The Great American Novel

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Coronado Adult Education
Spring 2017
The Great American Novel
February 7, 2017

“If you decide to become a professional writer, you
must, broadly speaking, decide whether you wish to
write for fame, for pleasure, or for money.”
Ian Fleming
How to Write a Thriller

Recap of What
We Covered Last Week

Non-Fiction - The Hungry Market
• Being - or becoming - the expert?
• Pursuing a subject - or letting life happen?
• Scratching itches - or entertaining?
• How much to tell and what’s next?
• Getting a publisher to buy your book
• Examples and resources

Getting a Publisher
to Buy Your Book

You Must Do This:
Decide What Your Non-Fiction Book Is

What Is Your Non-Fiction Book?
• Narrative Non-Fiction:
– A book that tells a true story, often using the techniques of
fiction: biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs
• Prescriptive Non-Fiction
– A book offering information and advice, this includes
helping readers improve their lives or learn a new skill

Narrative Non-Fiction
• Most narrative non-fiction is produced by someone
who has some experience as a writer
• Most good narrative non-fiction entertains through
storytelling as much as it informs
• Biographies typically require an enormous amount of
research and need to “hook” if the subject is familiar
• Many aspiring non-fiction writers focus on memoirs –
the “art” is finding something new to say
• At the end of the day, narrative non-fiction will
succeed or fail based on the author’s writing skill

Prescriptive Non-Fiction
• Prescriptive non-fiction requires decent writing, but
the bar isn’t as high as for narrative non-fiction
• However, this kind of book is sold on the basis of the
author’s platform or visibility
• Readers don’t want to be entertained, they want to
learn from the wisdom of your experience or insights
• Most popular categories of prescriptive non-fiction:
– Religion
– Business
– Self-help: Diet, health, fitness, self-improvement etc.

So What the End Game – What Are You
Looking For?
• Publishers who publish this kind of book
• Agents who agent this kind of book
• Once you know that, it’s all about the query
• Persistence on steroids!

The Query Letter
The “Bell Shaped Curve” For Most
• The hook
• Mini-synopsis
• Your bio
• Your closing – “where’s the beef?”
– High Concept
– Outline
– Table of Contents
– Sample Chapters
• “Bound the problem” for how much time you’re
going to spend on getting an “A” in query letters

Before You Write the Proposal
• Come up with a “purpose statement” for your book
and write it down in one sentence
• Then put this into a working question: This book is
the answer to….
• Two sources (there are a multitude of them in print):
– John Boswell – The Awful Truth About Publishing
– Jeff Herman – Write the Perfect Book Proposal

The Proposal – The 100,000-Foot View
• Who would read your book?
• Why would they buy it?
• Where would they use it?
• What else is available like your book?
• How does your book differ from others?
• When did you decide it’s better than Wikipedia?
Think about your competition today – not just books,
but the internet? Is your book better than Wikipedia?

Your Book Proposal
• This is not the time for humility
• Think back to when you wrote your first resume
• Advice from John Boswell: The Awful Truth About
Publishing
– Define the book’s audience
– Describe the book generally and specifically
– Show that your book fills a need for your audience
– Show that you are uniquely qualified to write this book

Let’s look at two examples of proposals
that worked….

Leave No Man Behind
• The “Hook” – Rescue Story (Clyde
Lassen – Medal of Honor)
• About the Book
• Table of Contents
• Chapter Summaries
• The Market
• The Authors
• Promotion
• Length and Delivery

Leave No Man Behind
“An important and comprehensive work on that most
American of military imperatives--going in harm's
way to get one of our own.” Dick Couch (NYT
bestselling author)
“Leave No Man Behind is a solid piece of history. Well
written, well told, well done!” Darrel Whitcomb
Author of The Rescue of Bat 21
“This story has never been told before! Leave No
Man Behind offers a unique blend of operational
experience and technical description.” Dr. Norman
Friedman – author of over 30 books.
“George Galdorisi and Tom Phillips have provided a
comprehensive, and well-written history of the
development of combat rescue up to the present,
including dramatic accounts of rescues, among them
many never before revealed.” Norman Polmar –
author of over 40 naval books.

