Guest Post: 5 Tips on Writing Your First Novel

Never was there a more timely guest post! Today we welcome Aydin Guner to the blog to give us some helpful, unconventional tips on writing a first novel. Which is timely because Ann and I are currently writing our first novel so these tips will come in very handy! 

5 Tips On Writing Your First Novel by Aydin Guner

I wanted to provide a few unconventional tips on how to write your first novel. It’s probably a bit like having your first baby, you never quite expect it, its rarely planned and it’s never quite what you expected it to be. But that’s ok, that’s normal, and I’ll explain why.

Before you panic, the first rule of creating a novel, and this rule is your North Star, the place you come back to when your lost – is establish your story. This doesn’t mean a detailed plot and all the dialogue, it just means, “What is the story about?” It can be as brief as two sentences. Something like:

Man becomes a tennis player, has some drama with someone in the industry, his dream of playing in the finals is sabotaged, he evades and overcomes his career being destroyed to eventually lift the trophy.

So there you have a basic outline of a story. But of course, there’s 80-100,000 more words to add in, what do you do?

Again, don’t panic. Firstly, try to understand your lead character, who is he? What does he like to do? What are his flaws? What motivates him? Once you’ve established these things, you can start writing about it. At this point, I wouldn’t even worry about ‘telling a story’, just write – it’ll all start making sense as the story goes on and its character building. So, let’s say Eric, our tennis player, has a crazy competitive streak, to the point he is neurotic and OTT when playing a game.

It’s Christmas and the family are gathered around the dining table, playing our annual game of ‘Monopoly’. My wife, Carrina, is to my left, wearing a red Christmas jumper, complimenting her blonde curly hair and my in-laws are opposite us (I hate my in-laws). I am next to wide rolling the dice for my next move, my eyes open with anticipation, eagerly awaiting a good roll so I can land on ‘Mayfair’. My plastic Christmas hat is to the side, almost falling off as I frantically shake the dice and plunge them onto the board.

As you can see, we are starting to bring him to life. This scene could go in so many different ways. You could have him argue with his inlaws over ‘cheating’ allegations. You could have him really drunk and saying something inappropriate. You can have him spill a drink. Several options. This leads to my next tip, let your imagination run wild.

Sometimes you don’t need to have the story or scene mapped out. As long as you know what traits the character has, and if you’re character building, you can just write those traits into the scene. Often I’ll write a chapter, without knowing what I’m about to write. I just have the character discuss something – something random. It’s ok to do this, it helps the reader connect with the character you’re writing. Writers are sometimes so focussed on the story, they forget to character build in an organic way. Be patient, it’s ok to have your character talk about potato chips and movies for a few pages, it makes him/her human.

So, you’ve established your story and you’ve analysed your lead character and written some random chapters to highlight some of his/her character traits. Now you have a foundation to tell your story.

Make sure you have a good supporting cast. The characters in the book are crucial to the feel of the book. Give them depth, provide a back story for them, let the reader know who they are, bring them to life. A good supporting cast is so important. The reader won’t feel engaged if the other characters aren’t interesting. To write good characters, I always used a mixture of people I’ve met along the way in life. Fact is stranger than fiction and, I can guarantee you’ve met some interesting people in your life! Merge the traits together to create unique and interesting characters.  

My next tip – write about something you’re passionate about. If you write about something you’re passionate about, your enthusiasm will shine through the page. There will be times when you don’t want to write, or you’re just not feeling up to it, and that’s ok, and normal. But if it’s a story you’re passionate about telling, those times become less and less.  Try to think of themes and character traits that excite you and motivate you. Writing is a platform for your imagination and it gives you a voice. Think about what you want to say and write about it.

My final tip is, be patient. You will hit blocks when you don’t know where the story is going to go, but take a step back from it and be patient. If you’re completely stuck, you could take a complete left turn and go back to the characters childhood or a flashback of some kind. Dreams are also a good one, to help immerse the reader into the characters mind. Patience is key, and at the risk of sounding cheesy, it’s important to realise a book really does last a lifetime. So take your time with it and make sure you’ve told the story you want to tell.

