Fiction Writing for Rule Breakers

1. Introduction: tried to write but couldn't get past the first chapter? Or is it that the whole idea of doing a plot and characterizations on following all the rules of writing has got to stock in a spot? Well, if you're ready to throw out the rule book in this class, just maybe for you, I'm Judith following Read and I'm on. Also a screenplay writer, theatrical playwright, filmmaker under speaker I've been writing for the past 40 years of my life, and I've written everything from news and commentary for newspapers to fiction and nonfiction books, travel stories for travel magazines. Onda off course. As I said before screen please, I first tried writing. My novel is the way that I was taught. I sat down. I created the plot, tried to develop characters and antagonised or protagonists all the rules, but it just didn't work for me. And so I developed my own style of writing. It never came together for me. I I never really got writing until I decided to just simply right. I've heard writers talk about being stuck, having done one chapter or two chapters or three chapters and their stock. They can't go any further. They just can't figure out how to write a book. And so I've developed this class to help you to get past that point and for the people who are like me who just can't follow the rules. When people come to me and ask me, Hold where write the book, I tell them, Just stop, start anywhere. Start anywhere because in the end all of it will come together. Go where it takes you stop rewriting on tweaking things every minute, just simply right in this class. I'm going to share my method of writing on. I would be the first to admit that it's not the way you've been taught, and it may be a little radical for some people. But if you're ready to try something radical, then maybe this classes for you. For your class project, you're going to be asked to write a short story to want another 50 words maximum on any topic you choose, using the methodology that I teach here, remember to keep it family friendly, we want to share it with everybody 2. Lesson 1 Know the premise: The first thing I want to talk about is your premise and your plot on. I'm going to say to You know your premise, but not the plot. In a fiction book, there's a difference between the premise and the plot, the premises, a concept of the book, the ideas that you have for the book. Whereas the plot is more detailed, it's what happens in the book all the events that make up the story. So I want you to first of all, just no your premise. But forget about the plot for now. Think of it as a story. I'm not as a book. See, a lot of people set out to write a book, and it becomes very intimidating because they're thinking, Oh, I want to do 300 pages. 400 pages. 65,000 words Ho, do you get there? If you look at it as a book to begin with, you could be intimidating your own self. So think of it as a story because, after all, that's what a book is. It's a story, a fiction book, anyway, right down the idea for the story. That's your premise. Not all the details just random ideas that you have for your story. It doesn't matter whether they make sense. It doesn't matter whether they fit together or not, and then right, some benchmarks. Now the benchmarks are things that you want to see happen in the story. It doesn't matter if they're in order. Forget chronology. That doesn't matter. Just little things that you want to see happen in the story. Don't get too married to your benchmarks, but write them don't. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about the Silent Stones. The Silent Stones is my last fiction on the story. The premise is about this hosts. It's the people in the book are actually telling the story off the house, even though it is the story of the family and the people. But it's really about the house. And so it started with my premise, and there's certain things that I had in my mind. Walls have ears. We've all heard that before houses retain energy. That's in the host. Things that have happened in these houses for years. Stay in the host. They retain energy. There's history that's stored in the walls, off houses and walls keep secrets in and keep intruders out. So if walls have ears and I'm talking about this house, this host has been listening to secrets with centuries. What do I know about the hosts? So I thought about the house on the house. Israel, by the way of the story is fiction. The holes has been around since slavery days. The book takes place in Jamaica, where there were plantations and we had sugar cane plantations and we had slavery. We know that the holes has been in the hands off this black family since just after slavery . Andi, there's a story about hold. The family came to own the host. Now I didn't know what the story was, and I didn't decide what the story waas. I just knew the premise, not the plot. I know that there's an old lady who is dying and dying with her secrets, who lives in this house, and she lives in the host with family members. I had no idea who the family members were again. Premise not plot. So these are the things that I knew about Silent stones before I even started writing. I knew the book was about the house and the family that occupies it. The walls have ears on. The host has been keeping secrets for centuries and that the secrets would come out some hole. I knew the premise, not the plot. So once again, remember, think of it as a story, not as a book. Write down your ideas for the story. Just random ideas on right benchmarks. Things you'd like to see in the story. The premise, not the plot. 3. Lesson 2 Let characters evolve: this next one is a little bit more difficult for people to do. You're going to let your characters evolve without assigning rules. Sounds very strange. Yes, I told you it was a little radical without first assigning your protagonist or your antagonist. Go ahead and just let your characters evolve on. What this does is that it makes