The Kissing Sailor
Cover
Quote
Table of Contents
Concept (Why this book?)
Competition (Surely this story has
been told before?)
Timing (Why are we doing this
book at this time?)
Methodology (How are we going
to pull this off?)
About the Authors
Chapter Summary
The Market
Promotion
Length and Delivery

The Kissing Sailor
“What a wonderful detective story
about a kissing sailor and a beautiful
nurse – the most famous couple
celebrating the end of WWII. Famous
but anonymous - until now. I loved it.”
Tom Brokaw, author of The Greatest
Generation
“The Kissing Sailor is a whodunit that
provides once and for all the
identification of the world’s best-
known smoochers…You have to read
this book!” David Hume Kennerly,
Pulitzer Prize winning photographer

A Non-Fiction Writer
Margot Lee Shetterly
Margot Lee was born in 1969 in Hampton, Virginia. Her father
worked as a research scientist at NASA-Langley Research Center
and her mother was an English professor at Hampton University,
a historically black college or university. Lee grew up in an
environment of knowing many African-American families with
members who worked at NASA. She attended Phoebus High
School and graduated from the University of Virginia's McIntire
School of Commerce.
After college, Lee moved to New York and worked several years
in investment banking: first on the Foreign Exchange trading desk
at J.P. Morgan, then on Merrill Lynch's Fixed Income Capital
Markets desk. She shifted to the media industry, working at a
variety of startup ventures, including the HBO-funded website
Volume.com. She married writer Aran Shetterly.

A Non-Fiction Writer
Margot Lee Shetterly
In 2005, the Shetterlys moved to Mexico to found an English-
language magazine called Inside Mexico. Directed to the
numerous English-speaking expats in the country, it operated
until 2009. From 2010 through 2013, the couple worked as
content marketing and editorial consultants to the Mexican
tourism industry.
Margot Lee Shetterly began researching and writing Hidden
Figures in 2010. In 2014, she sold the film rights to the book to
William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins, and optioned by
Donna Gigliotti of Levantine Films

So much for non-fiction…
…let’s move on to fiction…
…and specifically, novels

Non-Fiction vs. Fiction:
What’s Needed to Sell It
• Non-fiction: What are you going to write?
• Fiction: How are you going to write it?

This Week:
The Great American Novel

“For me, I gotta write, and it’s the adventure of it that’s
hooked me. As the writer, I can do it all. I get to be the
National Security Advisor who recommends the action
to the President who must commit the forces. I’m the
senior officer who sends his men into action and who
feels the pain if they don’t make it back. I’m the enemy
and the defender; logistician and staff planner. But
most of all, I’m a young man again, that fresh
lieutenant who must lead his men into battle.”
Dick Couch
“So you Want to be a Writer”

2015 & 2016: “The Great American Novel”
• Great or not-so-great? What you need to know
getting started
• Mainstream or genre? Which way should you go?
• Defining your audience and picking a “voice” and
point of view
• Getting the sale with a publisher

2017: Pitching, Writing,
Selling and Promoting Fiction
• The high concept and the pitch
• Writing your novel and making it shine
• Selling your novel to an agent or a publisher
• *Promoting what someone publishes*

Optional Homework Assignment
for February 7
• Novels have the lowest barrier to entry of virtually
anything you can write except social media
• You have a novel idea you want to pitch to an agent
or a publisher:
– Tell us whether it’s mainstream or genre
– Tell us why it is “familiar but new”
– Convince the agent it will have fabulous:
• Plot
• Characterization
• Action
• Put this into prose you can read in two minutes

Writers (left) and Editors (right)
• Beate
• Cinders
• Frank
• Nika
• Les
• Kelly
• Emily
• Judith

Beate
Crown Publishing Group
280 Park Avenue
New York NY 10017-1216
Dear Mr. Simon,
I have an idea for a mainstream novel, “Monterey Girls Club.” It is a
compilation of short stories by nine women who went to the same
home town high school, went their different ways and came together
again after 25 years. For the last twenty years they have gathered at
the same condo, on a private beach just outside of Monterey,
California. I am one of the nine and through the last 20 years, I see
how we are all so diverse, but also the same. We each have a story to
tell and share with similarities many other women will relate to. These
stories are heartbreaking, but also humorous at times. Our stories are
about life, love and true friendship. This makes our stories something
we all have dealt with, but in different ways.

