Week Four: DAYS 22–28

FIRST ASSESSMENTS

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. You may want to stretch those writing fingers or do a few deep-knee bends for good measure. You’ve been doing a lot of writing these past few weeks, and maybe all this sitting has taken a physical toll. You’ve skipped the gym or your morning walk a few times in order to squeeze in your writing hours. Or maybe you ate a TV dinner at your desk while typing away. Writers are notorious for having digestive disorders. Has your spouse/ partner/friend/kids complained yet that you’re not spending enough time with them? Nobody said writing would be easy. Nobody said writing would help your social life either. So go ahead and stretch out your legs and back; take a few inhales and exhales. Now, at-ten-TION! That’s about all the break time you have. Back to work. You’ve got a novel to write, and only sixty-odd days to do it.

As discussed earlier, the key to successful novel writing, like any large-scale project, is to break the seemingly daunting task into smaller, more manageable segments. You, of course, just spent the last three weeks doing that. And now, as luck would have it (though luck really didn’t have anything to do with it), you are the proud new parent of an outline. Make no mistake about it, this outline will become the most important tool for you as you progress through-out this ninety-day novel challenge. Perhaps it sounds a bit hokey to you, but you really should be proud of yourself. In three short weeks you managed to take your novel idea and turn it into a fully functioning blueprint for your novel-to-be. That’s quite an accomplishment, if you ask me, more than many would-be novelists do in their lifetimes. You’ve already created some separation between yourself and ninety percent of the wannabes. Hopefully, you’ve surprised yourself a little bit with your ability to stick to a schedule (when prodded), with your ability to sustain your writing and fill up your notebook or your computer screen, and with your new and improved dedication to writing. That’ll be the trick to writing a novel in ninety days, after all: producing pages.

By this point, not only have you drafted a working out-line of your novel, you’ve also begun to develop the necessary writing habits that will help you see this project through. And these habits will become just as important as the outline itself. After all, what good is a blueprint if you don’t have the proper building materials? The blueprint, then, becomes just another drawing of another house. If you’ve come this far and don’t think you can make it, that’s fine. But then you can no longer say you want to write a novel. That’s a bit like saying you want to go deep-sea fishing, but you don’t want to get on the boat. Or you want to win a marathon, but you don’t want to run it. Sure, we all want glory without any of the work.

For those of you who are hungry and eager to sink your teeth into your writing project, tackling that book scene by scene, let’s get to it. I’m glad you find the work is worth it. You’ve begun to establish and develop your characters, you’ve practiced scene writing, and you have a good sense of where your novel will begin and end. Heck, you’ve practically written the thing in your mind already. So the next step will be writing the novel, right?

Wrong.

But close. This week, instead, we want to pay particular attention to your outline, to the narrative arc of your story, and to some of the other finer details that might trip you up along the way as you write. That is, I want you to be as prepared as possible when you begin writing your novel so you can spend your daily writing hours freed up from the logistical concerns of your story line. This freeing up will allow you the luxury of truly getting lost in your novelistic world, as you won’t have to continually ask yourself which way your characters might turn next, what the next plot point will be, or if you’ve built up enough tension leading to the climax of your novel. If you already know these elements of your story, you can refocus on the most important aspects of your work: developing a compelling story and creating characters your readers truly care about. In the end, character and story are the two most important features of any novel.

Before you read further, I’d like for you to print out a hard copy of your outline, or, if you’ve handwritten it on paper or note cards, I’d like you to set them in front of you. You’ll need to spend some time reading it, assessing it, and thinking about the various uses for the individual scenes you’ve charted for your novel.

WEEK 4, ASSIGNMENT 1: Assessing Scene Worth

Not all scenes are created equal. Each scene serves to reveal only a snapshot of the entire picture. Or, to borrow from William Blake, only one “grain of sand” on the beach that is your novel. As discussed in the chapter on scene structure, each scene must have a specific purpose within the context of your novel, and this purpose should be clear to you as you are writing. Your readers will expect each scene to contribute in some way to either the plot or the character development, and if your scenes feel directionless or, even worse, pointless, your reader might just put down the novel altogether and never pick it up again. Nothing is more frustrating than feeling like you’ve wasted time reading a book with no point. With each scene that has mate-rialized on your outline, you should be able to answer the following questions:

• What is the purpose of this scene?

• How is this scene related to the scene immediately before/after?

• What characters are involved in this scene?

• What is the setting?

