The Fiction Writer's Book of Checklists

By Angela E Hunt

Are you a writer looking for the perfect list guide to help you create and publish a compelling short story or novel? Look no further! The Fiction Writer's Book of Checklists will give you the information and tools you need to check your character development, set your plot structure, and listen to your work-in-progress. This book is th

• Language: English
• Publisher: HuntHaven Press
• Release date: Aug 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781961394698

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

The List is Your friend

I freely confess: I love lists. In Myers-Briggs parlance I am a judger, which means I love organization and schedules. I adore lists. Sometimes I will create a list after I’ve completed tasks just for the simple pleasure of checking things off.

I realize that not everyone loves lists. People who are perceivers in Myers-Briggs language are more spontaneous. They are naturally averse to lists, and would rather go with the flow than be accountable to a piece of paper with jottings on it.

This book is for both groups. If you are a J like me, mostly left-brained, you’ll take to this book like a kid to a snow cone on a sweltering summer day. If you are a P like my husband, you may sigh and groan or even break out in hives, but trust me—this book could well become your best writing friend.

Many of the items on these lists will use language and lessons thoroughly explained in the other Writing Lessons from the Front books. If you have read the previous lessons, particularly the volumes on plotting, weasel words, maintaining tension, and creating characters, you should have no trouble understanding and implementing the items on these lists.

And oh, the joy of checking things off . . .

I’ve purchased many a writing workbook over the years, and found many of them helpful. But I’ve always yearned for a book that would walk me through the process step-by-step, making sure I don’t overlook anything and reminding me of all the things I’ve learned about writing.

That’s why I put this book together. It refers to many of the other booklets in the Writing Lessons series, but mostly it is intended to be a guide, a mentor, that will walk you through from the idea to publication.

I am sure this book will evolve as time passes. You will think of things you want to add to your personal checklist, and I will think of things I want to add to this book.

For your additions, I’ve left room at the end of each chapter for notes.

For my additions, it might be a good idea to invest in an electronic copy of this book. If you buy a Kindle book, you can click update in the manage my Kindle section of Amazon, and the latest version will always be installed on your Kindle reader. Plus, the hyperlinks will be live for you.

One final note: You may photocopy these pages and use the lists for your own personal use. If you want to share the material with a friend or a class, point others to an online bookstore and this writer and the international copyright authorities will thank you. To share these pages otherwise would be a violation of copyright law.

And now—to the lists!

CHAPTER ONE

PREWRITING CHECKLIST

Make no mistake, a writer should do a lot of work before he or she ever begins to write a short story or novel. In movies and on television, writers simply sit down and begin to type, but you don’t believe everything you see in films, do you?

If you don’t do your prewriting tasks first, you’ll end up doing them later. Trust me, it’s easier to do them beforehand.

So here are the items, large and small, that should be on your prewriting checklist. You don’t have to do these in order, but the order is a logical progression.

The Puzzle Pieces

When writers get the initial idea for a story, they usually have only a few pieces of the puzzle. For a novel or short story, they may have the plot concept, a setting, a character, a theme, or any combination of those things. What pieces of the puzzle do you have? What pieces have you not figured out yet?

Write out what you know. Don’t worry about what you don’t know—the missing pieces will come to you as you work on the book.

☐My plot concept—and what makes it unique:

My protagonist—and what makes him/her unique and not the average person on the street:

My setting and what makes it unique:

My theme—and why it’s important to people everywhere:

CHAPTER TWO

Prewriting Research

If you’ve filled out at least three of those four concepts, you’re well on your way to fleshing out your story. Before you begin writing, you will also need to do some research. You don’t have to research every single little detail, because you won’t know what details you need until you’re well into your story. But you will need the big picture details about your setting, your protagonist’s profession and background, and your plot’s unique elements. As to theme, it might be helpful to explore other works written with the same theme, or grab a book of quotations and see what famous people have said about your theme.

Examples: You want to write about a medical researcher who goes to the rain forest canopy to find a cure for Fatal Familial Insomnia, a genetic disease that has begun to afflict her and will one day afflict her daughter. Those were the elements I cobbled together when I began to write The Canopy. I didn’t know my theme at first, but after a couple of drafts, I realized the story was about the nature of faith.

My protagonist was a medical researcher with FFI, so I had to establish a believable medical background for my character, plus I had to learn about the causes and symptoms of FFI, an actual disease.

Setting: the rain forest canopy. I had read an article in the New York Times Sunday magazine about the rain forest canopy, and about how it has a completely different ecosystem from the world below. An astounding number of pharmaceuticals and products come from the rain forest canopy, so researchers spend a lot of time among the trees.

The plot: I had to figure out how a woman could get to the rain forest, why she was desperate to get to the rain forest, and why she was so desperate to find a cure for her disease (it wasn’t enough that she needed to cure herself. The stakes were greatly increased once I added in the daughter who likely would inherit the same disease).

☐What are the areas you need to research?

What do you need to know about your setting, fictional or actual?

What do you need to know about topics that figure into your plot?

What do you need to research about elements of your chosen time period?

What do you need to research about your protagonist’s occupation?

Can you think of any other particular areas in which you’ll need to do at least cursory research?

CHAPTER THREE

Testing Your Story Idea

Before you actually do the research, let’s check the foundation of your story idea. A good story idea must have these four elements represented by WAGS (a wonderful acronym I learned from the late Gary Provost).

The story must offer the reader:

W: a different world. The story may begin in the ordinary world, but it must transport the reader to a place that’s unusual for the typical reader. It could be the world of high finance, the world of mortuary science, or the world of the rain forest. It may be an actual world (Neptune, anyone?) or a metaphorical world (the world of canine beauty pageants). But it should be something that the typical reader will find interesting.

☐Where does your story take the reader? From where to where? ☐Are you sure the different world will be interesting and unique to an ordinary reader?

A: Your story must have active characters. Your character must set out on a journey to win something or someone or to do something. He can’t simply sit at home and observe life as it marches by. He has to be in the game.

☐How is your character active? He doesn’t have to be an athlete, but he can’t be a person who sits around and lets everyone else do the work. Is he personally and actively involved in the story? What is he reaching for?

G: His Goal. What is your character’s goal? Is it filmable? Is it something long term, something that can’t easily be achieved in one or two chapters?

The goal needs to be something that’s visual, filmable. It can’t be something as subjective as I want to be a better person. The goal also needs to be large enough, challenging enough, that the protagonist works throughout the entire