I'm turning my post this month over to my good friend and fellow author, Ellis Vidler . This is the program she recently gave at the Greenville, SC, Public Library on NaNoWriMo. For those of you who don't know what this is, it's simple: write 50,000 words on a new novel during the month of November. I've never done it, but Ellis has an outline on how to accomplish such a daunting feat. Pay attention. ~ Polly Iyer PREPARATION: FIRST DRAFT IN THIRTY DAYS 1 GENRE/IDEA Decide on the type of story—crime/romance/suspense/coming of age/adventure/etc. What do you like to read? Base your story on a subject you like, know, or are interested in (something you are capable of researching). Idea sources are everywhere. • News articles • Trade or subject magazines • Movies/documentaries • Other, such as events in your life 2 CHARACTERS Character A and Character B, possibly Character C. Don’t forget the antagonist or the villain. S/h needs a personality, story, and ...

Peter de Vries, novelist and satirist, said, "Every novel should have a beginning, a muddle, and an end." The muddle is the conflict. It’s what drives the plot and turns a recitation of facts into a story. Conflict arises when forces or desires are in opposition. It can be man against man, man against nature, man against himself, or man against God, with all kinds of variations. The purpose of fiction is to arouse the reader’s emotions. This requires conflict. The reader must care. Put a character the reader likes or cares about in a bad situation and it will create interest. The great writers know this. Elmore Leonard said, “Aim for the heart.” William Faulkner (Nobel prize acceptance speech) said, “The only thing worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat, is the heart in conflict with itself.” Conflict may also be called the problem, thwarted desire, opposition, or similar names. Without it, the story will be boring. Without conflict, there is no story. C...

So we’ve all made New Year’s resolutions, right? My big one this year was to write two thousand words a day. Okay, one thousand. Then family matters caused me to skip a day. I promised myself to get back to my work in progress the next morning. Right? Right. Um, not so fast. I found out friends from out of town were coming. I had to clean the house. You know, that house I’ve overlooked for way too long. Good thing I had the week to do the cleaning because, boy, what a mess. Oh, and all the mail I needed to shred. Bags of it with my name, credit card numbers, bank numbers. Half a day’s worth of shredding mail. The daily junk mail goes in the recycle barrel, so at least I don’t have to shred that. Good. I was on a roll. Uh, oh. I forgot about the critique. My critique partner and I rarely miss our twenty pages, give or take, every two weeks. I wasn’t ready. Now, where was I? Because, you know, with all the family matters, house cleaning, and visitors, I had no time to think ab...