• What is at stake for the protagonist in this scene?

• What is the conflict in this scene?

• How does this scene further develop my novel’s plot?

If, as you peruse your outline, you’re unable to come up with a clear intention of a given scene, you might be wiser to cut that scene, combine it with another, or redevelop it. In these early stages, don’t be afraid to cut scenes you don’t feel contribute to your holistic vision of the novel. Remember, each dead-end street you drive down during the next sixty-odd days will waste your valuable time as you turn around and get to your final destination.

At this point, I want you to number each scene on your outline. There is no right or wrong number of scenes to have — some novels have as many scenes as they have chapters. In other novels, some chapters are comprised of several scenes cobbled together. After you’ve numbered each scene, and on a separate piece of paper (or in a separate document, if you are working on your computer), I want you to answer each question from page 135. To be clear, this process will involve some time as you mull over the decisions you made last week. But be warned: Do not take shortcuts by answering the questions in your head. You’ll need to actually articulate, on paper, the answers to these questions: Why? (As my mother would say to me as a child, “Why are you always asking why?”) Because when you force yourself to verbalize the purpose and intent of each scene, you’ll have a clearer sense of whether that scene is working and whether that scene is even relevant to your novel. A scene you originally thought was crucial to your character development may wind up too similar to a different scene, and is therefore unnecessary. For instance, if you note that the purpose of scene 10 and scene 12 both work to reveal your protagonist’s fear of rejection due to the fact that he was born with six fingers on each hand, you might want to simply combine those scenes into one. Trust that your readers are astute enough to pick up on this insecurity the first time you wrote it.

WEEK 4, ASSIGNMENT 2: Assessing Scene Variety

You’ve heard the cliché: Variety is the spice of life. We use clichés in real life — though never in fiction — because Sometimes they hold a kernel of truth. (See what I did there? I used a cliché to demonstrate my point.) Few people can stand the monotony of facing the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. The same holds true in fiction; you must afford your reader a variety of scene types; otherwise they’ll likely grow bored. You’ll need to include an artful balance of both internal and external scenes in order to maintain a good pace in your novel, thus sustaining the interest of your reader. If every scene is one of interior monologue, your reader will probably tune out. However, if every scene contains only dialogue or action, your reader may never truly know the interiority of your main character, and therefore your reader won’t connect with him. If you need to brush up on the types of internal and external scenes, you may want to review the scene types presented in a previous chapter before continuing this assignment.

Seems like just yesterday you started your ninety-day novel. Stretch your memory back to the very first assignment on Day 1: Ready, Set, Go (With What You Know). If you can’t remember this assignment, get it out, print it out, or pull it up on your computer where you saved it. In this assignment you were asked to brainstorm a list of your memories — the people, places, and things you surrounded yourself with as a child. Now, for just a few moments, I want you to add three more categories. Favorite Moments, Biggest Fears, Biggest Upsets, and Most Embarrassing Moments. Spend about ten minutes brainstorming these categories on a separate piece of paper before reading on. Don’t worry; I’ll wait.

A good notion to keep in mind is that fiction is a mirror held up to our own lives. Review the list you just brainstormed. Are your experiences, fears, and traumas more internal or external? For example, does your biggest upset stem from a car accident (external) or from your sensitivity after the death of your family dog, Pepper (internal)? What do you fear most? Failure (internal) or the possibility that your hair will catch on fire (external)? Was your favorite moment when you accomplished a personal goal (internal) or when you purchased your first home (external)?

If you prefer to think of novel writing in metaphorical terms again, here’s another one: Your novel is a foot-ball game, and each scene is a play that allows you to gain some yards. Each scene should function to reveal an element of character or plot that will be vital to your novel as a whole. But the quarterback can’t keep calling the same play over and over again. No, that would grow predictable to the defense, and therefore not many yards would be gained. The quarterback has to call a different play each time in order to keep the defense on their toes and, ultimately, in order to score a touchdown. The same holds true for your novel: Each scene should reveal a snapshot of the entire picture, but, as you know from your own brainstorm list, this will require your protagonist to experience the world on both an internal and an external level — and in different ways. You’ll need scenes that reveal the interior depth of your character, and you’ll need scenes that put your character into the center of the action. In some scenes your character will be alone, which will require you to master the art of indirect speech. In other scenes, you’ll need to place your characters in dialogue with other characters so we know how they think and how they speak. In other words, you need scene variety.

