After more than 10 years as a freelance journalist, I accepted a permanent job in government communications in 2010. I was excited to take the job not only because of the regular paycheque, but because the steady hours would free up my evenings and weekends to write fiction. Contemporary romance, to be exact.
Information overload
I was already a professional writer, so I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to learn how to write a novel. I started my first draft the way I’d start any writing project-–by doing research. From Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, to Jessica Brody’s Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, to Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, and numerous other books, magazines and websites, I read everything I could and did my best to put what I was learning into practice.
The advice was helpful, but it was also overwhelming and often paralyzing. For example, many experts recommended plotting the novel down to the punctuation, while others promoted pantsing (a more intuitive, less structured way to write). It took me a while to figure out I was somewhere in the middle, that I’m someone who needs structure to function, but that too much stops me dead.
In the end, it took me about four years to finish the first draft of my novel.
Coaching
I started my first 12-week writer coaching program—with agent Sam Hiyate—in September 2020. I’d recently finished a second draft of my novel and felt that working with an agent would be a good way to give it a final bit of polish.
I expected my manuscript might change a little over the three months of the program. What I didn’t expect was that I’d end up re-thinking and re-writing almost the entire story, taking it in directions I never would have considered.
Dial up the conflict
The first bit of advice Sam gave me was to add more (much more) conflict to my story. Like many new fiction writers, I was being far too nice to my characters. They struggled, but not nearly enough.
“We only learn who we are through conflict,” Sam said. “Make things more complicated.”
So, I’d add a wrinkle or two, only to hear the same comment the following week. I just didn’t understand how much grief I had to give my fictional couple, or maybe I just didn’t want to see it. I was probably half way through the 12 weeks when I finally understood the importance of making things difficult.
“You’re missing something that really establishes the stakes in this story,” Sam said, trying again to help me understand. He urged me to play up both my main characters’ flaws, and give them some serious trauma that they could help each other overcome. He also encouraged me to give my couple a difficult challenge they would have to face together that would bring out their strengths and weaknesses and allow them to get to know each other in a meaningful way.
“The way you have it now, you have two people who are both hot and both single. The story’s already over.”
The messy phase
And that’s how I landed in the messy phase, the point where writers realize they have some major re-plotting and re-writing to do. I’d thought my book was pretty much finished, that it just needed some tweaking here and there, not a complete overhaul. But now I could see my story through a professional agent’s eyes, and I realized I had a lot of work to do to make it sellable.
The problem was, I had no idea what direction to take, or if I even wanted to bother. I’d been working on this book for years already. Maybe writing fiction was not for me.
To say the messy phase was tough is an understatement. It felt dark, lonely, and frustrating. I couldn’t see my way forward, and my brain felt like it was doing laps in a hamster wheel–spinning fast but getting nowhere. I struggled along for a couple of miserable weeks before
I was able to settle down and look at things calmly. Instead of continuing to freak out, I decided to compile all of the feedback I’d received from Sam and others in the group. After reviewing it all, I then figured out which storyline suggestions I could build on to complicate my tale. In no time at all, I was busy writing every spare moment I could find, excited by the changes I was making.
No more ms nice writer
I started by giving my male lead a load of juicy past trauma, including parental abandonment, a tragic loss, and sexual abuse. Then I turned up my female lead’s daddy issues and introduced a traumatic divorce, career loss, and the violent death of a much-loved family member.
Mindful of Sam’s definition of real love as, “somebody seeing you for who you are and you seeing them for who they are and the two of you accomplishing something together that no two other people could,” I gave my couple a tough project to work on together. As Sam promised, it brought out the best and worst of the two, pushing them apart before ultimately bringing them together.
Where just a few weeks earlier I treated my characters gently, now I was looking for ways to torment them. It was fun. It was satisfying. And it made my story much stronger.
At the end of the 12-week session, I knew how to properly use the three-act structure, the importance of conflict and challenges, and how to create complex characters that readers could identify with. My writing became leaner and more fast paced. I now understood how to show instead of tell, and how to create a multi-dimensional plot.
I was so pleased with my novel’s progress and my growth as a fiction writer that I signed up for a second coaching program.
verdict
Every writer has their own reason to sign up for coaching. Maybe you’re a new writer looking for help to get started. Maybe you’re more seasoned and just need a hand with a current piece of work. For myself, a background in journalism meant I had lots of experience, but not the right kind (writing a romance novel is a lot different than writing a news article). Although I read many excellent how-to books, it wasn’t until I worked with Sam that I really understood how to write a novel. In retrospect, I wish I’d signed up for coaching sooner and saved myself a lot of time and creative energy.
Michele has completed the final draft of her contemporary romance novel, The Assignment, and is currently querying the book for agent representation.
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