A.J. Maybe is the common novelist. Here, we’ll drag the writing practice out into the open air for all to see. Charting my progress, we’ll end up chatting about process and productivity. We might accidentally offer fiction writing tips, techniques, how-to's, and inspiration, but we'll try to avoid all that as much as possible. Usually guest starring: our cute and/or mischievous dog.
Hi there, hello! Alright, get in.
Last time, we talked about putting down roots 1 & 2. That meant answering 'for whom is this story written?', and brainstorming some working titles. The “who” —the book’s Ideal Reader— tells us all about genre and tone. The working titles give us a sense of the story’s central premise.
These are the smallest morsels I know how to work with. Defining these first two roots gets the ball rolling - each piece that we add will get bigger and bigger.
So then - onto Root #3! This is the tagline, that one-line little teaser that usually goes on the front cover. (Sometimes it’ll be on the back, but you get the idea.) On a movie poster, you might see something like “In space, no one can hear you scream” or “An adventure 65 million years in the making”. (Can you name those movies, by the way?)
Taglines are short and intriguing. If I can’t pin down a few decent taglines, I know that I haven’t thought about the story for long enough. Coming up with these helps me be super clear about what’s most important in the book.
So we’ve got a couple here:
“Everyone is DYING to get back with their ex. (Literally.)”
“Long-lost lovers, reunited, and it feels like nothing’s changed…except that one of them is a killer.”
These will get sharper by the time the first draft is done and I REALLY know the story. I think these, for now, should get a mystery lover to pick up the book and read the back cover. That’s the goal of a tagline.
Alright then, so is Root #4 the back cover copy? Nope, not yet. The tagline is 1 line, while the back cover write-up runs a handful of paragraphs. That’s too much of a jump. We’re still building momentum here.
Root #4 is the elevator pitch. In theory, that name means preparing a 60-second explanation, to have ready in case I just happen to share a lift with some big-time editor. In reality, I’m not worried about that chance meeting. However, expanding from the tagline to a paragraph gives me a nice, easy-peasy step.
(Anyone who has written one of these is smirking at the absurdity of calling it "easy-peasy".)
It doesn’t have to be perfect right now, it just has to be done. Once this is checked off, I’ll have over half the root system coloured in and it’ll really feel like the story’s rolling along. It’s all about building momentum. It's a way of gathering the confidence and clarity I need to dive into the story proper.
So, here we go:
“Better Off Bread” (let’s go with that title for now) is a mad-cap murder mystery built around a caretaker reversal theme: (Can you tell I went to school to analyze books? Don’t worry - it’s not a requirement for becoming an author. But I digress.)
Kasper has saved Piper three times over, and now it’s her turn.
She’s going to reunite Kasper with the long-lost love of his life, former professional wrestler Ava Avalanche. The trouble is, she’s been presumed dead for over twenty years. Piper tracks the woman down, but Ava returns to the tiny town of Red Rock with a whole load of secrets.
And you know what Ben Franklin said: three can keep a secret… if two of them are dead.
Piper’s attempt to repay Kasper’s kindness might land both of them in the morgue.
Okay, that got a little salesy at the end, but that’s okay. The process is the important thing. Working on that little pitch helped me further zoom in on the key story elements.
I also ended up with these ideas:
“How far would you go to help a friend?”
“What if a friend asked you help them dodge a murder charge? Would you throw your life away for it? What if that friend was asking you to make that sacrifice for a total stranger?”
They don’t seem to fit perfectly under roots 3 or 4, but they might find a good home once I get to the pre-publishing stages. Maybe they’ll be handy for advertising purposes.
Okay! Thanks for coming along. Next time we’ll talk about roots 5 and 6. We might even finish off the root system.
Oh yeah, there'll be a video version of this on The Common Novelist Youtube Channel as soon as I get all that figured out.
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