Have you ever read a novel that felt slow to you in some spots? Have you ever read a novel where it took too long for something to happen? Or have you ever come to a boring section of a novel and started to skim until you got to a “good part” again? The problem with many of these novels is that the pacing is off. Perhaps too many internal scenes were positioned back to back, or perhaps the drama felt unearned because you didn’t know what the characters were thinking. (This can often be the result of too many action scenes in a row.) Think for a moment about the kinds of scenes that cause you to lose interest in a novel, and keep this in mind as you write. Don’t write the kinds of scenes that bore you; otherwise you’re simply passing the baton of boredom to someone else. And that’s not very nice, now, is it?

It’s never too early to start thinking about the pacing of your novel. In fact, if you address the issue of pacing and scene variety before you write your novel, the problems you find as you write will be much easier to remedy. It becomes time-consuming to eliminate or reorder scenes after you’ve written your entire book, because for each scene you cut or reorder, you’ll discover several loose ends that need to be fixed as well. And, as you know, with only a ninety-day schedule, time is not something you want to waste.

Before moving on to the next section, take out your outline and find yourself a highlighter. For all the scenes on your outline — you’ve numbered them by now — I want you to label whether you think an internal or an external scene will be necessary. Simply place an I for internal or an E for external next to the individual scenes on your outline. Now ask yourself:

• Are the internal and external scenes in a healthy balance with one another? Are there any sections of your novel that contain too many back-to-back external scenes, such as dialogue scenes, dramatic scenes, action scenes, or, conversely, too many internal scenes, setting-forward scenes (ones that rely heavily on setting to reveal the character or tone), emotional scenes, interior monologue scenes?

• Are there any places in your outline where you are concerned with losing the reader’s interest? What do you think is the slowest part of your novel?

• Are there any portions of your outline that could include an internal scene in order to reveal the thoughts, fears, or motivations behind your main character’s actions?

You may find that, as luck would have it, your outline is balanced in perfect harmony. Or, if you are one of the 99.9 percent of people who need to make a few adjustments to your outline, now is the time to do so. How can you rear-range, cut, or reenvision your scene order or scene types to keep an even pace in your novel? You may find you can squeeze a short internal scene between two dramatic/ action scenes. Or you may find you can eliminate too many internal scenes altogether. Be sure to spend the necessary time assessing scene variety at this point. You’ll be thankful that you did.

WEEK 4, ASSIGNMENT 3: Assessing the Narrative Arc

In the last assignment, you were asked to pay some attention to the pacing of your novel through scene variety. However, pacing is also achieved by giving your novel a natural narrative arc. As we discussed in an earlier assignment, the arc of your novel is, quite simply, how your novel progresses from the beginning, into the stakes-raising middle, and then finally to the end.

Have you ever played that amusement-park game where you roll a bowling ball on a metal track with two humps? The goal of this game is to roll the ball hard enough to get the ball over the first hump, but not too hard so that the bowling ball flies over the second one. The aim of the player is to balance the ball in the small valley between the two humps in the track. The trick to this game — and it’s difficult, trust me! — is to give the ball enough momentum, but not too much.

Your novel functions much in this way, too. You want your novel to have the necessary momentum to keep your reader turning the pages, but you don’t want to give away too much information, detail, or plot points too quickly. If your reader feels she already knows what’s going to happen, she’ll likely put down your book and look for another form of entertainment. I hear lawn darts are making a comeback.

As we discussed in the assignment from Days 14, 15, and 16, a novel can be loosely divided into three parts, or acts, as we’ll be calling them, and each of these acts has a different function within the context of your novel. In this assignment, I want to pay particular attention to your novel’s three acts to ensure your story line builds, heightens, deepens, and resolves itself at the right pace.

But, first, I want you to return to your outline again. Before we move on, and on a separate piece of paper, I want you to make a list of all the ways in which your character’s yearning is blocked in your outline, as it stands now. Again, you must make a physical list, not just a mental one. Why? Because the way we process information in our heads and on paper is quite different, and the reader never has the advantage of being in your head. Go on, then, write down your list. Take your time with it. I’m in no hurry.

Once you have finished, ask yourself: Have you drawn out the yearning or the conflict long enough to sustain the novel? Does each scene in your outline offer a glimpse into your protagonist’s yearning and the ways in which it is being blocked?