Beate
Sandra
Sandra graduated deemed the most likely to succeed. A title that is true to
life. She went on to college, received a degree in engineering and worked for
a very successful manufacturing firm in Silicon Valley. Sandra married a
leader of a local rock and roll band from San Francisco. They never had
children. Sandra was our matriarch. Our leader and confidant. She became
the center of our little universe.
Natalie
Natalie was the youngest daughter of our town doctor. She was always the
life of a party or any social gathering. She had the spoiled life of privilege.
Her father may have been a doctor, but he was also a drunk. There was
always a hush throughout her home. Something we all knew, but never
mentioned. I recall personally a time when my mother had an allergic
reaction to penicillin and was rushed to the hospital by ambulance, but he
was unavailable to see her. I was angry.
Natalie went on to college and lived in Spain for a year to study Spanish. She
became a bilingual elementary school teacher. Her first husband died from a
brain tumor and she was left raising two small children on her own. There is
much more to her life story.

Beate
Patrice
Patrice was a volunteer candy stripper in high school. I remember her pink striped apron.
She became a nurse and eventually managed an entire medical staff in a local hospital. Her
father was jailed for smuggling illegal immigrants from Mexico just when we all graduated
from high school. Probably how he paid for her education. He spent most of her young
adult years in prison. She married and had three children, two sons and one daughter. The
oldest son grew up to be the local drug dealer. Her daughter joined the service and came
home suffering from PTSD and attempted suicide several times. Her chapter will
characterize how she dealt with her life’s ups and downs.
Claudia
Claudia was a beautiful Hispanic girl that never spoke Spanish. She always became insulted
when other Hispanic people assumed she spoke Spanish and addressed her in that
language. Claudia would put her nose in the air and snarkily said she does NOT speak
Spanish!
She married her high school sweetheart and had two children. Life was normal for them
until her husband was arrested in Mexico for manufacturing, selling and transporting
methamphetamine. Sounds like a story right out of a movie. She remained steadfast to
him, even though we told her to leave him and move on. Their court expenses caused
them to file bankruptcy. She was broke and alone to raise her two small children on her
own. She never went to college and did not have any work skills to speak of. Welfare was
her crutch, and her family the support to survive. After more than five years in a Tijuana
Jail, her husband came home. Her chapter will continue the saga and the deep love she
holds for her misbehaving husband.

Beate
Deana
Deana was the adventurous one in school. She was a beautiful blonde and all the boys loved her.
She experimented with sex, drugs and alcohol. She was our high school homecoming princess
and a talented song leader. Everyone adored her. She married a Hells Angel gang member,
traveled with the group on the back of his Harley for many years after high school. She had one
daughter whose birth caused them to settle down and raise her in a “normal” environment. He
became a park ranger in northern California and Deana the happy homemaker. Their daughter is
a beautiful, successful architect in New York today. Deana’s husband has since passed away from
all of the drugs and alcohol in his early days. And Deana now cares for her retired older sister
dying of cancer in Idaho. There is much for Deana to write about in her days between high school
and life today.
This is just a brief sample of the nine autobiographies we have available for our book, “The
Monterey Girls Club.” Our nine lifestyles are so diverse, but yet we have a tight comradery that
nothing will destroy. Each story will describe the heart ache we felt and strength we found to
overcome some of life’s most difficult obstacles. I am positive women and men will find our
stories entertaining, educating and even funny.
I look forward to hearing from you. My information is listed below. Thank you for your time and
consideration.
Sincerely,
Beate Boyd
619-849-0123 oceans2014@yahoo.com

Cinders
Nimbly she wrapped her arms and legs tighter around the enormous bough,
breathing in the fragrant scent of the bark, as she rested her cheek atop its
roughened exterior. She took her time with the metamorphosis as the process
could not be rushed. She felt the power of the mighty oak seep into her being,
hearing it’s internal dialogue, eventually sensing its readiness to accept her.
Ever so gently she began easing herself into her new skin.
Dear A. Gent,
Above is a short excerpt from my novel “Tree Dreamer”, a paranormal eco-
fantasy that melds the elements of magic, lore, love, and radical ecological
activism into a breathtaking adventure that collates rapid action scenes with
the peaceful moments only appreciated in nature. It is a story of a group of
friends, working as an organization called Earth-Free, whose mission it is to
save old growth trees from destruction, especially by the multi-million dollar
corporation Kingdome Industries and our antagonist, the private corporate
megalomaniac Seth Kingdome, whose business practices are less than
impeccable, even if his manicure is.

