Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

For the outline:

Your choice. Tell the story of your novel. Keep it around ten pages single-spaced. Make sure you include the end.

(I do work from outlines, but my outlines are about 3/4 the length of the finished book.)

Now, as to "a couple of stories," beats me. Are you pitching a collection? Do you have a couple of stories lying around that work out to around fifty pages in total?

Easiest probably to just saw off the first fifty pages of your novel and send them along.

Idea Tailor, this may help you. Of course, it may not. But it may. But it may not... we could do this all day Welcome to AW!

Picked this up in another thread here, and now I bring it to you.

Thank you, Uncle Jim and Steven. I do have an outline a bit like yours, Steven. I used to to keep track of what happened where. Though it needs work, I'm glad that format is acceptable. There goes my holiday weekend.... Gladly!

As to "stories," beats me. I'm a first-time author and it is a single ms, so I don't think it has to do with me. I've heard people say you can send sample chapters, so I guessed maybe they meant that but were not calling it that in case a "story" did not fit neatly within chapter boundaries.

Since we are on the first 50 pages thing, I have another question. The ms is prefaced by what was first an Author's Note (but I was told nobody reads those and everyone liked the A.N.) so it became a prologue (but agents toss anything with a prologue) so now it is the first chapter. Now some people like it and some people think I've wasted half a dozen pages before I start the story. It also means my first 50 end sooner than I would prefer, because I miss a bit on my antihero that's a great place to end my first 50. Advice?

Joe Bob's piece was great. I do not agree with his "THERE ARE NO NEW IDEAS, only new ways of writing old ideas." This may be true at some level of consolidation, but it is not helpful. I also avoid those web sites which contain (short) lists of "all plots". And I think some famous writer once said that all stories boil down to a journey (paraphrasing wildly).

For me, each book I read contains a new story, just as if it was the first and only book ever published. And this is the only way that I can write: I place my idea on the page and ignore any suggestions that I might have re-invented something that already exists.

When I was a young man, I gave one of my short stories to the most significant woman in my life at the time. She said, "It's been done." So I tried again, flexing my intellectual muscle anew. "It's not original," she said.

So I gave up.

It was about 35 years before I got back to writing.

Euclid,
I can agree with your opinion on original plots for the most part. I think if we generalize plots to a great enough degree, the statement could be true that there are only X plots, but isn't it the fine details and the author's own finishing touches that make every book unique?

I almost did what you did and gave up because I noticed how similar some of my ideas were to stories and events I had grown up with. I ended up just changing a detail here and there until it took on new life. With that new inspiration, I rewrote it all and it was fresh and new.

Maybe some yahoo somewhere came to the same ideas independently, but to my knowledge, my combination of ideas is original. Thanks for being one more "don't give up" : )

Boy, if agents toss anything with a prologue I'm in big trouble! I love the prologue, it can be so essential.

Never: Saying there are only X plots is like saying there are only two types of people.

smsarber said:

Boy, if agents toss anything with a prologue I'm in big trouble! I love the prologue, it can be so essential.

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The prologue should be used sparingly. An important part of the reader's pleasure is derived from discovering the world of the book by reading it. Too many prologues invade this space, telling the reader more than he/she needs to know. Better to let the information unfold naturally in the book.

Why do you use the word "essential" here? That suggests an attempt to influence the reader's viewpoint or, at worst, an infodumping exercise.

Joe Bob has it down, eh?
Write.
Write.
Write.
Right!

Euclid: I had a similar experience during my first hitch in the army. One night I started a story about an unknown thing terrorizing people on the computer scratch pages. Some folks loved it, begging for more. The ending was disappointing; I rushed it because I had to delete it before shift change.

A friend a few years older than me with an English Lit degree mentioned the crap somebody had written on the scratch pages. He was surprised when I told him it was me. I took my crappy writing to heart and didn't write creatively for a long time.

Looking back, I naturally knew how to pace a story and build tremendous suspense in my...early twenties. Had to go waaay baaaack. And heck, it was a first draft hammered out in between listening to people speak in Russian.

It's so easy to blow out the spark of inspiration in a young person. I always support inspiration and I don't nuc the writing. He or she has thousands of writing hours ahead anyway, the true teacher.

My friend's input remains useful, however. When I spot one of my sacred cows.... Shhh. There's one over there. Wait here.

"Mooooo."

"Mooooooooo."

"Moo--"

euclid said:

Why do you use the word "essential" here. That suggests an attempt to influence the reader's viewpoint or, at worst, an infodumping exercise.

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Should have a question mark after "here."

Maybe it's just me, but a proper prologue can set the mood for the whole story.

I wasn't dissing you, Steve.

Question mark added. Thanks.

I just checked some of the fiction books on a shelf near my computer. 7 out of 14 have prologues, so maybe they're more common than I thought.

euclid said:

I wasn't dissing you, Steve.

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Didn't think you were, if I was curt it was because we were heading out the door, and the baby needed a change. It's all good.

I have cut the prologue from one story, because I agree that it can be better done in some instances through discovery throughout the novel. But I think a good deal of it depends on the genre of book. Almost every James Patterson book seems to have a prologue. So my thinking is crime drama-thrillers, esp. when you have many characters, can benefit from them. Dean Koontz uses them a good deal, but Stephen King doesn't seem to as much. So maybe horror can go either way. But I think Uncle Jim will say, "If it works for your book, then it works." But I would like to know how much validity there is to the statement that agents toss out anything with a prologue.

