A B N A Vets Forum What inspired you to write you..

For some of us, ABNA is our first exposure to a wordlwide writing competition and having our excerpts posted with a worldwide built-in audience. I can understand that writing our novels is a long personal journey  It would be interesting to know what inspired each of us to write it. 

My novel grew out of a previous novel I'd written with the same characters, but that just hadn't turned out well. Somewhere around the time I ended that one, I was in the middle of a spiritual transition and I guess I thought I'd take it out on my characters that I had enjoyed working with before. The characters enjoyed this story a lot more. It's funny to me how I can never remember the moment a story occurred to me. I have made more of an effort to write down that first kernel of idea lately.

Enrico, you should also say what inspired you to write your novel.

Hi Kristin,

That's a great way to start a novel!  It sometimes boils down to how much our main character draws us.  I think once you place yourself in your character, whether out of anger or love, then you create a live one that resonates with the readers and the story will follow. 

 

As for A Light in the Cane Fields, I wrote it because so few novels have been written about the Philippines.   Being a former U.S. territory, the Philippines has strong ties with the U.S., yet few people here knows anything about the Filipino culture.  People think my book is about boy soldiers and war, but it really isn't.  It's an exploration of the Filipino culture with the violent peasant insurgency as a plot backdrop.  When I started the novel, I only knew that Filipino culture has to be a primary element, that it will be narrated from a twelve year old perspective and that it will touch on the peasant insurgency and political dynasties that cause so much problem today in the country.  Outside of this, I had nothing, not even a  plot--it sort of just evolved on its own.

 

enrico

My brother-in-law is Filipino so I've gotten acquainted with the culture through his family when my neices and nephews have birthdays. Have you read The Tesseract by Alex Garland? It's an interesting book and takes place in the Phillipines.

So do you outline before you write or do you let your stories grow out of your characters? I started writing as a young teenager and would just sit down every night and write. My stories from that time period barely make sense overall, but they were fun. I began outlining as an adult, but have found it takes the fun out of the writing for me at times. I don't know if I have a mind to write a very long novel without an outline (I get disorganized), but I just finished up my first teen novel at about 40000 words and wrote it without an outline. I really enjoyed it and have a feeling it might work better for me than outlining.

Thanks for the tip on Tessaract.  What is it about?  I'll check it out.  Is it available at Amazon? 

 

No, I don't outline.  I found that it restricts creativity, but it is just my personal opinion.  When I begin a novel, all I know is the main character, the theme, a vague idea of the plot, and the ending.  How it gets there is open.  The character pretty much charters the course, on a scene by scene basis.  No planning is involved.  After I write one scene, I usually end it so it can segues to another logical scene on a linear basis.

Of Two Minds began as a character study for one of the male protagonists in my first attempt at epic fantasy. I really fell for the character when I first wrote him, but didn't know that much about how he came to be who he was.  I wanted to follow him in future things, but needed to know his past. I tired writing a short story, but it turned into a novella, "The Seduction of Timu Maarinen," and covered only his introduction to his nation's political life and beginnings of his career as a spy and diplomat.  At that point I felt I knew enough about Timu to go on with, and turned to a new story and revisions of my first.  About a year later it occurred to me that a little more writing would turn "Seduction" into a prequel for the longer work, and that one of the female characters needed more page-time.  So I took a few months to write that part, "Lady Aulia's Choice."  I'd really only been through one revision, and was still not satisfied that the two parts hung together, but then I saw the ABNA advertised here, and couldn't pass up the chance to enter.

From my PW review I was apparently right that the second part needs more work, on its own, and in weaving it into the other section.  So now I'm working on new things, and still doing revisions.

Yes, you can find the Tesseract on Amazon. Alex Garland debuted with The Beach, which was made into an awful movie. The book was neat, though. I enjoy his writing a lot, but I don't remember what attracted me about The Tesseract. I did enjoy it, though.

I think I am becoming more interested in not outlining and just going with the story. A few people I know (not writers) had made me feel like that was a flaky way to write, but I'm happy to hear that other writers, and published writers at that, sometimes don't outline. What do non-writers know anyway?

I can't bear the thought of outlining. But if I don't have some kind of structure in my head before I get too far I go down too many sidetracks and have to revise too much.  I've learned this the hard way, completing two novels by the "let it grow" method.

So, what I'm working on now I'm planning.  Not outlining.  But I'm working scenes out in my head from throughout the story, jotting down the best bits that come to me, and when I've got enough material I'll decide what's absolutely most important, then weave it all together.  I'm already writing the first draft, but the chapters are coming very slowly for me, as I have one eye on the future development of the story and I'm trying to pre-edit out the unnecessary as I go.