Cinders
Our heroine, Tree Agapios, has the fantastic ability of shapeshifting into trees,
a keen skill for the dangerous work that she does. She encounters our hero on
a journey of self discovery while forging his path through forest lands nearby.
Satori Griffin is an Indian ascetic and yogi with spiritually honed magical
abilities of his own. With the assistance of the Earth-Free tribe of: Tree’s
college best friend Bosch, nurturer Gaelyn, task master Bodi, nature specialist
Robyn, and girlfriends Jojo and Sunny who keep the land and home running
smoothly, they work together toward a mutual goal that is rife with danger
and a spine-tingling ending that no one could have predicted.
Since I’d hate to keep you in suspense, please reach out and I will forward
more magic and adventure from “Tree Dreamer”, for your perusal. I am happy
to discuss the possible opportunity of working together to bring this dream to
fruition on the page for a wider audience, whenever it is convenient.
To dreams brought into reality,
Cinders Gott
lovecinders@gmail.com
123.456.7890

Frank
I understand that you are writing a book on the life of a global
warming researcher. It will be an accessible book that allows the
common man/women to understand what it feels like every day
to wake up and get on with the life of a field researcher in at
times miserable conditions back in the day.
I think that I have a unique perspective on the subject that could
enhance the feel of your book. My project for two summers was
to figure out what might happen when the permafrost in the
tundra melts – as it is certainly doing with a vengeance right
now.

Frank
There was a huge difference between how well things ran between the
first and second summers. First summer there was no plan and
everyone was miserable. I was in charge of camp dynamics the second
summer – better food, very dangerous competitions to blow off
steam, everything ran much more smoothly. One specific example was
getting the stodgy principal investigator to try to kick over the
outhouse with someone in it. It got him to lighten up which made the
camp more comfortable.
My research results weren’t that insightful. My success was in
describing a process that could acquire global baseline data. The data
was acquired but now many fear that it and other very valuable data
will be destroyed by the Trump administrations to be replaced by
alternative facts. If he is allowed to do what many fear, all that hard
and miserable field work will be moot.
Cheers,
Frank Hafner

Nika
Hi Agent Smith,
I have an idea for a fiction novel, 'Miss 2-1-3-Alpha-Foxtrot'. It's geared as a
motivational book for teenage girls that I wanted to share with you.
The book is about a teenage girl Avala living during WW2, who lacks self
confidence and doesn't fit in at school. Although these troubles are
commonly written about, this book is different because Avala finds her place
after discovering an old airplane in an abandoned barn. Learning to fly it with
the help of the farm boy, Mike, leads her down the path of adventure and
mishap. With the town men at combat, and town supplies low, help is
needed. Avala is then called upon by a wounded Women Air Service Pilot
(WASP) to fly her mission which will save many lives in town. The question is,
does Avala have the confidence to fly it?
Please let me know what you think.
Thanks,
Nika Schiazza

The High Concept and the Pitch:
The Great American Novel?

Mr. Clancy said none of his success came easily, and he
would remind aspiring writers of that when he spoke to
them. “I tell them you learn to write the same way you
learn to play golf,” he once said. “You do it, and keep doing
it until you get it right. A lot of people think something
mystical happens to you, that maybe the muse kisses you
on the ear. But writing isn’t divinely inspired — it’s hard
work.”
Tom Clancy
Quoted in the New York Times
October 2, 2013

The High Concept and the Pitch
• What you need to know getting started
• Mainstream or genre? Which way should you go?
• Getting story ideas
• What a reader wants from a novel

The High Concept and Pitch:
Of What?
• The king died and then the queen died.
– A story
• The king died and then the queen died of grief.
– A plot
• The queen died, and no one knew why, until it was
discovered that it was through grief at the death of
the king.
– A mystery

Some Preliminaries: Dean Koontz’s
Recommendations to New Writers
• Thought
• Care
• Storytelling
• Craftsmanship

Great or Not-So-Great?
What You Need to Know Getting Started
• Lots of decisions to make:
– Mainstream or genre
– Publisher or self-publish
– Single work or a series
– Time-bounding to complete
• The competition is intense:
– Increasing number of novels published
– This means that far-fewer are commercially successful
– In many ways, the market is over-saturated
– Compared to non-fiction, there are fewer barriers to entry

Two Types of Fiction
• Literary fiction
o Literary fiction, also known as serious fiction, is a term
principally used for fictional works that hold literary merit,
that is to say, they are works that offer deliberate social
commentary, political criticism, or focus on the individual
to explore some part of the human condition.
• Trade fiction
o Trade books are published for general readership, and
usually are headed for bookstores and libraries. They are
not rare books or textbooks for small, specialized or niche
readerships. A trade book can be paperback or hardback. It
can occupy a wide range of genres.

