Been there – done that – only did it with a private writing coach to help me rework a completed manuscript that was a cross between a memoir/novel/unpublishable pile of crap.

Agents kept telling me they loved the story concept but weren’t “taken in by the writing” – Translation: Your writing sucks!

I had no idea how to write a novel – I can tell a great story – keep you mesmerized for hours – but I didn’t know how to put it into proper novel format – didn’t even know there was such a thing.

One year of 24/7-agonizing-learning-later, I think I now know how.

I believe it’s worth sticking with – I’ll find out soon enough when I start submitting the thing.

Good luck to you. Please wish me the same – or maybe you could pray or light candles or something to bring me some luck. I’m totally worn out from the process, but glad I did it.

Lorra

There’s not real trick to writing fiction, once you know the tools of the trade. As one fairly well-known novelist said some years back: “Begin at the beginning…and when you come to the end, stop.”

If you have your characters, trust me–they will let you know what to do. There are a few novelists to my knowledge who at least claim to have total control over their characters (although that’s something I tend to take with that proverbial grain of NaCl), but most of the ones I know, myself included, have spent too many hours being nagged for getting the story wrong to consider ourselves the real masters of our tales.