My First Blog Post

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.

How To Research Your Novel … And When To Stop

I love book research. It’s one of the most fun parts of the book creation process for me, but I definitely need to make sure I don’t disappear down the rabbit-hole of research and forget to actually write!

In this article, I’ll explain how to conduct research for your books, how to organize and manage the information you find, plus how to know when to stop researching and start writing.

Is research really necessary?

If you’re writing non-fiction, research will most likely be the basis of your book. For fiction, it can provide ideas on which to build your characters and plot.

You can go into the research phase with no concrete agenda, as I often do, and emerge with a clear idea of how your story will unfold. Or, if you have pre-existing ideas, research allows you to develop them further. In terms of reader expectation, research is critical in genres like historical fiction, as it will help you to create an accurate world and ground the story in reality.

When people read a story, they want to sink into your fictional world. If you introduce something that jolts the reader, the ‘fictive dream’ is interrupted. For many genres, research can help you avoid this.

Most of my J.F.Penn thrillers are set in the present day and I like to have 95% reality in terms of places, historical accuracy and actual events. Then I push the edges of that reality a little further and see what happens.

How to research your novel

Research can take many forms. Here are some of my methods for gathering information.

(1) Research through reading and watching

“Books are made out of books” – Cormac McCarthy

J.F.Penn in the stacks of the London Library

Your research process can happen online at the various book retailers or Goodreads, but I also like to take it into the physical world by heading to libraries and bookstores, as you never quite know what you might discover. I think of it as serendipity in the stacks!

If you’re writing fiction, it’s important to read extensively in your genre in order to understand the reader expectations, but many authors also find it helpful to read a wide range of non-fiction books on the topics they’re interested in.

You can also read magazines and journals; browse images on Pinterest and Flickr; and watch documentaries and films on TV and YouTube. Fill the creative well!

If you have concerns about plagiarism, take note of this quote from Austin Kleon’s book Steal Like an Artist.

“Stealing from one person is plagiarism. Stealing from 100 is research.”

For example, if you read five books on the history of The Tudors and you’ve written notes on all of them, then you turn that into something new, that’s considered research and is an entirely natural part of the writing process. It only slips into plagiarism if you copy lines from another work and pass them off as your own, and of course, that’s something we would never want to do.

(2) Research through travel

In Israel for book research in Nov 2016

One of my favorite ways to carry out research is to travel to places where I intend to set a novel.

This may not fit your budget, but it’s not always as expensive as you might expect, particularly if you travel during off-season periods. For my recent thriller End of Days, we did a research trip to Israel. You can join me for a walk around the Old City of Jerusalem in this video made on site.

Information on different locations can be found on our own doorstep and museum exhibitions are the perfect example of this. Follow your curiosity – maybe one museum exhibit leads you to another and each sparks your imagination somehow.

I’ve now written several books and a short story based on exhibitions at The British Museum: Day of the Vikings opens there, Crypt of Bone features an exhibition on religious relics, Blake Daniel even works there during the London Psychic crime thriller series, and I wrote a short story coming out in an anthology later this year based on the Sunken Egypt exhibit. If you visit London, it is a must-visit 

We’re also very lucky in that we live in a time where it’s possible to research travel destinations online, so you can write about a place even if you haven’t been there. You can find clips on YouTube, watch travel documentaries, read travel blogs, and even get a feel for walking around a location via Google maps.

(3) Research on Pinterest (or other visual social media)

We can find inspiration on Pinterest by browsing other people’s boards, but it’s also the perfect place to gather our own research and easily record it. I have Pinterest Boards for most of my J.F.Penn thriller novels now.

For fiction authors, the visual medium can be particularly valuable for sparking ideas and bringing our fictional worlds into reality. You can even share this inspiration with your readers.

(4) Let synchronicity emerge

I find that an initial story idea can develop into a better book if I carry out research early on.

When I started End of Days, I only had the title and I knew it would have to have some kind of apocalyptic event, but it also needed to be original.

