Novel Advice: Motivation, Inspiration, and Creative Writing Tips for Aspiring Authors (Book)
The Writing Coach Podcast with Kevin T. Johns
Scene Alchemy Essentials Checklist (Free copy)
Intro:
Well, hey there, writer. Welcome to The Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm your host, Rhonda Douglas. And this is the podcast for writers who want to create and sustain a writing life they love.
Because let's face it, the writing life has its ups and downs, and we want to not just write, but also to be able to enjoy the process so that we'll spend more time with our butt-in-chair getting those words on the page.
This podcast is for writers who love books and everything that goes into the making of them. For writers who want to learn and grow in their craft and improve their writing skills. Writers who want to finish their books and get them out into the world so their ideal readers can enjoy them. Writers who want to spend more time in that flow state.
Writers who want to connect with other writers to celebrate and be in community, in this crazy roller coaster ride, we call the writing life. We are resilient writers. We're writing for the rest of our lives and we're having a good time doing it. So welcome, Writer. I'm so glad you're here. Let's jump right into today's show.
Rhonda:
Well, hey there writer. Welcome back to another episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm here today with Kevin T. Johns. He is a writing coach and author in Ottawa, Canada. literally across the city from me, even though we're recording this in Zoom. He lives there with his wife and three daughters. So he grew up reading comic books, watching horror movies, playing guitar in punk rock bands. And he has a degree, master's degree from Carleton University in English Lit. And he's published seven books and helped hundreds of writers from around the world finish their books as well. And he has a really great book called Novel Advice, Motivation, Inspiration, and Creative Writing Tips for Aspiring Authors. And you can get that on his website at kevintjohns.com. I'll put a link in the show notes for that. So welcome, Kevin.
Kevin:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to chat with you today. And like you said, we probably could have just opened our windows and shouted this at each other, but you know, probably better audio if we do it over Zoom.
Rhonda:
Exactly, exactly. So, Kevin, you work a lot with aspiring or emerging writers in commercial genres, right? So what kind of genres typically are you supporting people with?
Kevin:
Yeah, so there's the big split in the publishing world is largely literary fiction, which is the stuff that's really focused on the psychology of the character, and that's focused on the quality of the prose and the poetic or experimental nature of that style of writing. That's not me. I work with the folks who write horror stories, who write romance, who write sci-fi. I get a lot of fantasy authors. I think there's kind of a generation of people out there who grew up. Either influenced by Harry Potter or reading Harry Potter to their kids or whatever but a lot of kind of urban fantasy authors out there right now And so all of that is what I call commercial fiction It's basically any book where you can kind of say there's a shelf for it at chapters or at Barnes and Noble You know, there's the romance chapter or shelf. There's the horror shelf Those are the folks whose books I like to work with.
Rhonda:
Oh Fabulous. Okay, so um I'm interested in what you think. I mean, we both sort of work with authors at different stages, but your particular focus is getting that first draft done. So in your experience, what are the things that stand between the aspiring author and that all-important first draft?
Kevin:
So many things. I honestly believe that the hardest part of writing any book is the first draft. I think looking at that blank page and having to fill it up and having to fill it up again for 300 pages is so intimidating to so many people. And the thing I love about revisions is for the most part, every single time you work on your book, you're making it better. Whereas in that first draft, you might be making it worse. You might have just written a chapter that took things in the wrong direction. And so there's so much uncertainty and whatnot in that process. And the biggest thing I see people struggle with is just spending way too much time on it, thinking they're going to get it all right the first try.
And what I really encourage folks to do is try to get that first draft written as quickly as possible. Once we have something on the page, we have something to work with. And so often people will spend months, if not years, working on the first couple scenes in their book, not realizing that quite often we finish our manuscript and we realize the first three scenes need to completely be rewritten or cut out or edited. And so people spend so much time and energy on this first draft, not understanding. it's the very first step on a long journey. They think finishing the first draft and the project's done when really it's just the beginning. So they put way too much time and energy and resources into that first draft only to then be completely overwhelmed when they finish it and realize now they need to start revisions and they've spent months or years on this draft.
