Advice on structuring a novel by guest author Peter Berhardt

An agent once told me that the main failing of first novels lies in the structure.  So I was happy when Peter sent in the following essay which tackles the problem head on.  It was originally published in Debbi O'Neille's very interesting blog : 

http://debioneille.blogspot.com/

Guest Author Peter Bernhardt on Structuring a Novel

Structure—A Novelist’s Best Friend

You wake up in the middle of the night with this brilliant idea for your next novel and feverishly scribble it on a notepad kept on your bedside table for just the occasion when your muse strikes. When you make it to your computer during your regular writing time, you input your handwritten notes and then sit there, fingers poised over the keyboard, but not typing. What’s the matter? You still think the inspiration is great, but how do you get a novel out of it?

It’s a daunting task, isn’t it? Where do you start? Where do you want to go, and how do you carry your readers all the way to the end? Endless questions every novelist faces.

Can you say “structure” without images of constraint and limitation flooding your mind? If so, you’re on your way to writing a novel that follows a natural progression and is easy to follow. Proper structure does not stifle creativity but enhances it. You object: all this is rather abstract. All right, bear with me as I dig up examples from my two novels.

Poem by Jane Crossman at Marina Park

Go for a walk, view the lake and read a poem.  What a concept.  How nice to have some of Thunder Bay's best writers as part of the new works of art in the refurbished Marina Park.  Below is the poem by Thunder Bay writer Jane Crossman which can be found on a short stroll along the Sleeping Giant Parkway.

First Sighting
I’ve travelled on foot
from the west
days, weeks, months
over mountains
across plains
through forests
until this sea,
surely a sea
so vast, so extraordinary,
stalls my forward trek.

I shall rest here for a day, a season,
perhaps forever.

~Jane Crossman
Location: Sleeping Giant Parkway

Jane Crossman

For list lovers

Some people, including me, love perky lists.  Here is a doozy from the New Yorker to describe the American political party's core voters, the Republican base. "An excitable, overlapping assortment of:
Fox News friends,
Limbaugh dittoheads,
Tea Party animals,
war whoopers,
nativists,
Christianist fundamentalists
a la carte Catholics (anti-abortion; anti-torture, no),
anti-Rooseveltians (Franklin and Theodore),
global-warming denialists,
port-Confederate white Southrons,
creationists,
birthers,
market idolaters,
Europe demonizeres, and
gun fetishists.

Workshop by Thunder Bay's Premier YA author, Bonnie Tittaferante

The Northwestern Ontario Writers Workshop (NOWW), a group of writers based in Thunder Bay, is hosting a free workshop for writers. Details are below. For more information about NOWW and its programs, email admin@nowwwriters.org or visitwww.nowwwriters.org. presents Characters and Beginnings in YA Fiction A workshop with Bonnie Tittaferrante Published YA author Bonnie Tittaferrante will be presenting a workshop on stories for middle grade and young adult readers with a focus on the importance of beginnings and characters that appeal to these audiences. Tuesday, March 6, 2012 7 p.m. Waverley Library Auditorium 285 Red River Road Thunder Bay

Cartoon from the New Yorker. How true it is.

Trial by Jury, the Jury of the Ontario Arts Council That Is.

Megan Findlay. short story maven and blogger extraordinaire, agreed to be a member of the OAC jury. Easy breezy? I think not.  This account of her experience is from her blog http://megfindlay.wordpress.com/  

Dear Number Seventeen,

If you only knew how close you had come. How many friends you had in that room, and how valiantly they fought for you – and how it was just luck, at that point, which prevented you from placing in the top sixteen. We took our job seriously, we men and women of the Ontario Arts Council jury, purses clenched close to our hearts, stuffed with just enough to money to feed and clothe sixteen promising writers while they laboured over their novels. You fell into seventeenth place; for that reason, and that cruel reason alone, you will starve.

When I agreed to be on the jury, and when all 140 manuscript samples landed on my doorstop (waking up the whole neighborhood), I was glowing inside out with self-righteousness and illusions of great, heaping generosity. My instructions were to read each sample and rank it on a scale of Yes-No-Maybe, as though each were a note from a twelve-year-old boy sitting opposite me in homeroom (a fantasy: I was far more often the author of these notes than the recipient, and as such I empathize with you, Seventeen, all the more). On the appointed date in February, I presented myself at the OAC office in Toronto and was given a sharpened pencil and a seat at the boardroom table, flanked by alphabetized boxes of manuscripts which I could pull out as props whenever appropriate.