I found two books: The End, an overview of Bible prophecy and the end of days, and also The End: What Science and Religion Tell Us About the Apocalypse, a mix of scientific information and how different religions see the end of the world.

From these two books, I gathered a wealth of ideas including the quote for the beginning of the book from Revelation 20:1-6

“Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he sees the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan and bound him for a thousand years and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him until the thousand years were ended.”

The serpent element sparked my curiosity so I started Googling art associated with serpents. I discovered Lilith, called the first wife of Adam and a demon closely associated with serpents.

Some of the images from my Pinterest board about End of Days

Then I found this quote from the Talmud (Jewish scripture) about Lilith:

“The female of Samael is called ‘serpent, woman of harlotry, end of all flesh, end of days.’”

Yes, it actually calls her End of Days. Talk about synchronicity!

[This type of thing seems to happen with every novel I write, which makes me agree with a lot of what Elizabeth Gilbert says in Big Magic about ideas. It’s a great book!] 

Lilith and Samael emerged as my antagonists from this research, which also gave me rich story ideas for the plot. All this came from my willingness to go down the research rabbit hole.

(5) Research possible settings

The next stage was to consider a setting for my story and how I could use snakes in a much bigger way.

The setting is always a very important element of my books, so I looked initially at places sacred to serpent worship. I found an amazing documentary on YouTube about the Appalachian Christians, who use serpents in their worship, and from there the backstory of Lilith grew. I theorized that if she came from a group who were not afraid of serpents, then this might explain how she gets involved in the end of days conspiracy.

I had the serpent element of the quote, now I needed the bottomless pit. The Marianas Trench in the Pacific Ocean is known as the deepest place on earth and thus this was the next direction my research took me.

From one initial Google search on serpent worship, I had an outline for the plot of my novel.

This should give you an idea of how powerful research can be, taking you from an initial spark of creativity through to a completed book.

How to organize and manage your research

Your research will be far more effective if you keep track of it as you progress. You can put a couple of lines into your phone or write a few notes in a journal as you go along, but at some point, you need to organize this information so you can get writing.

There is no right or wrong approach to managing your research, just choose the option that works best for you and it will likely evolve as your writing career progresses. Some people use physical files, like a filing system, or a pin board.

Others opt for a digital system, such as Evernote, so they can access the information from any device. I used to take all my notes in Scrivener because it’s then within easy reach when I write, but I have also started to supplement this with Evernote as it makes things easier to organize for the longer term, whereas Scrivener is for each specific project.

When to stop researching

Research can be a lot of fun, but at some point you have to stop researching and start writing. Remember, research can become a form of procrastination and the more you research, the more information you will find to include.

Therefore, as soon as you have enough information to write a scene about a place, event or person in your novel, then maybe you should stop and do some writing about it. Keep a balance between consumption and creation, input and output.

Another way to approach this is to set a time limit. For example, if you know you need to start writing on a particular date to hit a (self-imposed) deadline, then work backwards to allow yourself a research period before this.

You can always do additional research as you write, but the important thing is that the book is underway.

Get started with what you have, fill in the blanks later.

Should you use an Author’s Note about your research?

At the end of all of my books, I add an Author’s Note which includes information on where my research came from and links to my videos and images along the way. It’s certainly not a requirement to do this but it can be beneficial to both you and the reader. My readers often comment on it when they email about the books.

We’re all unique and that’s what sets our books apart so don’t be afraid to approach research in the way that suits you best. Whether you use research to spark initial ideas or to drive your narrative forward, the time invested in it will ultimately reap rewards in terms of the quality of your finished book

7 Keys To Write the Perfect First Line of a Novel

Earlier this week, I read “Poppies,” a short story by Ulrica Hume. Initially, I had only planned on skimming a few pages, but the first line hooked me. Before long, I was finishing the last page

Great first lines have that power, the power to entice your reader enough that it would be unthinkable to set the book down. How, then, do you write the perfect first line?