Rhonda:
Right. And there is something in our culture, isn't there, where like in pop culture, in movies and so on, where you're watching someone, they're on a typewriter or they're on a computer, they're typing away, the pages are piling up, they print it out, they run a spell check, boom, they've got a book, right? Like there's something in our culture. And I mean, we're a culture that likes the fast and the easy anyway, but I think it's very true that people think, oh, I'm gonna finish this draft and then I'm most of the way done a book, which is hilarious when you know how it really works, right?
Kevin:
Exactly. You know, I think the education system is at least partially to blame, because if you have not done a master's degree, it's possible you went through your entire education, including a university education, without ever revising a paper. Right? How does school work? You write your essay the night before it's due, you hand it in, and then you get a grade on it. Right. So people think that's how books work is, you know, you write it and then it's good or it's not. And of course, that's not how the real world works. The real world is we get in there and we revise and we revise until it's where it needs to be. But we don't learn that skill in high school, in university. We just do not encourage people to revise. We just give them a grade and say, you got a C. Good luck next time. You know, you don't say, here's a C hand it in again in two weeks and let's see if we can get it to an A. And that's much more what the publishing world is really like.
Rhonda:
Right. Yes, that's so true. I hadn't thought of that until you said it, but you're right. I don't think I ever, you know, I mean, maybe I wrote a first draft and then, you know, gave it a quick look over before the deadline, but I certainly didn't do massive revising. Wow. Yeah, no, that's very true.
So what are the big things when you see people with a draft? So spending. a long time with it is one of the issues. But in terms of content structure, kind of the developmental side of the story, what are the biggest mistakes you see writers making with their stories?
Kevin:
Well, luckily I have a low cost, sometimes free program called Story Plan where I spend four weeks teaching people the fundamentals of story craft and really setting those structural foundations and the character arc foundations and doing some thinking on theme and controlling idea and these sorts of elements. And so luckily a lot of the people I work with, they kind of graduate from that program into my first draft program. And so they at least have the fundamentals there. But a lot more people are out there who haven't been through story plan or who are pantsing and they don't have a structural foundation that anything is built upon.
And I'm not saying you can't pants. What I say is there are foundational elements to the craft of storytelling that we need to get the story to. There needs to be a coherent theme. There needs to be character arc. There needs to be objects of desire or wants or needs driving character action. The story needs a beginning, a middle, and an end. And so I've really encouraged people to think about that stuff ahead of time so that you can finish a first draft that you know is at least like going to stand. It's not going to crumble. The thing with, with pantsing is you finish that first draft and then you reverse engineer it and you go, okay, what do I have here? Is there a character arc? Is there a theme? Is there structure? And I think that's a lot more difficult a process. It works for some people, but I just think it's easier to know like, okay, this scene is the end of act one in the beginning of act two, as opposed to looking at a completed manuscript and going, oh, okay, when does act one end? You know, like, is it this scene? Is it that scene?
So I just think efficiency wise and even confidence wise, doing that planning ahead of time can go so far in terms of... giving you the confidence that the story at least works, that the story is at least good, that there is at least cohesion to it. Whereas if you just dive in and discover your way through the whole thing, it's a whole lot more work, I think, to reverse engineer it, to get it to where it needs to be.
Rhonda:
Okay, so you've just described my whole process. I am a pantser. Ok, now whether I will stay a panzer is another question. But so one of the reason I have been a panzer, Kevin, is because when I start outlining things and I'm like, ok, there's this scene and that scene and then I'm bored. I'm like this story is done. I'm done with it. So how do you sustain the motivation for the long haul of writing 300 pages when you already know how act two is going to end?
Kevin:
For me, I have a very much kind of like. hard hat mentality of like, let's go to work. Like, let's go tell a story. That's my job. My job is to entertain people and surprise them. And it's like, that's not always fun. Sometimes that's just work that we do, you know? And so that's part of it.
But the other thing is, I think we exaggerate the difference between pantsers and planners.
Rhonda:
Yes, I would agree.
Kevin:
You know, I'll talk to, discovery writers, they'll be like, oh, I could never plan. I, what I do is I just go in with, you know, a general sense of the beginning and the middle of the end and who these characters are and what they want. And I'm like, that's a plan.
Rhonda:
Right, right, right.