Megan Findlay with Milkshake

Writing advice and writing prompts

Lots of free advice everywhere.  But if you are a writer, you might want to check out Sarah Selecky's web site.  If you sign up she will send you her ideas about writing stories as well as daily writing prompts - all for free.  http://www.sarahselecky.com/
Here is a letter sent to local author and poet, Sue Blott

Dear Sue, I’m writing you from a lovely little rented flat in a magical Mexican mountain town where we’re staying for two weeks. Allegedly, San Miguel is built on top of a bed of quartz crystals – some people here say that is part of its magic. I haven’t actually seen any quartz since I’ve been here, but anyway. What I have seen: Scarlet tanagers, sparkling tin lanterns hung like stars in the trees, quiet donkeys wearing wreaths of pink and blue and yellow tissue paper flowers, wise old street dogs who show me the best shortcuts through the Centro, and Carnavale’s cascarones, which are festive coloured eggs filled with glitter, confetti and gold dust. These eggs are meant to be smashed, of course, on your head! But I came here for the San Miguel Writers’ Conference, and this is where I’ve found the very best treasures of the trip. So I gathered some crystallized (ha!) wisdom for you from the talks and lectures. Here are the 10 the best gems I managed to get down in my notebook. note: There is no theme or organization to these points. Think of this list as one of those Carnaval eggs: a colourful, mixed up mess of random and glittering advice, wisdom and opinion that we get to smash on our heads. 1. Art happens at the moment where you are unseated. (this came from Merilyn Simonds, who was quoting Tess Gallagher) From Margaret Atwood: 2. If your book is all instruction, you won’t get anyone to read it. If your book is all entertainment, people will read it once. 3. Canada has punched above its weight in the short story form because we used to have avenues in the market for it, including radio. Today, short stories are coming back as a form, in part because of the Internet. If you make a market for them – if you build one – stories will come.

Take Pen in Hand

Call for Nominations

Nominations are now open for the 2012 Literary Awards: the Elizabeth Kouhi Award for outstanding contributions to the literature of Northwestern Ontario; and for the Sheila Burnford Builders Award, which can be awarded to an individual or an organization. Please send a one-page letter stating the category, the name of your nominee, and why you believe your nominee is deserving of this recognition to admin@nowwwriters.org by April 1, 2012.

 

Nominees need not be members of NOWW. The awards will be made at NOWW’s Literary Awards Party, May 12, 2012.

 

Past winners of the Elizabeth Kouhi awards are: Elizabeth Kouhi, Elinor Barr, Charles Wilkins, Thunder Bay Writers Guild, Rosalind Maki, Penny Petrone, Mary Frost, Jean E. Pendziwol, Dorothy Colby, Hazel Fulford, Joan Skelton, and Bill MacDonald. Past winners of the Sheila Burnford Builders Award are: Thunder Bay Public Library, Sleeping Giant Writers Festival, Barb Matousek and Wendy MacDonald of the Sioux Lookout Literacy Committee.

 

In both cases, the award will not be made if, in the opinion of the Awards Committee, there is no suitable candidate.

Attention Book Shoppers!!!

Don't miss this!

BUCK-A-BAG & Specialty

USED BOOK SALE

Saturday, March 3 - 10 am - 3 pm

Victoriaville Mall - in front of the used bookstore

Buy a whole bag of books for only a buck!

Standard grocery bags will be priced at $1 per bag.

Larger bags will be priced at $2 or more depending on the size.

There will also be tables of specialty books priced

from $3.00 to $10.00

Tables will be re-stocked throughout the day.

Stop by for a great bargain! CASH ONLY

Why I Love Her by Ulrich Wendt

She builds trails that go nowhere in particular
They meander and wander in the brush along the river
As do the sinews of the heart
Or the way the mind finds comfort in ambiguity.
And though I'm sometimes caught up in the logic of pure reason,
My line running straight and purposeful
Like wolves on a savage hunt,
She remains my persuasion.

Ulrich Wendt