It seems to me that many times a prologue is a future or past part of the story told from the perspective of a character which will not be used in other parts. Like a kidnap victim's thoughts in her keeper's basement--you may never go back inside her head, but it may be something needed to set up the whole book.

If agents tossed out anything with a prologue, Euclid would not be finding prologues in 50% of his books.

It's pretty hard to generalize about agents anyway. They each have their own tastes.

I held onto my prologue for a long time. In the end, it wouldn't fit into chapter 1, so I scrapped it, and decided to work it into other scenes with flashbacks.

Since I unintentionally lobbed an active one into the forum (re prologues,) I went back to my notes from the conference I attended. Mea culpa on two counts:
1. It was an editor speaking, so he said *editors* not *agents*
2. He said "many," not "all," at least according to my notes

What I wrote down in my notes was: "Many editors hate prologues because when it ends we're introduced to new character, time & place & the prologue is a trick to get us into the mystery to attract attention & make book more intriguing... Many editors won't read any ms with a prologue... Ch. 1 not exciting enough... Backstory... Pages of history that happened before story opened... 2-3 paragraphs of history in one place = backstory dump..."

As a new writer, I therefore concluded it was better not to have a prologue. Now I think it really is an Author's Note (what it was to start with) and I ought to just go back to calling it that. I don't feel I can nix it because it does set the stage historically with some information that doesn't fit until later in the novel yet is the backdrop for the antihero and she is the main feature of chapter one.
<sigh>
Every time I think the ms can really rise to the top of the slush, I realize how much I don't know and how different this industry is. But the prescription is right on this page. Write.
Thanks, all.

smsarber said:

But I would like to know how much validity there is to the statement that agents toss out anything with a prologue.

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None.

Prologues can be done badly or they can be done well. It's incredibly easy to do them badly.

Figure that half of your readers will skip the prologue. Will your novel make sense to them?

Have I used prologues? Yes, of course I have. Did I do them well? Of course I did! Brilliantly! For I, Wile E. Coyote, am a Super genius!


So, let me show you a prologue from one of my books.

Right here.

Maybe, when I'm done with my current project, I'll put up the first chapter from that book side-by-side with it.

I shouldn't have looked at that. Now I want to read the book

Krintar said:

Now I want to read the book

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Don't let me stop you....

The sample pages I send with my queries turned out to be a prologue. (Wasn't designed that way, but the darn thing grew a mind of its own.) I've gotten plenty of requests off it, and a complement on the style from the one agent I queried by mistake who didn't handle my genre.

So long as it's good, the fact that it's a prologue doesn't matter at all. (And I generally hate prologues...)

The only existing two types of people: Men and women.
The only existing two types of stories: Good and bad.
The only existing two types of prologues: Necessary and unnecessary for reader involvement.

Before I read it here, I never gave a thought to NOT reading prologues. I'm surprised to learn that half the readers skip it. When I pick up a book, I want to read everything the author wrote, not parts of the story. To each his own.
The big discussion regarding whether to include or not include a prologue will probably continue well after we've all gone to meet our makers. IMHO, agents aren't averse to prologues, it's what's in them that bothers them. If you fill your prologue with nothing but infodump, it's bad. If you tell a story, it's good.

If the agent is still reading on Page Fifty, and wants to turn to Page Fifty-One, you've done well. Regardless of whether you call it Prologue, Chapter One, or Fred.

Similarly, if the agent pushes the work aside after Page Ten and reaches for the return envelope, you haven't done so well. Regardless of whether you calll it ... y'know.

What agents and editors are: A class of reader. Think of them as Super Readers.

What you are trying to do is satisfy your readers. This starts (most times) with the Super Readers.

They are all playing gigantic games of Would You Turn the Page. Just like we do here. Only with real money on the line.

We've said this before: Agents and editors are professional gamblers. Professional gamblers don't make their money by winning every hand. They make their money by making the right bets on the hands they're dealt.

James D. Macdonald said:

We've said this before: Agents and editors are professional gamblers. Professional gamblers don't make their money by winning every hand. They make their money by making the right bets on the hands they're dealt.

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The trick is to make them think you are their winning hand. It is much easier if your are Aces.
<sorry, couldn't help myself.>

RJK said:

Before I read it here, I never gave a thought to NOT reading prologues. I'm surprised to learn that half the readers skip it. When I pick up a book, I want to read everything the author wrote, not parts of the story. To each his own.

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I used to skip prologues. I think I was conditioned by so many bad ones, but nowadays I read them, and a good part of the time I feel like I'm being forced to by my English teacher. I guess they're still bad.

I give authors a pass on the prologue. It's the first sentence of chapter 1 they better wow me with. When I'm in a store deciding whether to buy, I go to Chapter 1, read the first sentence, then skim the rest of that page, looking for a word or line of dialogue that grabs my attention. Then I open it at random in the middle and read a paragraph or two. If what I see is well written and intriguing, and the back cover is enticing, then I might buy it. I might go over the prologue if I'm indecisive, but I don't give it much weight.