Mainstream or Genre?
Which Way Should You Go?
• Mainstream…
• Genre…
• Niche…
• Other…

Dean Koontz
On Generating New Story Ideas
• Read!
• Write!
• Tickle the imagination and generate story ideas by
playing around with exotic titles
• Type out a bunch of narrative hooks and find one
that is intriguing
• Prime the idea pump by building up a couple of
characters in enormous detail
• Whatever you write, you must begin your novel by
plunging the hero or heroine into terrible trouble

What the Average Reader
Demands of a Novel
• A strong plot
• A great deal of action
• A hero, or heroine, or both
• Colorful, imaginative, & convincing characterization
• Clear, believable, character motivations
• Well-drawn backgrounds
• At least some familiarity with the English language
• A style with lyrical language and striking images

Defining Your Audience and Picking a
“Voice” and Point of View
• Who are you writing for?
• What point of view should you pick?
– What POV do you most enjoy in the fiction you read?
– What POV seems most natural to you?
• Go for a test drive
– Write three chapters in third-person
– Write the same three chapters in first-person

Writing Your Novel
and Making It Shine

“There is only one recipe for a bestseller and it is a very
simple one. If you look back on all the bestsellers you
have read, you will find they all have one quality you
simply have to turn the page.”
Ian Fleming

Writing Your Novel and Making It Shine
• Success stems from this quality as a story-teller
• That said, the three most important things
• Other essential things
• The quality control process

Success Stems From This
Quality as a Story-Teller
“It’s not what you know that counts, it’s whether the
reader believes that you know something. This effect is
called the suspension of disbelief.
Oscar Collier and Frances Leighton
How to Write and Sell Your First Novel

Let’s talk about three of the most
important ingredients in writing a
successful novel…

CharacterizationPlotting
Action
You must do
all three well!

“There are only two plots: The hero takes a journey and
a stranger comes to town.”
Timothy Spurgin
“The Art of Reading”
The Great Courses

The Classic Plot
• The writer introduces a hero or heroine who has just been –
or is about to be – plunged into terrible trouble
• The hero or heroine attempts to solve his or her problem but
only slips deeper into trouble
• As they try to climb out of the hole they’re in, complications
arise, each more terrible than the one before, until the
situation could not become more hopeless, then one final
unthinkable complication arises and makes matters worse.
• At last, deeply affected and changed by his awful experiences
and intolerable circumstances, the hero learns something
about himself and the human condition. He then understands
what he must do to get out of the dangerous situation in
which he has wound up. He takes the necessary actions and
either succeeds or fails, succeeding more often than not.

“You can distill anydrama – a Greek tragedy, a
Shakespearian play, a modern novel, a TV drama or
comedy, whatever – into a simple equation: ‘What do
these guys want, why do they want it, and what’s
keeping them from getting it?’”
Bill Bleich
Writing advice

Plots
• Create a compelling plot
• Write a grabber opening
• Write a successful ending
• Create a middle that keeps the reader involved

James Hall – Hit Lit
• Gone with the Wind
• Peyton Place
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Valley of the Dolls
• The Godfather
• The Exorcist
• Jaws
• The Dead Zone
• The Hunt for Red October
• The Firm
• The Bridges of Madison County
• The Da Vinci Code

Let’s take a deep-dive into one well-known
way to design or deconstruct a plot….

Let’s Deconstruct This Using a
Book We All Are Familiar With
• Pride and Prejudice
• Ulysses
• War and Peace
• Anna Karenina
• Don Quixote
• Little Women
• The Wizard of Oz

Important Qualities for
Heroes, Heroines and Strangers
• Virtue
• Competence
• Courage
• Likeability
• Imperfections
• Change:
– Layers
– Arcs

Character Motivations
• Love
• Curiosity
• Self-preservation
• Greed
• Self-discovery
• Duty
• Revenge

Character Traits
• Physical appearance
• Movement and gestures
• Past life
• Religion
• Sexuality
• Vocation
• Skills and talents
• Fears
• Dreams
• Pleasures
• Plans for the future
• Sense of humor
• Politics
• Voice and speech

