t waves

Hi. I'm new here. I'm interested in writing a nonfiction book proposal and the regular internet is not proving helpful, probably because I don't know enough to search productively.

I write full time as a freelance New Orleans/LA/Gulf South beer/food/cocktail/culture writer. I've been doing it for about 3 and a half years now, and write for a variety of platforms. So if anyone has any questions or wants any feedback for that kind of thing, I'm happy to help!

Barb! That's great news!

That is awesome, Barb! May it turn into lots of royalties.

Dammit. I thought of another book I'd like to write and I don't have time to write the books I already want to write.

Basically, it's about a 14 year old girl. (I get ideas for books with boy protagonists, but so far they have all fallen apart. The plot doesn't work, or I can't get the voice, or something else goes wrong). Anyhow, she's starting HS in the fictional town of Braxton in southern MO. The thing is, well, she knows everything about all the students and teachers because she's hacked nearly everyone (which I've figured out using real hacking tools and techniques). Also, she aspires to be a cyber-criminal when she grows up and thinks she has the perfect plan--go big. If she goes big, then either she gets rich from the crime if she gets away with it or gets rich from the book deal if she gets caught. The conceit of the story is that this is the beginning of her autobiography in the event that she goes the book deal route. I feel like I have the voice, but there's still work to do on the plot.

I'd read it.

I'd be inclined to sideline whatever else you're working on that's not pushing as hard at your creative urge right now, and go with this one, if it's really laying itself out for you. Grab 'em while they're hot, so to speak.

Writing ... issue? Concept? Question? All of the above?

The thing that makes me most uncertain about my writing is my problem with story. I always have characters and settings and language and tone and voice, but story is where I freeze.

I usually have an ending in mind, even, but it's getting there that knots me up. I think because I don't want to come off as trite, or too obvious/preachy/cliched when it comes to reaching that end?

Deep down, I think I also believe that if I don't have the story, I don't really have anything, which makes me procrastinate, during which the anxiety grows, cue vicious circle. It's one reason writing the romances was no problem -- no matter how wonderful and original romance writers can be with their characters or situations, there is a basic formula to a romance (just like there is to a mystery, etc.), so the overall story structure never scared me there.

Not sure what I'm asking, just ... starting a discussion, I guess.

I have found myself wandering around muttering to myself as I work out a plot. I know where I want the characters to go, but they sit stubbornly on their asses refusing to move. It can take ages to mine their backstories and interactions to find reasonable motivations for doing what I want them to do--and sometimes there isn't one. I guess it's a sort of calculus, you modify the variables until the answer makes sense, and sometimes you find that the answer your solving for is not the one you expected.

I wish there was a way to say how to do it, but sometimes it's just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks in an appealing way.

About the only thing I've found that helps is keeping an eye out for stories in the real world and seeing how events lead to events. The real world is weirder than what you can get away with in fiction, but sometimes the memory of an occurrence can give you an idea for moving characters around.

There are very few new stories in the world, human motivations are pretty consistent through history, and most of them are fairly banal. That's part of the appeal, we recognize ourselves in the characters and don't feel so bad when the people we're reading about do the same stupid stuff we do.

I get that. I think it's just a weird me thing, that I feel like the whole plot should come to me whole, or it's ... cheating, or something.

Oh, god, the sense of cheating! I know that. "If I was any good at this, I'd already know what I want to do here!"

I think every writer has that.