In Today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* A Most Unusual Day
* Of Interest
Quote of the Day
“Writing is something that you can never do as well as it can be done. It is a perpetual challenge and it is more difficult than anything else that I have ever done—so I do it. And it makes me happy when I do it well.” Ernest Hemingway
A Most Unusual Day
That’s the title of the novel I’m currently serializing free over on Stanbrough Writes. A new serial installment pops up every other day.
Chapter 11 went live yesterday, but you can read the story from the beginning (recommended) by clicking here.
Let’s talk genre for a moment.
Although A Most Unusual Day is set in the Blackwell Ops world, it’s more of a boy-meets-girl coming-of-age story than a thriller or action-adventure, though elements of both of those genres will appear eventually.
And then as it does in probably 99% of my work, psychological suspense runs throughout the novel from the first chapter as the POV character reveals his innermost thoughts and motivations.
So the reader can’t avoid being in that character’s head or experiencing his situation and the evoked emotions.
As kind of a bonus, Chapter 23 is basically a masters class on how to convey to the reader the effects of the POV character’s rising nervousness in a tense situation. That chapter will go live on August 22.
Of course, some readers would rather read the whole novel at one time, so many will wait for the book to be finished. And that’s fine.
But if you’re a writer
who wants to study my work, especially my use of cliffhangers, hooks, openings, and setting description, A Most Unusual Day is a goldmine.
I think I’m a pretty good writing instructor. If you agree and therefore pay attention to and learn from these TNDJ posts, good on you. You’ll emerge from the smoke a good distance ahead of your contemporaries.
But if you listen to the advice of any good fiction writer and don’t also read his fiction to see how he applies that advice himself, you’re leaving a lot of valuable learning on the table. Just sayin’.
And that’s the main reason I’m serializing this novel over on Stanbrough Writes. To say it bluntly, if you’re a fiction writer, this is opportunity knocking.
One reader who’s also a writer emailed recently:
“I usually avoid [serials] because the sections are tantalizing and then they stop. This one is doing the same, but I am sticking with it because it is so good.” (Thanks, ND.)
There’s a teachable reason for that: To ensure continuity in A Most Unusual Day, I’ve made each chapter a self-contained story.
But through the magic of hooks and openings, each chapter also flows from the chapter before it. And through the magic of subtle cliffhangers, each chapter also flows into the chapter after it.
And of course, that’s what cliffhanger-hook combinations and openings are for: to ensure continuity of the story and continuity of reader engagement.
I’ll begin writing Chapter 24 today. The novel might also wrap today, or it might run on for awhile. That’s the beauty and exhilaration of writing into the dark.
I don’t have to build the story. I only have to write what happens and how the characters react. So the only thing I’m “building” (through what I’ve learned) is the presentation of the story. Great fun.
A Final Note
I’ve talked about the value of cycling several times in this blog. But as it turns out, cycling is even more valuable when you’re serializing a novel on Substack as you’re writing it.
Often, after I’ve posted an installment on Substack and as I read it on that platform, I realize I’m also cycling through it one more time.
I make the same changes to the original Word document that I make to the Substack (and vice versa), and therefore the reader’s getting a cleaner, more concise telling of the story than he would have gotten otherwise.
And best of all, my craft continues to improve, one nuance at a time. I recommend posting to Substack. In fact, I’m seriously considering serializing my next novel too, though I currently don’t have a clue what it will be. (grin)
Of Interest
Traditional Publishing vs Indie Publishing… Copyright