Presenting Character Traits Thoughtfully
• How many major and minor characters to have
• All major characters must have a biography
• Develop a “job description” for each character
• You will know what your characters will do
• You are writing a novel – not a movie script
– You have to get your characters from Point A to Point B
– Your characters are not dead when they’re off the page
• What is each character doing?
– On stage
– Off stage

Take a female character who is on her way to her high school
reunion. She’s 50, attractive, divorced, and has had no contact
with her graduating class since she left Iowa for Berkley in
1985. There was a guy she jilted when she went off to
school. Develop her.
• Physical: height, weight, hair color, best feature, worst
feature, etc.
• Occupation: attorney, doctor, college professor, executive,
runs a dot.com startup, etc.
• Personal: strengths, weaknesses, phobias, attitude toward
men, attitude toward all others, etc.
• Family: siblings, relationship with mom/dad, rivalries
• Relationships: good/bad/difficult, marriage(s), children?
Present her in a way that’s not a “police blotter”

.…let’s color in two characters….

New York Times, Publisher’s Weekly
& USA Today Best-Seller!
Let’s color in one character, Anne
Sullivan, Op-Center’s Deputy
Director

“Anne Sullivan was a retired General Services
Administration super grade who had made a career in
Washington. She knew all about the government,
including government contracting, hiring, firing, and
funding, and how to sidestep the issues. These were
things Williams never had to deal with, even during
his multiple tours in Washington.”

“Unlike Williams, Sullivan came from money. Her
father had fashioned a successful and lucrative career
in finance with Bain Capital Ventures. Between that
family money and her GSA retirement, she was
looking forward to a comfortable life. She enjoyed the
D.C. social and cultural scene and traveled often,
primarily to Europe and especially to Ireland. That
plan was interrupted when Williams recruited her—
charmed her, really, she readily admitted—to be his
deputy.”

New York Times, Publisher’s
Weekly & USA Today Best-
Seller!
Let’s color in one character,
Kate Bigelow, Commanding
Officer, USS Milwaukee
(LCS-5) Freedom-Class Littoral
Combat Ship

“Kate Bigelow was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. She’d
gone to the Academy for two reasons: to play lacrosse and to
sing. Coming out of Montgomery Blair Prep in Silver Spring,
Maryland, her two passions had been playing lacrosse and
singing in her school glee club and church choir. She was an all-
state midfielder and also had a strong voice. Her grades were
good if not outstanding, but the Academy women’s lacrosse
coach saw her play and liked what she saw. Lacrosse was a
rough sport, even the woman’s game, and Kate Bigelow, while
owning a technically sound game, was not above flattening an
opposing player with a legal hit. She started for three years on
the lacrosse team, beating Army two of those three years, and
had sung in the Catholic Choir and the Naval Academy Glee
Club.”

“Kate had graduated in the upper half of the bottom third of
the Class of 2002. She’d never really considered a full career in
the Navy as a seagoing officer, two things intervened that kept
her from leaving the service. She found she liked U.S. Navy
sailors and she had a knack for leading them. Secondly, she
found command intoxicating. There was nothing like it on the
outside, so she stayed in the Navy. She had previously
commanded an MCM ship like Defender that now followed
them out of Sasebo.”

When he finished packing, he walked out onto the
third-floor porch of the barracks brushing the dust from
his hands, a very neat and deceptively slim young man
in the summer khakis that were still early morning
fresh.
James Jones
(From Here to Eternity, opening sentence)

"Jones packs a hell of a lot into that first line. He tells
you it's summer, he tells you it's morning, he tells you
you're on an Army post with a soldier who's obviously
leaving for someplace, and he gives you a thumbnail
description of his hero. That's a good opening line."
Ed McBain in Killer's Payoff

…plot?...characterization?...which is more
important?

Plot or Characterization
• You have to have plot to make the reader turn pages
• People are the story and the whole story
????????????????????????????????????????????????
• Plot has the entertainment value to pull the reader
along
• The characters are the vehicle, the tools through
which you tell your story
• Readers want you to tell them a story
• Dialogue brings your characters to life!