About the Book:

Damon West is a twenty-eight-year old living in New York City. His life appears to be perfect. He has a loving girlfriend, good friends, lots of money and a job on Wall Street, everything a young man could ask for. However, Damon has a secret. Damon is the Devil. For centuries, Damon has roamed the Earth enjoying everything the human world has to offer. Sex, entertainment, travel and new discoveries. Damon's life appears to be perfect but takes an unexpected turn when he meets a co-worker, Latasha. Damon is suddenly submerged in a spiraling obsession with Latasha he can't control. She plays him for the fool. For all his charms, Damon is unable to deal with those emotions. Is it love? Whilst Damon's world starts to spiral out of control, we start to question who Latasha really is. Is she who she appears to be? Was this all part of a higher plan? Has she been conspiring with the suspicious new boss, Jason Godfrey? In The Devil In I, Damon faces the ultimate battle to hold on to everything he has: his job, his reputation, his girlfriend, and his life. This is a fast paced, sexy, violent modern day thriller. It is the ultimate story of Good vs Evil. Based in New York City, The Devil In I is not for the faint of heart.

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Guest Post: The Stanford Prison Experiment by Dylan Callens

The Stanford Prison Experiment

In Interpretation, Carl wakes up in an institution that is part psych-ward and part prison.  The building itself, I imagined being similar to an old asylum known as Bedlam.  More interestingly, however, the way that the guards behave in the novel was inspired by the Stanford Prison Experiment.

There is a section in the novel where the antagonist, an artificial intelligence known as psychology, designs an experiment based on Philip Zimbardo’s notes on the prison experiment.  Since Psychology is constantly running experiments, I figured that the prison itself should be a part of that process.  So, what was the Stanford Prison Experiment?

Conducted in 1971 by Philip Zimbardo in the basement of Stanford University, the experiment was supposed to show how prison guards and convicts would slip into predefined roles, behaving in a way that they thought was required.  Zimbardo thought that both groups would abandon their own judgements and morals in favor of conforming to their roles.

What happened, however, was unexpected.

Subjects were randomly assigned to play the role of either prisoner or guard.  On the day that the experiment was about to start, the Palo Alto Police Department arrested the prisoners, deloused them, and gave them prison garments.  They then transferred the group to the makeshift jail.

Day one went more or less as predicted.  There was nothing particularly surprising. 

On day two, however, a few inmates blockaded the cell entrance.  In order to stop this, extra guards volunteered to work overtime to fix the situation.  They attacked the inmates with fire extinguishers. 

After quickly learning that it was difficult to control nine prisoners with three guards, the guards attempted to control the prisoners with rewards and punishments.  For example, those that did not participate in the ‘riot’ were rewarded with higher quality meals.  Those prisoners, however, did not eat the meals, in solidarity with the other prisoners.

The problems escalated.  Guards mentally and physically abused the prisoners.  Sanitary conditions declined rapidly.  Prisoners were sometimes not allowed to use the toilet.  Instead, they were forced to use a bucket, which they were not allowed to empty.  Mattresses and clothing were taken away from some prisoners and they were forced to sleep naked on the concrete floor.  Clearly, many of the guards were showing very sadistic tendencies.

Soon after, one inmate showed signs of great mental distress, to the point where he had to be removed from the experiment.  A replacement prisoner for the one that left as a result of mental distress was introduced to the prison.  He was instructed to go on a hunger strike in order to help improve the conditions in the prison.  Instead of being welcomed, he was seen as a trouble maker that was going to make things worse for them.  Because of his hunger strike, the new prisoner was placed in solitary confinement.  The other prisoners banged on walls and taunted him while he was in confinement. 

On the sixth day of the study, a graduate student, Christina Maslach, came to view the experiment.  Upon seeing the poor condition of the prisoners, she asked Zimbardo to stop.  She convinced him to end the experiment on day six of what was supposed to be a two week experiment.