This post is about what makes great first lines great. We’ll look at examples from some of the best books in history and try to apply their techniques to our stories.

Note that some of these lines are a bit longer than one sentence. Instead, I think of them as the first idea.

By the way, if you haven’t already read Monica Clark’s excellent post about writing the perfect first page from Monday, you should read it immediately.

Let’s get started, shall we?

Perfect First Lines Are Vivid

Here’s the line from Ulrica Hume’s “Poppies” that caught my attention.

I was born upside down, the umbilical cord looped twice around my neck.

It’s a simple sentence, but I love it. “Born upside down.” There’s something at once whimsical and perilous and messy about that image. Don’t you instantly get a picture of the hospital room, the tiny baby, perhaps with a bit of hair, being held upside down by the doctor, still slightly blue and screaming.

Great first lines instantly invite us into an image.

Here’s another vivid example from my favorite novel, All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy:

The candleflame and the image of the candleflame caught in the pierglass twisted and righted when he entered the hall and again when he shut the door.

Isn’t that a cool image? The light from a candle being reflected and twisted by a door. One of the reasons so many of Cormac McCarthy’s novels have been adapted into films (e.g. All the Pretty Horses, No Country for Old Men, The Road) is that his writing is so cinematic, focusing on seemingly small details to invite us into the lives of his fascinating characters.

Great first lines, like the opening montage of a film, lead us into a scene. They use images, lighting, and tone to set the mood that the rest of the opening pages will take.

Perfect First Lines Establish a Unique Voice

We like to hear stories from people who sound interesting and unique, and perfect first lines introduce the reader to a character’s unique voice.

Voice is the peculiar vocabulary, tone, and phrasings our characters use. For example, here’s a classic example of the first line from Catcher In the Rye by J.D. Salinger:

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

Notice how conversational this is. All the rules we were taught in school—don’t use adverbs like really, don’t use slang like lousy, and definitely don’t use words like “crap”—Salinger breaks them. And it works because this isn’t a school paper; this is one friend talking to another.

The remarkable thing about a unique voice is that it can be just as vivid as description. Don’t you instantly get an image of a sarcastic, teenage kid (perhaps wearing a red hunting cap backwards) while reading this? Voice can spark your imagination to create whole worlds.

Speaking of strange worlds, here’s J.K. Rowling’s first line from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone:

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.

You can just hear the Dursleys saying that huffily, can’t you? “Thank you very much. Such Nonsense.” I also think it’s fascinating that for such a magical novel, Rowling chose to begin with the least magical people in the whole story, which just increases the contrast between the magic and “muggle” world. Brilliant.

Perfect First Lines Are Surprising

This might be the most important tip in this post.

Be surprising. So many of these examples of great first lines are surprising. Case in point, here’s the opening line from 1984 by George Orwell:

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

How do you quickly show the world you’re describing is slightly off from the real world? Alter the way time is tracked. Genius.

Snakes are an easy way to surprise your reader. Here’s the opening line from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:

Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest. It was a picture of a boa constrictor in the act of swallowing an animal. Here is a copy of the drawing.

Nothing like boa constrictors and drawings of boa constrictors to catch your reader’s attention.

Here’s another example from One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez:

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

Firing squad? Discovering ice? So much strangeness here I couldn’t help but read on.

And in honor of Christmas, here’s Charles Dickens’ first line from A Christmas Carol (thanks Magic Violinist for the recommendation):

Marley was dead: to begin with.

Want to create surprise? Apparently you should begin your story with someone dying (as three of our examples do).

Perfect First Lines Are Funny

Humor is closely linked with surprise, and great first lines are often very funny. For example, here’s a silly image from J.R.R. Tolkien’s very funny novel The Hobbit:

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

“And that means comfort.” I love that part. I can imagine Tolkien’s four children squealing with delight at this opening line.

And here is Jane Austen exhibiting her slyly satirical wit in the first line of Pride and Prejudice:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

Of course he must. How could he not?