“There is only one recipe for a bestseller and it is a very
simple one. If you look back on all the bestsellers you
have read, you will find they all have one quality; you
simply have to turn the page.”
Ian Fleming

What About Action?
• Action evolves naturally from the plot
• There is no “formula” for having action in your novel
• As Clancy said, don’t overthink the action
• That said, here are some things to consider:
– Different kinds of novels lend themselves to more or less
– Write all the action you can – then consider Goldilocks
– If riveting, hold-your-breath action is anywhere – up front
– Balance scene and summary to bound action scenes

But That’s Not All!
(Mainstream and Genre)
• High Concept (Think in movie terms)
– The Coronado Conspiracy
– For Duty and Honor
• Theme
– The Coronado Conspiracy
– For Duty and Honor

Selling Your Novel to an
Agent or a Publisher

“All good writing is swimming under water and holding
your breath.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Selling Your Novel to an
Agent or a Publisher
• In many ways, it’s all about the sale to an agent
• Getting an agent to read your proposal and ms
• Packaging yourself professionally
• The query letter and the pitch
• The Treatment
• The Narrative Outline

It is All About Getting the Sale
• Query agents – get the statistics on your side:
– Forty years ago – 30% of books were agented
– In the last decade – Over 85% of books were agented
• Small publishers – you will likely bear some risk
– Probably no advance
– Limited print run
• Be your own agent – to find an agent: Richard Curtis
How to Be Your Own Literary Agent

Getting an Agent to Read Your Manuscript
• It starts with being familiar with books in your “field”
• Then you find out which agents agented those books
• Stay in the library: Get contact info for agents
• Go back to what you’ve learned about query letters:
– High Concept (back to the movies)
– Treatment
– Narrative Outline
– Full Manuscript
• Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: One example

Let’s “Deconstruct” a Treatment
and a Narrative Outline

Let’s Deconstruct
a Novel Treatment
• Cover
• Organization
• Organizing Impulse and High Concept
• The “Old” OpCenter Dies
• The “New” OpCenter is Born
• New Character Details
– Preamble
– Those who spend a great deal of time
physically at OpCenter
– Those who deal with crises overseas
in each scenario
– Those who deal with crises
domestically in each scenario
• OpCenter Plot and Scenario Plan
– Preamble
– Short Plot Synopsis
• For us, this was 17,000+ words

Let’s Deconstruct
a Narrative Outline
• Cover
• Front matter
• Chapter summaries
– Separate sections
– One or two paragraphs per
section
• Epilogue
• For us, this was 19,000+
words

Promoting What
Someone Publishes

“You are the CEO of your own career.”
David Sona
Navy Transition Course
Spring 2000

Promoting What Someone Publishes
• What you should think twice before doing
– Pestering friends and family to buy your book
– Taking your books from event to event to sell
• What you should think of doing instead
– Create anticipation for your book
– Establish a world-class online presence
– Use social media to the extent writing is still first
– Write about your book’s subject matter – everywhere
• We’ll cover these subjects over the next two weeks

Resources
• E.E. Forster Aspects of the Novel
• Francine Prose Reading Like a Writer
• Richard Curtis How To Be Your Own Literary Agent
• James Hall Hit Lit
• Dr. Linda Seger
– The Art of Adaptation
– Advanced Screenwriting
• Robert Masello
– Robert’s Rules of Writing
– Writer Tells All
• The Great Courses, especially, Jane Friedman How to Publish Your
Book
• Bob Mayer (Writing tips on Slide Share via LinkedIn):
http://www.slideshare.net/search/slideshow?lang=%2A%2A&page
=1&q=Bob+Mayer&qid=e14407c8-676f-4ab8-9857-
82cab373669b&searchfrom=header&sort=relevance

“Being a comparatively successful writer is a good life.
You don’t have to work at it all the time and you carry
your office around in your head. And you are far more
aware of the world around you. Writing makes you
more alive to your surroundings and, since the main
ingredient of living, though you might not think so to
look at most human beings is to be alive, this is quite a
worthwhile by-product, even if you only write thrillers.”
Ian Fleming

Slides Posted:
http://www.georgegaldorisi.com/
E-mail address:
george@georgegaldorisi.com
E-mail me if you’d like:
The Treatment and Narrative Outline for
Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Out of the Ashes

Establishing an Online Presence
• Review of weeks one through four
– Writing in general
– Writing for and selling for publication
– Writing and selling non-fiction
– Writing and selling novels
• What makes your online material unique?
• Beating the competition for “eyes”
• Balancing content and entertainment
• Doing-it-yourself…or…?

Optional Homework Assignment
for February 14
• Think of a few writers that you enjoy
• “Google” their names and find their author websites
• Pick the one that impresses you the most
• Walk us through why it’s impressive

The Great American Novel

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