Remember from our earlier lessons: Yearning generates plot. Without some thwarted desires, your novel will likely go nowhere. What fun is it to read a novel about a character who always gets her way? It would read something like this:

Mary is a beautiful, fit, energetic woman with two gorgeous children who lives in a large Colonial house on the cul-de-sac of a pleasant suburb, along with a handsome husband who makes gobs of money and can afford to buy her anything she wants. The husband and wife live pleasantly together, whiling away their hours on good conversation, lively entertainment from their darling children, and, of course, their deepening love for one another.

A reader’s reaction, if he were kind, might be: zzzzzzzzzzz. Boring. Welcome to Snoozeville. Population: Anyone who has bothered to read this devastatingly boring paragraph. Remember, do not, not under any circumstance, even if you really, really want to, give your characters what they want. (See the sticky note you placed near your writing desk.) At least, not right away. Holding back on giving your characters what they want is a surefire way to create the tension and inner conflict necessary to propel your plot forward. So, perhaps Mary has those two beautiful children, that gorgeous house, and a husband who often comes home late smelling of booze and cheap perfume. Suddenly, Mary seems more sympathetic; she’s a woman scorned, and there is plenty of room for your plot to grow.

If your list of the ways in which your character’s yearning is thwarted or blocked is brief or paltry, you’re going to have to find ways to deepen the conflict in your novel. What kinds of scenes can you include? What might stand in the way of what your character wants? Is the yearning generated in your outline enough to sustain a novel-length work?

Next, with a copy of your completed outline in front of you, I’d like for you to draw a line roughly one-third of the way through it. Also, draw a line two-thirds of the way down. (If you are using note cards, simply include a blank divider between cards to separate your outline into thirds.) What you’ve done is roughly divide your outline into three parts, coinciding with — let’s hope — your novel’s three acts.

In this assignment, you’ll need to spend some time critically assessing each of these three parts of your novel. Remember the distinctions between Acts One, Two, and Three that we explored in Days 14–16? You have a story to tell, and you have 80,000 words or so in which to do it. You don’t want to give information away too quickly; otherwise, your reader will have no incentive to keep reading. Where can you add a scene to build tension and yearning? Where can you delete a scene that is giving away too much, too quickly? Remember, you’re better off deleting nonessential scenes so you don’t waste time writing them out.

Act One

Do you remember back in the days of your English composition classes when you learned that a good essay begins with a hook? The hook was a particularly compelling line or fact or statistic or famous quote that immediately grabbed the attention of your reader. While the hook of a novel works differently than the hook of an essay, the general concept is the same. You need to convince your reader that your novel is worth reading, and you do this by immediately capturing his or her interest. The best way to immerse your reader in the novel is to start the first scene in medias res, which translates to “in the middle of things.” When you start your novel with action, your reader will feel like she has to keep reading in order to catch up, or she might miss the train altogether. Your novel should start at a significant moment in relation to the plot and the character. Don’t just start at any random moment. Really think about why you are choosing to begin where you do. For instance, have your key protagonists Kirk and Amber just married? Is the wedding or their marriage a significant part of the story or related to the plot? Well, that depends on the story you’re narrating, of course. The wedding might be an excellent starting point if you’re writing a classic caper novel about their adventures during a honeymoon in Morocco. However, this might not be the right place to start if the novel doesn’t have much to do with the relationship between Amber and Nick in the first place, and instead follows Amber’s relationship with her adoptive mother.

Act One must also include the “why should I care about this” element. One of your main goals in Act One is to get your reader to care about your character. How is she sympathetic? How is she flawed? What does your character want? And what is at stake for him if he doesn’t get what he wants? You should skim your outline to make sure you’ve provided enough information about the history, desires, motivations, and fears of your main characters.

By the end of the first act, something has to happen. That is, your character must be faced with a conflict that either forces or compels him to action. If by the end of your first act, you still find that nothing has happened that is of great import to your character or your plot, you’ll need to remedy this.

Take a look at the first third of your outline and ask yourself the following questions:

• Does my novel start in the right place? What is the significance of the moment in which my novel starts?

• Does Act One include enough scenes that will adequately introduce my main character and his history, motivations, flaws, and desires?

• Why should your reader care about your characters? Have you developed him enough for your reader to feel an adequate level of investment?

• By the second or third scene, does my novel begin to introduce or hint at the latent or overt conflicts that face my main character?

• Is the first third of my novel interesting? Does enough happen?

• By the end of Act One, is my character forced or compelled to act on his yearnings? What is at stake for my character if he doesn’t get what he wants?