Kevin:
That's all I'm talking about, you know? And so when I do, you know, when, you know, you say, you know how act two is going to end, but maybe what that means is you have an outline and it says act two, final scene, the couple breaks up. Right. there's a whole lot of creativity and magic that still goes into what does that mean? Like, yeah, we know that's where the story's going, but where does that happen? How does it happen? You know, who says what? And so I think sometimes people think an outline is like, you know, you've got every detail perfectly figured out. And it's really not. I just want people to know that when they sit down to write act two scene 10. They have a general idea of what needs to happen there. And I think sometimes discovery writers or pantsers, they just haven't written that down. It's like the only difference really sometimes between the pants or the planters, the planner wrote that down, the pantser has it in their head.
Rhonda:
Or they have what I have, which is like one line on a pink index card.
Kevin:
Exactly, exactly. That's all I'm looking for.
Rhonda:
So I find that fascinating because I actually have come to believe that whether you are planning at the start, or you get stuck and you stop and so now you're in the middle and you got to stop and plan, or as you say, you reverse engineer, you've got a draft and now you're reverse engineering it, you are going to be planning at some point of writing a novel. There's no way around doing the plan. So tell me a little bit about this story plan course. I know you're gonna be offering it in the fall and you're offering it at this, it's a pay what you can program, which I think is really exciting. So tell me a little bit about what's all involved in that? Like what you take people through.
Kevin:
So we start with genre in that program. I think genre is where everything starts and where everything ends because genre dictates everything else to how long the book is going to be, to what sort of things need to happen in that book, to how that book's going to end, right? If you're writing a romance, it needs to end happily or happily for now, right? And so, and that's where we start. And then what happens when you publish a book, it shows up in a bookstore and someone goes, what shelf is this going to go on? It's going to go on the romance shelf. So I kind of see genre as being the underpinning that covers the full creative journey of creating a book.
And so what we do in story plan is week one, we really say, what is your genre and what are the conventions of that genre? What's the iconography of the genre? I use the metaphor of a sandbox and it's like. Genre is the sandbox that you're going to play in. And depending on what genre you choose, you get different toys to play with in that sandbox. So if you're writing in the science fiction sandbox, you have a spaceship to play with. You have laser guns to play with. You have aliens or other planets or whatever. Like there's certain elements there. And I don't know about you, but I mean, a shocking amount of time. I ask young writers what genre they're writing and they don't know. Like they don't like I would say, I'm not sure is like the answer I get more often than like -
Rhonda:
That’s fascinating to me because I always feel like writers come from, you know, many times we write what we love to read. So, you know, oh, no, it's romance or no, it's but you find people say they don't know what genre they're in. Wow.
Kevin:
I think that might be who I'm drawing to me too is people were really coming from this pop culture space who like love Marvel movies and who grew up watching Buffy and something like Buffy or something like a Marvel movie, what genre is that? Because you know, Spider-Man's fighting an evil robot, one comic book and he's fighting a zombie, the next comic book. And so there's a real mashup in the world of kind of sci-fi fantasy, horror, speculative fiction. And I think sometimes that's where the types of folks I work with get confused because they're like, well, it's an urban fantasy, but it's got an evil wizard. But then there's also like this, you know, kind of steampunk element to it. And so all of it, just to say, you know, spending a little bit of time getting clear on your genre and what the expectations of your reader are for that genre, because that's the most important thing when you choose a genre, you're making a contract with the reader. You're saying. There are certain elements of story that you like, that you're gonna pay me for, and I'm gonna deliver on them. And yet there's gonna be some interesting twists, but you're paying for the comfort of the familiar you're paying because you like this type of story, and I'm gonna give it to you.
Rhonda:
Right, so that's where we end up with, you know, the obligatory scenes, right? The romance, the cute, and the first kiss, and the breakup, and the, you know, the things that are naturally required, the facing of the murderer, the... call to justice, you know, all that stuff. Yeah, absolutely. So, knowing your genre, even if it is a mishmash, a smash up, a crossover, right? Cause that's so popular these days to do the crossover novel. Yeah, but you gotta know, you absolutely gotta know. Yeah, absolutely.
Kevin:
So when story plan from the, oh, sorry. Did you want-
Rhonda:
No, go ahead.