it easier for your characters. Toe have multiple personalities. Characters don't have to be one dimensional. It's for me. It helped me to create a multi dimensional characters for your reader. Your reader gets the pick characters that they can love or hit them at different times and different points in the book. It gives your characters a shot at villainy or a shot at redemption. Your characters again are multi dimensional, just like human beings, so they're more real. It gives you the writer something to look forward to. It had some excitement when you're right, so my husband will always say that it's interesting that I will come to him and I'll be like You'll never believe what this guy did in the book. On the first time I did it, he was a little freaked out because he thought, but you're right in the book, but my characters right themselves. I let them tell me who they are alone. Your characters to be themselves keeps your reader intrigued because your characters are not as predictable as you would think they could be. Your reader Never know what may happen next. I'm going to go back to the Silent Stones and take a look at some of the characters that I developed. Don T. Who is the main character or one of the main characters. He's the one telling the story. He's a young man who was trying to find his roots. His mother was Jamaican, never told them anything about his roots, so he starts out very timid in the book on For most of it. You think this young man is really timid but their points at which you realize that he can be bold when he needs to be, and it's surprising to see him that way. Grammy Mod Grammy. Mort is the other main character in the book. She is the old lady who is dying and dying with the secrets. So is she a sweet ID low lady, a god fearing woman or a manipulative villain who has held secrets that has destroyed her family on Does she get redemption, or does she died as a villain? These are some of the things that she revealed to me as I let her character develop itself in not developing my characters completely on deciding who they were from the verb verb beginning. It gave room for them to tell me who they were and for their stories to develop. So if you let your characters evolve a little, don't get so stuck on a character. Don't fall in love with a character that you've created and give that character no room to grow. Your characters need room to grow. Give them a chance to breathe, a chance to come to life in a real way. They may start out as a villain, and that's who you want this character to be. But if you just open your mind just a little bit, just give it some space. Think of your character as really human, on growing through the whole book. Then you get a chance to create a character who has created themselves, so to speak. 4. Lesson 3 Plan the Outcome: now, The next thing I wanted to do is the plan, the outcome, but not the root or the road. Depending on who is listening, we have different pronunciations. Throw out the rule book on plotting. Forget about plotting for me personally, that was the most difficult thing. So no. The start, how you want the book to start or the story to start. Know the ending How you want the story to end. Know what your benchmarks are along the way. But don't get so hung up on those benchmarks that you stifle your writing and you suffocate your own creativity. Don't fight with the flow. Sometimes those words and those thoughts flow and they don't flow in the direction that you think they should go or the direction that you planned them to go. And I found that with a plot I was forcing my writing to go in the direction of the plot. But once I throughout the plotting, once I got rid of that, then I could allow it to flow on as I loaded to flow. Every now and then I would see we're a benchmark that I had could fit in and I'd fit that benchmark in. So here I'm saying to you, Throw out the rule book. Forget about plotting. I want to talk a little bit of boat hold those ideas, and that flow can also develop characters. So I have a character in my book called Bulow, and he's a little bit of an enigma on In the beginning, he starts out as a friend of Uncle Mansfield, who just seemed very incidental and disposable in the book. He really doesn't seem to play a really big rule. He's just a driver. But as the character developed on the story flowed, I found that Bulow was a little bit more than what I thought he was. There was more depth to him as he was driving through the countryside. They were passing this really big tree, and for some reason that tree I knew had some meaning to him. And it turned out that that tree was very, very important in his life. It was a turning point for Balu. It turns out he actually was a doctor, he was a psychiatrist, and something happened with that tree that made him decide to give up on life and just become a farmer and just become a driver and just do whatever he wanted to do with his life . That was never, ever, ever, in my mind, that was not in the plot, so to speak. But it added so much depth to the story itself. So explore every avenue, go down every road. How the host revealed itself on its secrets. I knew it had to do that. That was a benchmark that the host had to reveal secrets on. But how it did it, I didn't know. And I load the hosts as a character in the book to develop and to tell me how it wanted to reveal its secrets. So you're gonna explore every single avenue? Why did Dante's mother not want him to know anything about Jamaica? Anything about his past, anything about his family? That was a benchmark, that he had to find out at some point what her story was. Her story had to come out where it was going to come out. I wasn't sure. But as the story flowed, it became very evident where that should come out. So again, I'm saying to you, throw out the plotting, plan, the outcome what you want at the end. Know how the story begins, But give the route some space to float. Give your writing a chance to decide