Writer's Block
Ideas That Tick
Do you want to specialize in a particular genre? What would be best for you? Linda Lee Bower, our Writer In Residence, has some insider's tips on how to use your aptitude and experience to create powerful fiction.
Make Your Job Pay
Writing fiction is a rewarding but not a lucrative career. If you are an aspiring fiction writer, writing may be your passion but you surely have other means of livelihood to survive. Don't despair if fiction writing does not yet bring home the bread and butter.
A successful career can be the jumping off place for writing truly authentic novels. Consider these success stories:
- Robin Cook, a physician, is perhaps the father of the medical thriller.
- Michael Palmer, also a physician, is another successful author of medical thrillers.
- William Caunitz, a retired New York police detective, writes police thrillers.
- John Grisham, a lawyer, writes novels where young, idealistic lawyers skewer unscrupulous, greedy corporate lawyers.
I could list many more. Think about the situations and characters you encounter at work and weave them into the fabric of your fiction. (Do make them fictitious enough to avoid a lawsuit for libel!)
Start A Series
If you not only specialize in a genre but also have a memorable character as the protagonist of your books, you can really develop a following. This has long been a marketing technique. Remember the Bobsey Twins?
- Clive Cussler's intrepid Dirk Pitt is a diver who thwarts many villains in the deep.
- Agatha Christie had two main characters for her mysteries - Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.
- Stephen Coonts, a former Navy flyer, has a series with a Navy flyer as the protagonist. (Actually, he is not a flyer anymore; he has been promoted a number of times and has had an assignment at the Pentagon, for example.)
- Tom Clancy is a master at this. Jack Ryan started out as a CIA analyst in The Hunt for the Red October and ended up as President of the United States in Executive Orders. Clancy has branched out and created other product lines (that's exactly what they are - product lines.) His NetForce series, created with Steve Pieczenik, features a futuristic Internet police. His Power Plays series centers on a sophisticated U.S. Government control center and its staff. He also has a company, Red Storm, that puts out interactive electronic games based on his novels. He is an entire industry unto himself.
Or you can have some other striking concept for a series.
- P. D. James is running through the alphabet with a mystery series.
- I have heard of a woman who writes murder mysteries set in ancient Egypt with a scribe as the main character.
Use your imagination!
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