourpublishers will love you if they know they can trustyou to meet your deadlines.
But you can't sign a contract to deliver X words on aparticular date unless you know how fast you can write.You need to know how many words of output you cancreate in each hour of working time.
Good runners know what pace they can run each mile.
Professional writers know what pace they can write.
If you want to be a professional writer someday, thenstart acting like one today. 

Tactic #3: Give yourself a weekly quota.
You can't do this until you've done #1 and #2 above. Inorder to create a meaningful quota, you have to knowhow many hours you can write each week, and you have toknow how many words you can produce each hour. (Theydon't have to be GOOD words. Goodness comes later.)
Virtually all the successful writers I know assignthemselves a quota of some sort for creating theirfirst draft. While some writers use a daily quota andsome use a monthly quota, most of them seem to set aweekly word count. I recommend weekly.
Your quota will be useless unless you actually meet it.Assign yourself a penalty for failing to reach yourquota. Find an accountability partner who can checkthat you hit your quota and can make you pay thepenalty if you fail.
Important: Make your quota possible. Never miss it.

Tactic #4: Find a critique group or critique buddy.
Most writers believe their work is either unutterablybrilliant or wretchedly awful.
Generally, they're wrong on both counts. All writersare delusional. That's part of the job description.
There is only one way to know whether your work is anygood or not.
You need somebody else to read your work and tell you.
You need a critique of your work regularly. I recommendthat you get a critique monthly. Find one or morepeople with all of these qualities: * They understand fiction* They will be honest * They will be kind
If your critiquers lack any of these, then drop themlike a burning porcupine because they're useless to you.

Tactic #5: Constantly study the craft of fiction.
It is not your critiquers' problem to tell you HOW towrite better. Their job is to point out what you'redoing well and what you're doing poorly.
Your job is to find ways to improve your strong pointsso they're world-class (your strong points will makeeditors say yes someday).
Your job is also to find ways to improve your weakpoints so they're at least adequate (your weak pointswill make editors say no right now).
Generally, critiquers don't actually know how to teachyou how to improve your craft. They may think they do,but they usually don't. Skill in critiquing is not thesame as skill in teaching.
You have plenty of sources for teaching you the craft:* Books* Magazines and e-zines* Classes* Conferences* Recorded lectures* Mentors
When you know specifically what you want to improve,find some source of teaching on that exact topic andstudy it. Then apply what you learned to your writingand get critiqued again to see if you got it. Don'tquit studying until you get it.

That's it. Five tactics that will turn a talentedbeginner into a professional writer, if you do themconsistently for the rest of your life.
To summarize, "Write, write, write! Get critiqued.Study. Repeat forever."
Simple? Yes.
Easy? No.
That's why there are many more talented beginners thanprofessional writers.


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3) Creating: Should You Answer That Question?

In writing fiction, you'll constantly be raisingquestions in your reader's mind. Those questions createcuriosity and it's up to you to decide whether and whento satisfy that curiosity.
On the one hand, nothing kills mystique quicker thaninstantly answering every possible question that mightarise. Curiosity keeps the pages turning.
On the other hand, nothing is more frustrating thantrying to read a story where you lack essential contextto understand what's going on, especially when you feelthat the author is intentionally holding back criticalinformation for no good reason.

What you're looking for is balance.
There are really two kinds of questions that you canraise: implicit and explicit questions.
An implicit question arises when the reader lackscontext to understand something -- a foreign word or afamily tradition or a character's backstory.
An explicit question is a question that one characterasks another.

The meta-question you should always be asking yourselfabout implicit and explicit questions is this: "ShouldI answer that question?"
Sometimes you will; sometimes you won't. How do youknow when you should and when you shouldn't?
There aren't any hard rules here, but I usually asksome related questions:
* Is the reader going to be hopelessly confused unlessshe gets an answer to the question? Generally,curiosity is good, but confusion that leads to readerfrustration is bad.
* Is the story pace going to suffer if I take time toanswer this question? During high-action parts of thestory, you really don't want to take time out toexplain things. Those explanations can usually wait atleast a few pages until you reach a low-action part ofthe story.