Perfect First Lines Are True

Some novels begin with a philosophical truth. Take the iconic first line of one of the bestselling books of all time, A Tale of Two Cities:

It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness…

Great first lines can do that. They can take a look at an entire culture as a whole and You can’t, of course, stay there forever. Eventually, you have start teaching again. But a little philosophy at the end of a novel doesn’t hurt.

… and so on. It’s quite long, so you can read the full line here. This line is so famous that when I first read A Tale of Two Cities I was surprised to realize it came from a book. By now, this line has become a truism, but in its day, it was a philosophical reflection on the subjectivity of history and human experience.

Perfect First Lines Are Clear

Many great first lines do little more than introduce us to the characters we’re going to be following through the book. For example, from Melville’s Moby Dick:

Call me Ishmael.

And here’s a quick synopsis of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in its first line:

Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air-raids.

Great first lines are often clear, we instantly know who the narrator is, where we are, and what this story  will be about.

Perfect First Lines Contain the Entirety of a Novel

Perfect first lines don’t just begin a novel, they someone manage to compact the entire story into a single sentence.

For example, take Kafka’s The Metamorphosis: 

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.

You can see Samsa’s entire journey, from the realization of his plight to his painful alienation to his eventual death.

Here’s another example from Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov:

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.

In this single, perfect sentence Nabokov reveals all the passion, poetry, and disaster that will follow.

Just as William Blake said, “To see the world in a grain of sand,” so the first line of a novel can contain its entirety within it.

How To Write the Perfect First Line

From all these examples, I hope you’ve seen that perfect first lines take many shapes and forms. In fact, the title of this post is misleading because there is really no such thing as the perfect first line. There is only a perfect first line for your story.

Be patient as you look for it. It might take longer than you think to find it. You may discover it, and then find another, then discard that one for something better still.

Remember, a great first line can hook your reader through the rest of your story. Keep searching for it. It’s worth it.

6 Creative Ways to Strengthen Your Story Idea

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by Joslyn Chase | 19 Comments

Coming up with a story idea isn’t hard. Coming up with a story idea that hits it out of the park, fires on all cylinders, and has never been done before is. In fact, it’s the equivalent of winning the lottery—an unlikely event that can burn up your resources if you’re not careful.

I remember reading a story about a farmer in South Africa who got fed up with pulling stones out of his field. He wanted riches, and journeyed around the world in search of treasure. Finally, broke and exhausted, he returned home and took another look at those rocks, and that’s when he recognized them for the diamonds they were

6 Ways to cut and polish your backyard diamonds

There are numerous debates over the finite number of plots in existence and whether there’s anything new under the sun. Nearly all the stories you read or watch on the screen ride on the backs of stories that have gone before, borrowing plots and characters, using similar settings or devices. People have been telling stories from the dawn of human existence, so this should not come as a great shock.

Rather than combing the earth in search of the elusive, undiscovered concept, spend your efforts on applying your unique talents and perspectives to the ideas you find around you, cutting and polishing them until they shine. Make them your own.

Read on, friend, for six ways to strengthen your home-grown story idea.

1. Boil down your story problem

Story revolves on conflict. Without obstacles and stressors, there’s no story. So examine your story idea and see if you can put it into a one-sentence premise based on the story problem. A good way of doing this is to formulate the problem in a “what if” format.

Just for fun, see if you can identify these movies by their “what if” suppositions.

• What if a tough American expatriate who sticks his neck out for no one met the woman he once loved and discovers he’s willing to risk his life for her?
• What if a boy woke up to find he’s become a full-grown man overnight?
• What if an Amish boy, peculiarly unaccustomed to violence, became the key witness to a murder?
• What if the President of the United States was kidnapped on board Air Force One?
• What if a police chief had to choose between political imperatives and the safety of the citizens in his jurisdiction?

The answers to the first four are Casablanca, Big, Witness, and Air Force One. As for the last one, dozens of books, movies, and TV shows could be summed up in this premise, but I was thinking of Jaws when I wrote the example.