The results show us a few interesting things.  First, the result favor situational attribution over dispositional attribution.  That is to say, the situation, rather than their personalities, caused the participant’s behavior.  Second, the experiment illustrates cognitive dissonance theory.  Cognitive dissonance theory states that individuals seek consistency in their beliefs and opinions and when there is an inconsistency, something must change to eliminate the dissonance.  In this case, their attitudes and behaviors had to change to suit their roles.    

Third, participants’ behavior was modified when they were being observed.  This is called the Hawthorne Effect.  Whenever a participant believed that they were being observed, they acted according to how they thought they should act.  When they knew that there was no one watching, participants acted quite a bit differently.

In my novel, I wanted to imagine what an artificial intelligence might come up with if it ran its own prison experiment.  The prison scenes are only a small part of the novel but I wondered what such a place might look like in a dystopian setting.  I found this thought experiment very fascinating to write.

About the Book:

Carl Winston awakens to find his son, Liam, screaming with fear. Trying to understand why, Carl tries to soothe him. Neighbors gather in front of Carl’s apartment to help – until they see him. The crowd cowers back, afraid of this monster. 

Carl runs. His life of luxury is ripped away. Forced beyond the city limits, Carl sees a land bereft of life. Traveling in search of answers, his quest comes to a sudden halt when he collapses. As darkness shrouds him, a figure hovers from above. 

Traveling along the same route, Eva Thomspon finds Carl and nurtures him back to life. Together, they continue the journey, finding out that their lives have too much in common to be a coincidence. As their affection for each other deepens, an unknown nemesis attempts to remove their only source of happiness – their love for each other.

Interpretation is a dystopian fiction that explores hope and happiness in the bleakest of conditions and what happens when it’s torn away.

Purchase Links:

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About the Author:

Dylan Callens lands cleanly. That would be the headline of a newspaper built with an anagram generator. And although Dylan is a Welsh name meaning god or hero of the sea, he is not particularly fond of large bodies of water. His last name, Callens, might be Gaelic. If it is, his last name means rock. Rocks sink in the sea. Interestingly, he is neither Welsh nor Gaelic, but rather, French and German. The inherent contradictions and internal conflict in his life are obvious.

Author Links:

Website

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Twitter

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Amazon Author Page

Excerpt:

Carl closed his eyes and tried to laugh at himself.  Barely a squeak left his mouth.  What was he thinking, trying to enter this godforsaken wasteland by himself with no supplies?  Still on his back, he dreamed about opening a bottle of Ocean Surge.  Wet bubbles danced against his tongue, bathing his taste buds with refreshing fruit-infusion – small bursts of happiness made his lips sing an ode to joy. 

But forget that fantasy; sulfur-ridden tap water would be just as good.  Carl knew the taste would not equate, but its effect would invigorate.  Carl smiled, his eyes wide open, staring into the dimming sky, into the nothingness that surrounded him.  Gulp after glorious gulp of imaginary liquid until he couldn’t keep up, showering his face with it until a puddle formed around him.  That puddle turned into an ocean and Carl sank to the bottom, his faint breath weakening further.  The light grew dimmer.  He tried to reach up, to reach out of the depths of his hallucination, but his arms felt too heavy, as if the pressure at this depth couldn’t be overcome. 

A shadow hovered over him.  Carl tried to speak to it, but words didn’t make sense.  The shadow spoke back with a meaningless, muffled slur.  Water entered Carl’s mouth, nearly choking him.  Nonetheless, the delicious wet felt so good, like ocean refreshment in every bottle.  That was the slogan, right?  Carl laughed or cried, he couldn’t tell.  For all he knew, he was dead.  The shadow grew, saying something that he couldn’t work his mind around.  Darker. Darker.  Clock, what the hell was that clock song?  Darker. The shadow drew nearer.  Or maybe it was the darkness.  It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born, And was always his treasure and pride… Ah yes, there it is.  But it stopped short – never to go again – When the old man died.  That’s the one.  Darkness.

