Building a Book

I consider a book to be like a house. One one must have a blueprint before one can begin the business of writing the book. In order to have a blueprint, one has to have a general idea of what the finished product will look like, and how it will look when completed.

So probably we could take just the concept of the appearance of the book with the title page and binding combined to fully visualize it.

Are we building a small home, a resort home, a cabin in the mountains, a mansion, a deluxe or a compact, and how do we want to furnish it when finally constructed?

Will it be traditional, contemporary, modern, old fashioned, period, log cabin, and all the various styles that are possible? As a book will it be a mystery, a romance, a historical fiction, a historical nonfiction, a short compact novel, a lengthy, protracted, and voluminous work or what?

After we finally decide what we want, we have to envision it, imagine its completion, which means always knowing the conclusion of the book even before it begins. We cannot ramble aimlessly, but we must construct a careful plot to develop whatever it is that we wish to entertain ourself and our reader or readers.

So once the genre of the book is determined, we must then construct a simple plot, and determine how many characters will be involved in this tale that we are about to weave.

Besides characters and plot, we must have some reason for spinning this tale besides just filling the time of our lives with something to do, but we must make this tale have a purpose, a reason to be, which means that we must have some theme ongoing throughout the work that becomes fairly certain and definite by the time we finish our storyline.

We could have a major theme, and chapter by chapter we could have incidents and plotlines that somehow or other contribute to the development of this idea til we are finished. For example, if writing about Henry VIII, our major theme could be that gluttony and greed is the downfall of a mighty person, and chapter by chapter we could show how this man's obsessiveness or gluttony becomes a habit, a regularity in his life. Each new mistress, each new misery, from page to page gradually causes the reader to see that this man's habits are so self-centered and self-important that he destroys himself steadily.

My favorite type stories are usually mysteries as I love to solve puzzles and combat evil with good and have a resolution of some kind that satisfies both the mind and the soul/heart.

But the most enjoyable type stories to read are usually heartrendering, tearjerking type stories of the kind that reaches to the heart, and squeezes one's emotions to the point of bursting.

So as we have many rooms in our house for a variety of purposes, so we must have many chapters in our books to provide for the same kind of end goal, and that is to serve a useful service and function in pointing out some interesting reasons for this book to become a well read and sought after novel.

When we examine really successful books, we can see that the character development is the means by which the book begins to live, so that our house cannot remain empty but must be filled with characters interacting with one another throughout the story, leading us from one room to another.

For some people, the interior decoration of the home is the most important part, and so that means that the location, the descriptive paragraphs are often the most significant to lending a style and a comfortable format to the book. If one is interested in frightening people to death, one must make the location and the inhabitants fit into the type of place that will put one on edge...damp, dank basements, gloomy, dusty attics, and areas that are often neglected and seldom seen. Caves, caverns, and river beds are often areas that frighten as do dark, dank woods and forests...

But for an air of elegance and grandeur, one must choose a location and a home with luxury items, a sense of opulence, chandeliers, baby grand pianos, high ceilings, and beautifully ornate columns and fountains to create atmosphere.

So then just as house has to have a target for a homeowner, so does the book have to have a target for a reader...to whom are you writing this book to be read? What age group? Male, female? Old, crusty, hardbitten military? Soft, gentle, loving teenage girls?

A book has to be as well thought out before beginning as the home...the blueprint has to be printed before the foundation can be laid. In terms of the novel, the outline, and the characters must all be cut out as in paper dolls and brought together so that we can know how these people will interact to create our plot to finally reach our ending, our conclusion, our final chapter.

HIstorical fiction is the easiest to write since it is all based upon an already known plot, and everyone knows how it will end. However, it is also the most difficult since it is probably true that the fictional piece will never be that which was the real event itself.

Let us take for example, the problem of a book about 9/11. Everyone knows the events, but those who lived it probably have forgotten everything that they did on that day, as the impact of the moment causes everything else to be forgotten. One can only remember being trained on the t.v. that day to see what was happening.

A story about the men who raced up and down the stairs trying to rescue people would be touching, heart rendering, and heart breaking. It is a story that would probably be a great book!