Act Two

Act Two is the heart of your novel, the meat and bones, the weighty bulk, the middle seas, the sandwich stuffing. You get the point. It’s where your character is faced with obstacles, either internal or external, and responds in a way that moves your story forward. The middle part of your novel raises the stakes for your character; your character wants something (an objective), and something is standing in her way (a complication). Remember what fiction writer Anne Lamott once said, “[Y]ou are probably going to have to let bad things happen to some of the characters you love or you won’t have much of a story.” And she is absolutely right. As much as you love your characters — let’s face it, you’ve spent a lot of time with them! — you cannot let them have exactly what they want the moment they want it. Giving your characters what they want is a surefire way to kill your story. Remember perfect Mary? And her two perfect children? And that perfect house in the suburbs? And her perfect, moneymaking husband? I’m getting sleepy again … zzzzz ….

You were asked earlier in this assignment to make a list of the ways in which your character’s yearnings were thwarted or blocked. Did you find enough obstacles to sustain two-hundred-plus pages? If not, you’ll need to adjust your outline so as to raise the stakes for your protagonist. What does your character stand to gain? What does she stand to lose?

At the end of Act Two, the tension, of course, needs to come to a boiling point — or a boiling-over point. Some refer to this as the crisis moment or the make-or-break-moment your character faces. Your character must make a realization, of sorts, and this realization will play out in the climax scene. This scene dramatizes the themes and conflicts that you, the author, have been trying to convey through your written portraits of your character and his world, scene by scene. In some ways, the climax is the most important moment in your novel, for within this scene your protagonist will come face-to-face with a choice that must fundamentally change him. I like to think of the climax as the point of no return. Your character has wandered too deep into the woods to turn around; the only way to escape is the move forward (unless these are the woods from The Blair Witch Project, in which case, there is no escape).

Really take some time to examine the second third of your novel, and ask yourself the following questions:

• Have you deepened the conflict for your characters? What obstacles stand between your character and what she wants?

• Where could you stand to add further complications for your protagonist?

• How are my character’s motivations, desires, and values causing him to react to events and situations in a way particular to him?

• How is my character changing from Act One? Is he changing or staying the same in the face of changes around him? How is he affected by the events unfolding before him?

• What is the climax of my novel? What is the key moment for my protagonist in his quest for self-understanding?

Act Three

Act Three, as a whole, should do several things at once. First, you’ll need to tie up any loose ends for your reader. Even minor plot points will need to be resolved in this section — so, for example, that man lurking in the shadows in a few of your earlier scenes will need to be revealed. Was he a super-creepy stalker of your protagonist Josephine? Her guardian angel? The father she never knew? You’ll need to explain the lurker to your readers, lest you risk frustrating them.

What about that kiss Josephine shared with Arnold in chapter four? It seemed like they might have made a connection — a love connection à la Chuck Woolery — but Arnold hasn’t been seen in your novel since. (Maybe Josephine was too busy trying to figure out who the man lurking in the shadows was.) In Act Three, even minor characters will have to be brought back onstage to wrap up any unresolved issues. Does Arnold have feelings for Josephine? Does Josephine reciprocate them? Will Arnold be the manifestation, for Josephine, of the man she’s been tracking down her entire life? (Her absent father, perhaps? Is he the man who lurks in shadows?)

In addition, you’ll need to reveal the consequences, for your character, of the climax scene. Who has been affected by your protagonist’s actions and reactions in the “key scene” of your novel?

Let’s consider the example of that old sport Jay Gatsby again. The climax of The Great Gatsby is the public revelation of Gatsby and Daisy’s affair. After this point nothing can ever be quite the same for him. What might naturally happen, then? Well, for one, Tom Buchanan is not going to be happy. No, sir. Daisy is his wife, after all, and even if he did have his own affair with Myrtle, he owns Daisy. The fallout of Gatsby’s reunion with Daisy manifests itself in several ways, both big and small: Daisy refuses to leave Tom, thus shattering Gatsby’s dreams. Daisy rushes off in Gatsby’s car, accidentally hitting Myrtle, killing her. Tom pins the blame on Gatsby, and poor Gatsby, well, in the end he was not so great: He was found dead, shot to death by Myrtle’s father. All this fallout happened because of the climax scene: Gatsby’s reunion with his lost love.

Your climax scene is the first domino that causes the chain reaction in your story. What else in your fictional world will be affected by it? You’ll need to be sure your reader feels you’ve fully resolved the story, even if the resolution isn’t necessarily a happy one.