Guest Post: Ordinary People - Extraordinary Deeds by Kfir Luzzatto

Action novels often feature characters who do phenomenal things – they jump from airplanes without a parachute, dive for long minutes without oxygen, and chase malefactors on rickety rooftops, leaping from one building to the next without even panting a little. Think James Bond, think Jason Bourne. Then you have the less extreme characters, who win the day simply by being tough, intelligent and intuitive (as well as inscrutable.) Take Jack Reacher, for example. Stories about those characters make for great escapist reads, but the people in those books are not real. They don’t feel real.

In contrast, take an ordinary person, someone who could be your next-door neighbor, and put him or her in a pickle. Take their familiar, normal day and turn it upside-down, and then watch them deal with it. If the character is someone with whom you can identify, you become invested in what happens to him or her. You no longer say to yourself “Yeah, sure,” like you do when the unrealistic hero kills a bear with a toothpick. Instead, you are at the edge of your seat because you know that if your favorite character takes a false step, he’s done for.

When I start dreaming up characters for a novel, I spend time with them. I study their approach to things and the way they react, because once a character has taken shape in my head there is little I can do to change his or her mental makeup. Sometimes I need to replace a character, as you do with actors if they don’t fit the part. I run an “intimate audition” by putting myself in their shoes, to see how they will deal with the bad things that I’m planning to do to them. A character who is in mortal danger and takes it in his stride will not be able to make the reader feel anything. His emotions must be those that the regular (not superhuman) reader would have in the same situation. Only then will the reader care about the character and form an unconscious rapport with him. You can’t feel for characters who are going to come out of every situation unscathed, no matter how much effort the bad guys put into destroying them.

But don’t be confused – ordinary characters don’t have to live in an ordinary world. They can live in a fantastic one and still be ordinary in their human makeup, in the way they behave, think and react to their very out-of-the-ordinary environment. Perhaps the best example is Katniss in The Hunger Games (in the first book of the trilogy, not applicable to the others.) Although she is special, has skills and does some pretty extreme things, she is a regular girl with desires and hopes to which the reader can relate. She finds herself in an impossible situation and reacts in a very human way that is not devoid of weakness. Thus, the readers can wonder what they would do if they were in her shoes. They can feel her emotions and through much of the book they will worry, not knowing how it will all come out in the end.

To my mind, using a supernatural character in a thriller amounts to lazy writing, because you don’t have to worry about keeping him alive. You can always make him cut the right wire of the atomic bomb and save the world. That’s why five minutes after reading a James Bond book I couldn’t tell you what it really was about. But who says that this is a bad thing? Escapist literature is here to help us clean our heads and forget heavy stuff, and thank God for it!

About the Book:

Claire, a young graphic designer, learns a secret that her dying New York neighbor has kept for twenty years: the whereabouts of Moses’ Biblical staff.

Claire needs the help of an Israeli engineer and the money of a Russian oligarch to recover the staff before her body betrays her. But first she needs to stay alive in a race with fanatics, who will do anything to keep the staff from coming to light.

Then the LORD said to Moses: Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. 

About the Author:

Kfir Luzzatto is the author of seven novels, several short stories and two non-fiction books. Kfir was born and raised in Italy, and moved to Israel as a teenager. He acquired the love for the English language from his father, a former U.S. soldier, a voracious reader, and a prolific writer. Kfir has a PhD in chemical engineering and works as a patent attorney. He lives in Omer, Israel, with his full-time partner, Esther, their four children, Michal, Lilach, Tamar, and Yonatan, and the dog Elvis.

Kfir has published extensively in the professional and general press over the years. For almost four years he wrote a weekly “Patents” column in Globes (Israel’s financial newspaper). His most recent nonfiction book, FUN WITH PATENTS—The Irreverent Guide for the Investor, the Entrepreneur and the Inventor, was published in 2016. He is an HWA (Horror Writers Association) and ITW (International Thriller Writers) member.

You can visit Kfir’s web site and read his blog at www.kfirluzzatto.com. Follow him on Twitter (@KfirLuzzatto) and friend him on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/KfirLuzzattoAuthor/).