where it wants to go. Give your characters a chance to decide who they want to be on what they want to do and what they want to tell you on what they want to tell the reader. Don't get hung up on your benchmarks. Don't get hung up on what you thought this book was supposed to be because sometimes it can be so much more than you ever thought it would be. 5. Lesson 4 Try Freewriting: This next strategy is one that you used to overcome. Writer's block. It's called free writing. Very, very easy, very cool strategy, and it works beautifully with this method of writing. So what exactly is free writing? Free writing is taking a theme on emotion, a personal location, just anything within an event, even within your story and just writing about it. It doesn't matter whether it fits into the story. It doesn't matter if it makes sense. You are simply writing writers, right? So just simply right there, some real gems that can be written when you're free writing all right, you can incorporate them or completely discard them when you get down to your final story. Sometimes when I'm writing and I might get stuck on, I practice some free writing. What I find is when I go back and I'm no pulling together all the story to create the one final story and I go hung on. There's a little thing that I wrote on. There's just two lines in there that's perfect to fit right here. So instead of trying to get your story to just flow all the time with a little bit of free right and little piece here, a little piece there. There are nuggets. There are gems that you can sometimes pull out of free writing on stick in your book. Sometimes it's a phrase. Sometimes it's a thought. It could be an event. It could be a description. Even that's just fits perfectly where you need it. So when you get stuck, try some free writing. It's really, really cool, really a nice thing to do on. Do you'll be surprised what you could actually find to put in your final story that makes up your book? 6. Lesson 5 Forget Chronology: forget chronology. Yes, forget about it. Forget about which chapter comes after which chapter. Most of the writers who have come to me and said that they have written one or two chapters and they can't go any further. It's because they're trying to write Chapter three, and they can't figure out what Chapter three should be. And I say to them, Don't write Chapter three. Write a chapter. Right, Chapter 10 right Chop the six right, Chapter 12. It doesn't really matter if it all happens in the story, then it will all come together eventually. It's not as important what comes first? What? Come second, not while you're writing. It's important when you finish the book, but it's certainly not important at the beginning. Your editor will also help to fix that. Your editor will help you to put things in chronological order, so start anywhere chronology can be fixed. Don't get hung up on it. So when I wrote the Silent Stones again, I did the same thing. There many chapters in that book that got moved around. I played the shell game with the chapters by the time we got towards the end, because there were some chapters that I thought belonged here, but they didn't really belong here. Wasn't Chapter four. It ended up being Chapter eight because it fit better there. So forget about the Chapter one. Chapter two, Chapter three, Chapter four. As a matter of fact, if you are hung up on getting chapter numbers, try just naming your chapters. If you name your chapters, then you don't get so stuck in the chapter one. Chapter two when this chapter must come after this chapter. Some books you'll notice, have names off chapters as opposed to numbers. Andi, that's part of what that does is it breaks up the chronological sequence. It gives you the freedom to just simply right unforgettable. Which chapter goes where in the end, you're gonna pull it all together. So as long as it's in the story, as long as it fits with the story, just simply write the chapter because, let's face it. At the end of the day, you may end up dumping a chapter anyway, but that's the other problem with chronology is that you release information at different points in your book on sometimes if you allow it to floor now, this works with my method because my book just flows. So if you were lowered to flow, you may find out that by the time you get to chapter eat that, there's some information that you released in Chapter two that you really, really should not have released so early. So you can know pull that chapter and put it a Chapter nine. Or maybe even Chapter seven. Maybe it's information that you want to release before eight, but not so early. And so forget about the chronology. Don't don't lock yourself into that box that says Chapter two follows Chapter one, and then you have to write Chapter three, then Chapter four. Throw that out the door when you flow a chapter. If it doesn't fit where you put it, that's fine. You can always move it later. Your editor will fix it later. So forget chronology completely 7. Lesson 6 Suspend Reality: suspend reality. It's fiction, period. My first few books were all nonfiction on the first time I tried to write fiction, it was a little difficult for me because I was so used to having to stick to the facts on Stick to What really Happened. My first to fiction books were what I called fictional reality. There was really no such category. I kind of made it up myself because they were based on my life and the lives of other people I know, but with a little bit of fiction through in India or written as fiction. But the Silent Stones was my first truly fiction 100% fiction. But for the fact that the house exists, everything else was fiction on. What that did for me was that it really expanded my ability to write stories because it's picture my imagination went to work. So would fiction. Your imagination can run well. You can create characters. You can create locations. You can create scenery, invent plants, invent machines. You can do whatever