Let's look at some examples from the great novel, THECHOSEN, by Chaim Potok.
In THE CHOSEN, the two lead characters meet in chapter1. They're fifteen year old Jewish boys, playing onrival baseball teams in 1944 Brooklyn.
Our hero, Reuven Malter, is playing second base, andhis nemesis, Danny Saunders, hits a double. One of thefirst things Danny says to Reuven is this:
"I told my team we're going to kill you apikorsim thisafternoon."
If you're not Jewish, you may be wondering what"apikorsim" are.
Potok doesn't tell you right away. It's clear from thecontext that the word is an insult. Potok doesn't breakthe pace of the story to explain any more.
But the word hangs there in the reader's mind. It getsrepeated a few more times during the action part of thescene.
Five pages later, there's a lull in the action. Potoknow explains that an apikoros originally meant aninfidel. However, Hasidic Jews like Danny Saunders alsouse the term even for observant Jews who are somewhatmore assimilated into American culture.
For Danny Saunders, Reuven Malter is an apikoros whowill burn in hell.
Potok takes half a page to explain all this.
It's important to get it right, because Reuven andDanny are going to become friends, and Reuven's statusas a non-Hasidic apikoros will be a major obstacle totheir friendship.
Yet it's not so important that Potok felt it necessaryto explain it in the heat of a baseball game. The exactdefinition of the word "apikoros" was an implicitquestion that could stew for a few pages before Potoktook the time to explain it.

Now let's look at an explicit question a little fartheron in the same book.
Late in the game, Reuven takes the pitcher's mound forthe final inning of the game. Danny Saunders comes tobat and hits a wicked curve incredibly hard right atReuven. The ball shatters Reuven's glasses and smashesinto his forehead.
Reuven is rushed to the hospital with a massiveheadache and a piercing pain in his left eye. There, hepasses out. The next day, he regains consciousness andfinds that he has a big bandage over his left eye. Hisfather comes to visit.
Reuven has noticed that the nurse hasn't told himanything about his eye. So he asks his father straightout, "Is it all right?"
That's an explicit question that his father couldanswer immediately. But he doesn't.
Reuven has not yet grasped how serious the situationis. Neither has the reader. Reuven doesn't know he hada splinter of glass in his eye. He doesn't know that abig-shot eye surgeon performed an operation on his eyeto remove the splinter. He has no idea what danger he'sstill in.
If Reuven's father answers the question right away,that would kill the tension before Reuven or the readereven know that there is any tension.
So Reuven's father equivocates. He's not a good liarand Reuven presses him with more questions and more.
Slowly, over a page and a half, the truth emerges. Thesplinter. The surgeon. The operation. The fact that thepupil of the eye was sliced and now has to heal. Thefact that it might scar as it heals. The strongpossibility that Reuven might never see again out ofthat eye.
By the end of the scene, Reuven is in a panic and hehates Danny Saunders more than he's ever hated anybodyin his life.
Danny wanted to kill him. Danny may very well haveblinded him in one eye. Danny is a despicable humanbeing.
Hate takes time to build, and Potok builds it slowly bydragging out the answer to Reuven's question.


Sometimes an explicit question arises that shouldn't beanswered until as late as possible. Let's look at anexample from the same book.
While Reuven is convalescing in the hospital, Dannycomes to apologize. Furious, Reuven sends him away. ButDanny is persistent and he returns the next day toapologize again.
It takes some time, but slowly Reuven begins tounderstand Danny a little. Danny's father, Reb Saundersis a famous rebbe, leader of a Hasidic congregation.Danny is destined to be a rebbe someday, but that's thelast thing he wants.
Danny is a once-in-a-generation genius and his restlessmind chafes at the restrictions his father puts on him.Danny is trapped in a life he would never have chosen. 
Danny has another problem, which he gradually revealsto Reuven.
Danny's father never talks to him. Except when they'restudying Torah together, Reb Saunders never says aword to his son.
Reuven asks Danny why.
Because this question drives the entire story,revealing the answer would be the same thing as endingthe book, so the answer MUST be delayed until the veryend.
The reader desperately wants to know the answer, butthe viewpoint character, Reuven, doesn't know theanswer, and neither does Danny.
The reader knows she'll have to wait until Reb Saundersreveals it, in his own way, on his own schedule.
This works because Reb Saunders is not a viewpointcharacter. Since he's the only person who knows theanswer, there's no problem in concealing it.
However, it wouldn't work if Reb Saunders were aviewpoint character. When a viewpoint character holdsback a secret from the reader, it feels artificial andannoying, and the reader feels frustrated, cheated bythe author.

Your novel will raise all sorts of questions in yourreader's mind, some simple, some complex. Someimplicit, some explicit.
It's up to you to figure out if and when to answerthese questions.
Don't be too quick to answer them. But don't be tooslow, either. Part of the art of writing fiction isdeciding exactly how and when to reveal the answers.

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This article is reprinted by permission of the author.
Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, "theSnowflake Guy," publishes the Advanced Fiction WritingE-zine, with more than 29,000 readers, every month. Ifyou want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction,AND make your writing more valuable to editors, ANDhave FUN doing it, visithttp://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.
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