You can also find us on Goodreads (Ann and Clare), Facebook and Instagram to keep up with what we are reading.

Guest Post: America Deconstructed by Chaithanya Sohan and Shaima Adin

BEING AN AMERICAN ALIEN

“Welcome to the United States of America”, the immigration officer said in my direction. As a teenager, I was clueless on the enormity of those words. My family and I did not know those words allowed us a sense of freedom. We no longer had to look behind our back in fear of jeopardizing our American dream.. We failed to understand we were in the Promised Land. Today, after doing fifteen years to potential life in America, I know the enormity of those words. In 2001, I was crossing borders for the first time. I had never left India until that first flight ride to America. Today as an avid traveller who walks through immigration at least twice in a year, “welcome to the United States of America” marks a celebration.

On that chilly July evening, my life as an immigrant or an American Alien officially began. I was given an alien number. I felt privileged to be an alien in America until I saw a Hollywood movie with slimy, green aliens. The word Alien felt less privileged by the end of the two hour movie. That was my first tryst with cultural difference. The days and years ahead had several embarrassing moments such as standing at the Starbucks counter wondering what a Frappuccino or Cappuccino was or being called Shitanya. At every embarrassing moment I hoped they handed me a manual of past experiences so I could feel less alien and more American. America Deconstructed was born in those moments.

America Deconstructed is the love child of that American Alien who walked into America fifteen years ago. Every immigrant journey is filled with funny, embarrassing moments that stem from cultural differences. This book chronicles those moments as it explores life, love and family. If you are looking for a easy read for a lazy Sunday afternoon with steaming hot cup of tea, please pre-order our book by clicking the link below.

Crowdfunding Link:

https://publishizer.com/america-deconstructed/

Social media links:

https://www.facebook.com/AmericaDeconstructed/

https://twitter.com/america_deconst

https://www.instagram.com/america_deconstructed/

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34234648-america-deconstructed

https://americadeconstructedblog.wordpress.com

AUTHOR BIO:

Chaithanya Sohan immigrated to America from India in 2001. She currently works as an Electrical Engineer in the Silicon Valley. Chaithanya graduated from San Jose State University with Bachelors in Electrical Engineering and a Masters in Electrical Engineering from Santa Clara University.

Chaithanya Sohan has worked as a writer since 2002 when she started writing content for various websites. She free-lanced as a writer until 2013 when she decided to write her book America Deconstructed.  Some of her works are published in websites such as www.rethinkreality.com. Chaithanya enjoys traveling and runs her own blogs www.nomadicsue.wordpress.com & www.wordspeare.wordpress.com.

Shaima Adin came to the United States as a refugee in May 2000 at the age of 16 with her mother and sisters. She is originally from Afghanistan but has lived several years of her life in Pakistan as a refugee as well.  Currently, she works in an engineering management position at a Safety and Quality-testing laboratory in Union City, CA.

In light of recent times and all the debate about immigrants and refugees around the world, Shaima joined forces with Chaithanya to put forth the stories of immigrants from different backgrounds that have called America home. Her purpose in doing so is to paint a different picture of immigrants and refugees by displaying their side of the stories and the struggles of starting from nothing.

SYNOPSIS OF THE BOOK:

Naseer was nine years old when he escaped Taliban and fled Afghanistan. His story, “There are some people who are coming to take me away”, chronicles the resilience of a nine year old boy as he travelled from Afghanistan to America in his quest for the American dream. “I saw a ripe mango I’d like to pluck” showcases the love story of Chidibere and Ifeyinwa and their struggles with language, culture and being African in America. In the story “Kosovo, really...cool”, Lisian takes us through his journey to America and often being asked his identity in spite of being white.  In the story “I am exotic, mocha, P-Diddy”, Parag describes his journey from a young sixth grader who hid his attraction to boys in conservative India to embracing his sexuality in America. America Deconstructed follows the journeys of sixteen immigrants as they manoeuvre cultural differences, accents and uncomfortable situations while feeling a sense of belonging in America.