your mind desires, because at the end of the day it's fiction. Okay, so go to town. You can always fix it later. No, Some of us are kind of stuck on reality. If you're writing historical fiction, yes, there's some things that you do need to check. You need to be sure that, you know, dates work. For example, you can't take historical things and historical events and put them in the wrong historical period. That really doesn't work unless you're doing some kind of a time travel kind off book, which that's fine, too. But then people need to know that you know, you're working with something that actually happened and moving it to another time. So historical fiction is a little bit different. Different, But you can go to tone with locations you can go to tone. With scenery. You can create different things because it is fiction you can literally suspend reality on , have your imagination toe all the work for you. So this works really well with my free flowing method of writing because no, I don't have to stop my imagination. I don't have to say, Oh wow, that's too far fetched. Nobody's going to buy it as long as you're far fetched. Idea fits in with the rest of the story, and it's not pulling something out of the air and dropping it in. That just doesn't fit. Then it works because it's fiction. So you have to figure out how in your head, which likes the work with facts, you're going to suspend reality just for the purpose of your story. 8. Lesson 7 Suspend Grammar: This one's really strange. Especially coming from somebody who was once an English teacher. So spend Grandma. Yes, I said it. So spend Grandma, Suspend Grandma, Suspend syntax, suspend sentence construction. So spend even punctuation. All those things. Forget about them. This is writing in a completely different way. You're free flowing. It doesn't sound right. I know. But these things are really not that important at this stage of your writing, remember, We're still writing something's air style. I start a lot of sentences with and Andi. I was taught never to start a sentence with, and but I do and it works. Use fragments. I use a lot of fragments. I have been taught never to write it fragments, but it works. I find that fragments because they stand on their own because they're not attached to a full sentence. This sort of have their own life. And I find that sentences that begin with and keep emphasis. And so it's a part of my writing style. And my editor had to learn that in the beginning she would go in and she would correct all these ants, and I'd be like, No, you know, that's part of my style. It's not over done, and nothing should be overdone. But it is a part of my writing style. Some of this stuff your editor will fix, so suspend Grandma. Stop worrying so much at this stage while you're writing about the grandma. Don't worry so much about the syntax. Don't worry so much about the sentence construction. Just simply write it. Let it float. When you're done, you can come back, clean all of that up, decide what works, What doesn't work. That's why you have an editor. That's why you have a proof reader, and that's why you're going to go back in the end and go over your work. So again, remember, suspend all grandma syntax all of that suspended for now. 9. Lesson 8 Don't force it: this next one is very, very simple. Don't force it. Let it flow naturally. If you've reached a block, if you can't go beyond that block, simply stop. Sometimes a story has come toe. A pause may not be the end of the story, but it has come to oppose on until the ideas flow again. What? What I found anyway is that if I try to force it, my writing was never good. My writing was only good when I allowed it to flow. So right, what comes naturally, right? What comes to you even if it makes no sense again, you can go back and use that whole methodology off doing free flowing kind of writing freestyling where you just simply writing. But don't force it because the real gems come when you are writing what comes naturally when you try to force you make errors with your characters, you make errors with your events. You mix them up because it's not flowing natural. You're trying to do too much, so don't try to do too much. Relax. Don't force it. Walk away from it. Wait until the flow comes back. Books are not written over a short period of time. Good books are written over a long period of time, and there's a reason for that. And it's not just the editing. There's a reason for that because you have to sometimes stop and just leave it to Sema right where it is until something else comes. So this one's really easy. Let it flow, don't force it. 10. Lesson 9 Don't Re-read: don't re read it. Don't tweak it. Don't touch it. Not just yet. Ah, lot of people have told me that the reason where they can't get past chapter one, our chapter two or Chapter five is because they keep going back and trying to fix it so you never move forward. If you keep going back trying to fix everything, then you really cannot go forward because you could be fixing something in Chapter One that by the time you get the Chapter six, you realize, Oh, I should have left that that was really good. So there's some things that happened when you tweak and fix every single chapter just as you write it. And this is what I found out, that great ideas have been aborted before they could even grow. They're great ideas for in your book on great ideas that could fit into chapters. Don't road that because you took them out too early because you went back on reread everything because you went back on, tweet everything and tried to get Chapter one perfect. These great ideas got caught out of your your story way too early. They're paragraphs that may be crucial to the story. You just don't know it yet if you're free flowing, if you have not plotted every part of your story. If you are free flowing your writing, then they're things that you're going to write in Chapter one in a paragraph that may not fit right now. But