One reason I can't outline is the characters make so many of the narrative decisions -- I can't know exactly what will happen until they interact with each other and the basic situation I've begun with.

I wrote The Keeper of the Sparrows because I was concerned about the way children are treated in court cases involving sexual abuse.  Many times, it comes down to a second form of abuse on top of the first one. 

A lot of adults have trouble dealing with the concept of sexual abuse of children.  My PW reviewer evidently was one of them.  But that's the mindset that originally made me have to write the book. There's a lot of focus on abuse in today's society but it generally dances around what really matters, which is what abused children endure, and what we as a society owe them--to help them heal and to ensure that others don't suffer as they did. 

As long as abuse is a taboo subject for society, predators can continue to hurt children with little fear they'll be prosecuted.  And victimized children will remain alone with burdens they shouldn't have to bear. My PW reviewer referred to a 'laundry list' of crimes against the child, which offended me because it ignored the greater story of how the child in the book dealt with his life situation.  But that 'list' is the nature of abuse.  It doesn't magically stop.  Once begun, it escalates.

If we as adults can't talk about the things that matter, how can we expect children to be able to do it?  And if they can't, how can they ever save themselves?

 

I started The Whole Clove Diet out of my dismay at how we all seem to be looking for the "magic bullet" solutions to the problems in our lives. (As someone said on the radio this morning, "We want a diet that will allow us to lose weight by eating chocolate and lounging on the couch.") But soon after that I fell completely in love with my poor struggling Rita (the protagonist) and her predicament and with all of the other people in her life, and I really wanted to see her get her life together in spite of all the odds, and then it just went from there.

I do not have a beautiful or poetic response  to this interesting questions.  I started writing "Dissonance" because I was pissed off.  Academia is an enclosed world whose rules and mores seem obscure to outsiders.  This allows some institutions to do whatever they want.  My book -- and the sequel -- are about the consequences of this.

I saw people I cared about being hurt.  And so I began writing.

Then, the characters became alive and I found myself simply channeling their lives -- at that point I realized  I was writing a book rather than an expose.  I feel like I know Dee Wrightsman, the main character.  But she also feels wholly real -- I do not imagine her -- but rather discover her story as I write.  That was my experience of writng this book:  no outlines, little planning, but Dee alive and textured in my head. 

( I don't even like apricot brandy...)

Oddly, about two years into writing, I learned from my mother that when I was little  I had a favorite , adored doll named Dee.  I didn't remember this at all.  Now here she is back again -- and very real.

I wrote a somewhat experimental, avante garde, coming of age novel while in college and for several years after college. The novel's title was Secluded Parking and I got the idea from a sign at an adult bookstore near my place in Iowa City. The sign said: "Secluded Parking in Rear." The store had a little parking lot around back so all the guys could enter the place without being seen by the passing cars on a busy street. That novel had some major issues, but I loved the title and stuck with it.I inherited a touch of social anxiety order from my father's side of the family and often struggle with conflicting needs for isolation and connection.


My mystery novel bears absolutely no resemblance to the original novel but it explores the same theme of feeling isolated and feeling stuck at the same time - Secluded Parking. It is about the isolating effects of stasis and the static effects of isolation. My next novel in the series is Secluded Alleys, in which my protagonist, Dylan, is no longer stuck but still feels isolated and alone in world. In this book, he explores the dark alleys of his past and his "shadow side." The entire 13 book series is about Dylan's movement beyond his seclusion.


Hey Enrico, great question. Hope you don't mind but I'm going to ask this over on the ABNA forum with accreditation to you. Maybe convince some folks to come over here to writers cafe.

I think I may be somewhat unique in the present company, judging from the posts here.  See, I wrote NASTY to prove to my wife that I couldn't write in the mystery genre.  At the time, I was writing a lot of fantasy and speculative fiction (and being pretty well-published in the short story market in those genres, I might add).  One day my wife says, "You should write a mystery."  She loves Sue Grafton, Patricia Cornwell, and Stuart Woods.

I replied that I knew nothing of the genre, to which she said, "So?  Learn."

 Well, I'd read a little of the genre, and I love the humor treatment of it by the likes of Dave Barry and Carl Heissen, so I set out to write a short hard-boiled PI story.  I purposely wanted to poke a little fun at the "seriousness" of the genre.  I wrote it in secret, and presented it to her in a grand flourish.  "See?  No way I can write that stuff.  Now I'm going to go finish the fantasy I was working on." 