I’ll be using movies a lot as examples, rather than books, because the enormous cost of making a movie means there are a lot fewer out there and the chances of you having seen it are better. The points I make apply to story in a variety of forms.

Boiling your story idea down to a simple sentence requires you to focus on the story problem, solidifying it and coming to terms with what it will mean for your story. That sentence becomes the seed from which your story will grow and being clear about the story problem helps you make choices about what should go into—and what should stay out of—your story.

2. Push your character to the end of their rope

Think about your particular protagonist and ask yourself what would be the worst thing that could happen to her. Inflicting her with that worst fate brings built-in conflict, ensures emotional involvement, and requires your character to reach down deep, really showing what she’s made of.

I came up with a couple examples:

• For an actor, the worst thing would be alienating all the directors on Broadway so no one will work with him. Think Tootsie.
• For an astronaut, it’s missing the return trip home. The Martian.

In my own writing, I’ve often been too kind to my protagonist, depriving both my character and my readers of a richer, more meaningful experience. Whether you’re still in the planning stages, or reaching the end of your story, ask yourself what’s the worst and you might be surprised at how the answer can strengthen your story.

3. Juxtapose two ideas

Dean Wesley Smith, one of the most prolific writers on the planet, regularly uses this method. He owns a massive quantity of old books and digests. He’ll flip open a volume, run his finger down the Table of Contents, and stop at random on a title. Then he’ll do the same with another book, combine the two titles, and see what perks.

In Thoughts on Plots, Joan Aiken wrote that it takes two ideas, colliding, to spark a story. Maybe every plot has been done before, but you can combine ideas in new ways to stimulate your imagination and create something fresh.

For an example, I thought what if Louis Sachar came up with the idea for Holes by juxtaposing Cool Hand Luke and Flubber? See how that could work?“Need a fresh story idea? Take two unrelated ideas and combine them to create something new.Tweet thisTweet

4. Reverse a predictable plot

If you think your story idea is too mundane or doesn’t hold enough surprises, try turning it on its head and see what shakes out.

O. Henry, famous for the twists he put in his short stories, did this beautifully with The Ransom of Red Chief. Two hapless criminals kidnap a wealthy man’s young son and hold him for ransom, but they are so frazzled by the boy’s crazy and spoiled behavior that they end up paying the father to take the kid back.

I used this technique when I formulated the idea for my story A Simple Glass of Water, which also involves a kidnapping. I wanted to load the story with a couple of reversals the reader wouldn’t see coming, so I turned my basic idea upside down and imagined what might happen. It was a lot of fun.“Does your story idea seem too mundane? Turn it on its head, reverse a predictable plot, and see what happens.Tweet thisTweet

5. Wind the ticking clock

Adding a time crunch to your story idea heightens the suspense and tension, keeping it tight and escalating the conflict.

Your story may feature an actual clock, like in High Noon, or one of the most intense television shows ever devised, 24. But look for ways to get creative with this.

For example, the writers of Speed did it with a bus that couldn’t dip below 50 miles per hour during rush hour traffic in Los Angeles. DOA did it by fatally poisoning a man and having him solve his own murder before he drops dead.

6. Write what excites you

One of the most widely distributed pieces of authorly wisdom is to write what you know. And that’s fine, if what you know lights a fire in your belly and moves you with the power of a depth charge.

If not, write what does. If you are thrilled and fascinated by what you write, that enthusiasm will spread to the reader.

If you want to engage your reader’s emotions, you’ve got to be feeling it yourself. This is the best way to write something exciting.

Diamonds look like ordinary rocks until they’re cut and polished

Don’t be discouraged because you haven’t come up with a story idea that will have Hollywood knocking down your door to buy the movie rights. Take what you have and buff it up. Turn it around. Smash it up against something else. Put a time limit on it. Hold its feet to the fire. Write like you mean it.

Apply these six ways to strengthen your story idea and amaze yourself at what you can do

Introduce Yourself (Example Post)

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.