somewhere down the line somewhere further, don't you realize that hang on that paragraph really needed to stay, So stop tweaking everything. Leave the chapter as it is. You can always delete it later. So let's face it. Sometimes a whole chapter doesn't get doesn't make it to the final book. It doesn't make it to the final manuscript. You can delete it later on, but leave it alone for no go from Chapter one to Chapter 2 to 3 to 5 to 20. Work your way around. As I said, it doesn't have to be in chronological order, right? What you need to write and then worry about fixing it later on again. Remember, this is a marathon. Writing a story that's going to turn into a book is a marathon. The other thing that happens when you tweak too early or you edit too early or you try to fix it too early is that you have decided from Chapter one or two that this is where this chapter ends. Sometimes, by the time you get the Chapter 10 you realize that hang on. You needed to take just a little bit of the beginning of Chapter two and add it to the end of Chapter one. But because you spent so much time re reading on tweaking, you didn't alot for that space for your story to develop in a way that you could pull pieces from different parts of the story to make a chapter better. So stop tweaking. Stop the re reading. Stop worrying a boat. It's not good enough because that's the other thing I hear a lot of all, I wrote two chapters and they were terrible. That's okay. That's fine. Keep writing because you might be able to discard those in the end. Or you might find that there's something for the dome that you can take on. Bring into that chapter to make it better. Or you may find that it's not as terrible as you think, you know, because off hold the rest of the book turned out, so stop re reading. Stop tweaking. Stop trying to change everything and make it perfect. One chapter at a time. You will have that chance when you get to the end. 11. Lesson 10 Just Write : you need to write just right. Just write the story writers right on day. One of the things that we're taught as writers is to write something every day, right? A blogged. Write a story, write a poem, write a chapter. But right, whatever it is that you do, you have to write. Writing is something you have to practice. It's something that comes naturally to some of us. It's something that some of us have to learn. But whether it comes naturally or you have to learn it, you have to practice like everything else. You lose a language if you don't practice it. You forget how to dance if you don't practice it. It's the same thing with writing writers, right? So one of the things you have to remember, and this is my number 10 on my list off home My method works is I write something every day . You have to practice writing on to practice writing. It also means you have to practice reading. Good writers read. When we read the works of other people, we get inspired. We learn new methods. We learn how people right, and it helps our writing to be better So the 10 thing I want to tell you in this class is to simply write the story writers right on. That's what we do. 12. The End: like every good story. We've come to the end. But I want to go over to some of the things that we talked about first. No, your premise, not your plot. Remember that, right? Your benchmarks. You know what? Your idea for your stories. But don't get so hung up on all the details that your characters evolve. Don't so readily assign who your protagonist is. Who antagonist is ah, lawyer characters. To be one or the other or to be both. And to develop themselves and tell you who they are plan the outcome but not the root. What you want the end off the story to be what you want the beginning off the story to be But don't get so hung up on ho You get to the end Don't plan the route. Try some free writing which is picking any topic inside your story An event, a person, a place, anything at all inside the story and just write anything at all about it. It helps you to find gems that you can use in your final story. Forget the chronology throughout the idea that Chapter two must follow Chapter one just simply right. And if you're hung upon numbers. Go with names. Just name your chapters on write them as they are named. You can put them in order later on. Suspend reality. Remember, this is fiction, period. Suspend reality. Unless it's historical fiction or scientific fiction where you know, some things have to be factual. Everything else is left up to your imagination. Let it run well. So spend things like grammar and syntax and sentence construction while you are writing. In the end, you can fix that. But while you're writing don't get hung up on these things. It will slow you down. It'll stop you. It'll make you re read it and try to fix it, and it will kill the flow off your thought. Don't force it. Let it flow naturally. Don't re read it. Don't tweak it. Not just yet. There'll be time enough to edit to rewrite on all of that for no, just right on. The last thing was just right just right. Your story. Let it flow and just write the story. And so let's talk about your assignment. Remember, it's a short story. 250 words. Maximum. Start with your premise. Know what your stories about know how you want to begin, how you want it to end. Decide on your two men characters, your protagonists, your antagonist. But give them only the very basic characteristics so they can develop themselves. Let your imagination run wild. Write it as it comes to you with old constraints. There's no right. There's no wrong there. No marks to get. You can get an Air B or a C. We're doing this just for learning purposes. Don't tell your characters what to do or what they can't do. Let them be themselves. And don't re read or edit until you have completed the entire story. It's a short story so you can do this. Thank you for being part of my class, and I hope to see you on another one of my classes, and I'm looking forward to reading your story.