Thirty minutes later she came back and gave me a huge hug.  "I knew you had it in you.  Where are you going to publish it?"

 . . . and that's how the character of Nasty was born.  I created him to prove I couldn't.  I showed the short (which appeared in a mystery magazine) to an editor at Time/Warner, and she said she'd be interested in a novel-length story with the character.  That's how the book came about.  I've been trying to get it in front of her for two years now.  I made the stupid mistake of telling her that I was looking for representation, and she said, "Oh, that'd be great!  As soon as you get an agent, I want first crack at it."  Finis.  What a lughead I am! 

Lynnn,

I think, like you, I too began writing 'To:[email protected]', because I saw people I cared for, being hurt. Old people - lonely and scared. Aged parents left behind by young, ambitious Indian achievers thronging foreign lands in search of 'success'.

In India, family has always mattered tremendously. Grandparents and grandchildren lived in such proximity that life's transitions were smooth and easy. Today suddenly there's a whole generation of lonely old people in India, battling with their fears, unable to cope with a totally unexpected situation.

'To:[email protected]', is about this terrible fear. It is also about the vulnerability and confusion of young Indian children growing up in an alien culture without the comfort and continuity that grandparents provide.

My first chapter deals with a young Indian girl growing up in UK. The very next chapter belongs to the 'bitter, crusty old woman in India'. The book explores the relationship that develops between the two.

Sometimes I wonder - maybe I should have given the first chapter to the old woman...?

Enrico,

I dislike outlining too! Just a general plan as to where I am heading. The characters tell me their own story as we go along.

P.S. Could one of you send me an invite to TOTGA??

Veena,

I sent you that invitation, in case no one else got around to it.

I was going through some boxes of stories I wrote when I was a kid.  I found a couple of almost finished novels about this dragon and started reading the stories.  Well, they weren't very good stories because I wrote 'em when I was a teenager, but I liked the concept.  So I started all over, with the dragon, and wrote a whole new story around them.  I used adult protaganists in the story instead of kids, and that's what I submitted to the contest.

Once I got rejected, I went back and looked it over, then put it on line for my family and friends to read.  A few said it would be better with kids instead of adults, so I rewrote the whole thing and finished last week.  Now I've got two versions--an adult & kid version.  Am thinking of POD both of them so I'll at least have a copy of each!!!  But am gearing towards the one with kids in it to actually submit.  I think I like that story better.  And I can see why ABNA kicked the first one out.  But I'm still proud of both.

I grew up in the 60's, in a run-of-the-mill English town that really wasn't necessarily diverse, but was open to all comers. I could barely understand the American bussing scenario, but watched the news in horror as small black children ran the gauntlet to the maw-like doors of their new, mostly white schools. Black is Beautiful was news, and I'm thinking, yeah, AND? Why shouldn't it be? I even heard of black children trying to change their skin colour to white using flour. It puzzled me. So much so that I could never shake off the thought.

The whole identity thing reared its ugly head later in life when I chose to convert to Judaism and, despite the fact that I knew who I was and what I was, many others felt qualified to question my identity. Okay, nowadays I joke about my heritage - Celtic and Jewish - we're a family of 'leprecohens' - har, har- but - I'm still me. Hello!

So, another scenario popped into my head. A 'what if'. What if a child wishes to change his skin colour, and reaches not for flour or chalk, but a tuft of grass...

My MC is blue on a world where the blues are subservient and the greens are dominant. He tries to change his mixed blue-green skin tone to green, attempting to rid himself of an ages-old prejudice. Does he succeed? Not with grass, that's for sure...

So, we have an identity issue. Surprise, surprise, eh? Is my MC blue, green, neither or both? Is it anyone else's business? On Earth, hopefully no longer, but on Tary-Eix, it still matters a great deal.

Oh, and let's throw in some purple folk and some non-humans for good measure. Into the fray - 4 London kids, hoping to brighten up a long, dull summer...

Several years ago I read an encyclopedia article that included a few lines about a children's crusade that ended in tragedy, most of the participants either dying prematurely in the Alps or being betrayed and sold into slavery in Africa.

I couldn't let the story go. Why would unarmed, untrained, unfinanced peasants think they could accomplish what professional armies had not? How desperate or deluded must an individual be to join such an ill-fated mission? And what about all those young people sold into slavery? How did they live with the consequences of their mistakes?

I began to envision a young woman who would do anything to win freedom from her past. A young man who dreams of rising above his lowly status to change the world. A would-be warrior looking for a fight, and perhaps a bit of fortune.

And so began my exploration into the lives of three young commoners who thought they had nothing left to lose.