At this point, I want you to take a look at the final third of your outline and ask yourself:

• What plot points have you left unresolved thus far?

• Which minor characters deserve a few final pages in Act Three?

• Does your outline, as you’ve written it, contain enough substance? Does it wrap up the loose ends of your novel?

• Does your outline contain a scene that reveals the consequences for your characters in terms of how they acted and reacted to the climax scene?

• Does your outline contain a scene or scenes that show how your protagonist has changed from the start of your novel?

• What kind of ending do you imagine for your novel? Does the protagonist get what he wants in the end? Does the protagonist not get what he wants? Is it a combination ending, where the main character gets what he wants (but in the end he realizes that’s a bad thing) or doesn’t get what he wants (but in the end realizes this is for the best)?

If you are unable to answer any of the above questions, I’d like you to spend some time revising your outline. Remember, outlines are only guides, and you should not consider yours to be a fixed entity. Now that you’ve thought through and outlined a good chunk of your novel, perhaps it’s a better idea for your character not to get what she wants in the end. Perhaps Josephine realizes she’s madly in love with Arnold, but it’s too late: All this time and energy she’s spent searching for her father has ruined her. Arnold’s lost interest, and Josephine needs to take a good, long look in the mirror and realize the negative impact of her obsession with her father, a man she may never know. Women can be so fickle.

The more time you spend tinkering with your outline now, the more time and freedom you’ll have to write in the following weeks. And that’s what the real goal is here, right?

WEEK 4, ASSIGNMENT 4: Researching Your Fictional World

Perhaps you read the title of this assignment and said to yourself: Research? I’m a fiction writer! I don’t need no stinking research!

The amount of research required for a novel will, of course, depend on multiple factors. Is your novel set in a historical time period? If so, you’ll need to do a hefty bit of research on the kinds of style, trends, and current events of that era. Would your characters be more likely to wear bell-bottoms or corsets? Is your novel set in Cincinnati, Ohio? If so, what are the various parts of town? What does the geography look like? Is it flat or hilly there? (Hint: Cincinnati is known as the city of seven hills.) Even if your novel is set in a fictional Midwestern town, you should know the topography of the region in order to sustain the believability of your descriptions. What animals are indigenous to the region? How about plants? If you include a palm tree in a Midwestern setting, you’ll likely turn off even those readers who have never driven through the region.

Maybe your character is the wealthiest man in the world and buys only the most exquisite items. What is the most expensive kind of car? Do you know what it looks like? How would the interior leather feel? What is an expensive, high-end brand of suits or shoes or handbags? These might be important details in your novel.

What is the occupation of your character(s)? Are they thieving stockbrokers? Humble Bible salesmen? Pathological speech pathologists? If you don’t know much about these occupations, you’ll need to at least learn the vocabulary of the trade. Joanna Scott’s novel The Manikin, for example, is set in the rural home of a prominent taxidermist. How convincing a portrait of a taxidermist could Scott have created if she didn’t know anything about taxidermy? Probably not a very realistic one. It should come as no surprise, then, to learn that Scott did extensive research on taxidermy while writing the novel, visiting several taxidermists in person so she could write from the vantage point of experience.

Many authors conduct research prior to writing their novels. The key to writing convincingly on any subject is to know the subject so well that it becomes an inherent, natural part of your storytelling. That is, you must understand the profession of taxidermy so well you begin to reason, act, and, most certainly, write as a taxidermist would.

Spend a minimum of two hours conducting cursory research on the various elements of your story, and take notes. You may use this information — or you may not. Such is the nature of research. Not everything you find will be equally useful. The easiest way to conduct research these days is, of course, the Internet. But be careful — not all sites have credible information. You’ll want to check your sources. Does your information come from the American Academy of Taxidermists or some woman named Liz who lives in her grandma’s basement? The difference is a big one. Your local librarian might be interested in helping an aspiring novelist with a few research pointers, too, but you’ll have to step up and ask.

Another useful way to learn about a particular subject is to do field research. If you’re writing a novel about a maniacal serial-killer butcher, for example, visit your local butcher shop and speak with the head meat cutter there. What do butchers’ knives look like? How much do they cost? What does a meat locker smell like? Would it be a good place to stash a body? Or maybe you want to talk to the receptionist at a chiropractor’s office. (But be sure to use a whisper — doctor’s waiting rooms are oddly quiet places, you’ll find, if you do your research.)