I do not write to satisfy any “check list.” I do not believe that any writer really should. Still, these are pretty good points:
So I thought replying one by one might be fun. Here are that Instagrammer’s ten novel-writing suggestions… each applied to a sample from my most recent two novels (which are a series) that I wrote between 2016-2019…
…LONG before reading that now five day old Instagram post.
1) I think I have:
That seems a bit “romantic.”
2) I think it is:
Is encompassing George Washington, early American independence, the French Revolution, and Napoleon, “big” enough?
3) I have a “central” character, but these novels are better described as “ensembles”…
…and I think their major characters are broadly “sympathetic.”
4) They are not superhero tales with cartoonish villains…
…but I think I give us some reasonably (based on the characters’ experiences) to fear and dislike.
5) I feel also that these books are…
…the lengths that they as “big” stories require.
6) I do not aim to concoct subplots as much as…
…write what I hope to be major characters facing a variety of life situations.
7) They are books meant to reflect life…
…and in that I do hope there is the occasionally “unpredictable.”
8) I “resolve” what I believe needs resolving when I think it needs resolving…
…yet, as we know, not everything is neatly resolvable in real life, so neither should it be in real-life based novels.
9) Well, of course…
…because, as we know, what “the world” happens to be is how someone(s) sees it.
10) They are not unrealistic action and fantasy tales…
…for what happens has actual, perhaps mortal, consequences, and I think I keep things moving.
I hope that coming third book above in that series will achieve much the same.
I conclude by nervously offering that, uh, I hope I have passed that “ten point” test. 😉
And I hope you are having a good weekend. 🙂