Kevin:
Yeah, from there, we then turn to macro level story structure and we look at- different. I try to outline about seven or eight different story structures for people from Romance of the Beat to The Hero's Journey to The Harmon Cycle to, you know, Larry Brooks's Four Act Tenth structure. And I try to encourage people to choose one of these structures to work with. And then we start melding the two. So now, even if you don't have a single idea about your book, and everyone does, but say you're like, I just want to write a cowboy book. Well, in week one, you were like saloons, horses, you know, and hats, and we know there needs to be a standoff, right? What's that called? Where they shoot at each other?
Rhonda:
Shoot out.
Kevin:
We know there needs to be a shoot out, right? So now-
Rhonda:
I knew that. That's why I'm like, yeah, she needs a shoot out.
Kevin:
Now we look at structure and we're like, well, structurally that shoot out probably comes in act two. And we start carrying over these kind of obligatory elements or conventions or tropes in romance language, and we start layering them onto a structure. And so I think all of this comes from my fear of the blank page. Like I just, I hate that blank page. I want to get people to something that isn't the blank page as quick as possible. And so by the end of week two of story plan, we've got a macro level story structure, we've got story beats, story elements, and we're starting to move them over into that structure.
And then from there, we dig into character arc and we look at the polarity shift that the characters go on and their formative event, those sorts of things. And then ultimately we look at theme and controlling idea and really saying, what is this book about? What is this story that we're telling? What do we have to say about the world? Because I truly believe literature is an art form that at its core is always sharing wisdom of some kind. And so over the four weeks, we just kind of build, build. And it goes by in a flash and it's a bunch of work. But people basically have a full outline for a book at the end of four weeks. And so they're able to get to work and have set that foundation that they can then build upon with some confidence in the drafting.
Rhonda:
OK, yeah, love that. So you run this live a couple of times a year. You run it in the fall and you're going to run it again in the North American winter, sort of probably around January, right?
Kevin:
Most likely. Yeah.
Kevin:
So if people go to your website, they can click on story plan and they'll see when the next one is happening.
Kevin:
Absolutely.
Rhonda:
And it's what you can. So you're not going to go, you know, you're not you're not giving Kevin your grocery money. It's whatever you can afford. That's great.
So I wanted to ask about the book you wrote called Novel Advice. Why did you write that? And it's free on your website, which I find fascinating, not everybody gives away a free book. So what is that about? And what would I, if I pick it up, like as the aspiring novelist, what am I gaining there?
Kevin:
So it's a collection of essays about life as a writer, really. And some of it is more kind of tactical explorations of different techniques. But other aspects of it are just my observations about life and about writing and something like story plan or you know, I have a couple books. I have a book called smash fear and write like a pro and I have a book called the novel writers blueprint and they're like, you know, step by step. Here's how to overcome fear and write better. Here's how to plan your novel or whatnot. But novel advice is much more of, I think, I think one of the blurbs Charlotte Rains Dixon, I think she describes it as a schmorgasburg of creative insight or something. And that's really what that book is. It's one of those like, you know.
Rhonda:
It's been dipped out. Like I need, today I need a little bit of motivation so I'm dipping in and dipping out. I love it.
Kevin:
Exactly. I mean, one little story in there or essay or chapter that jumps out at me is, you know, the voice of fire since you're here in Ottawa.
Rhonda:
I do, yes. The voice of fire painting, yes.
Kevin:
Right, so in the nineties Ottawa, the National Art Gallery bought for like $2 million or something this painting, three stripes, it's two blue stripes and a red stripe down the middle. And I don't know if you remember this, but for me, growing up in Ottawa, I just remember for like weeks, the media, people at school were just jammering on about it. Exactly. And the thing everyone said was, well, I could have painted that, you know, and even as a teenager, I was like, but you didn't. And you know, and that's the thing is like the world is full of people who sit around going, well, I could do that. I could have done that. Oh, that's not worth a million dollars. And yet none of them did. And that guy did, and he got a million dollar sale out of it, you know? And it's just, that's the type of stuff we talk about in that book is just mindset stuff and creativity stuff. And just this idea of getting out there and doing things as opposed to, like I always think of almost being an author and artist as almost like a sports metaphor where it's like, You're going out on the field. You're risking yourself, like your reputation, your soul, your whatever. Like it's rough out there. You put yourself out into the world and you're going to be attacked. There's going to be critiques and like not everyone is going to love you.
Rhonda:
One star reviews on Amazon.
Kevin:
Yep. There are exactly. And yet I would so much rather be out on the field being beat up than being those people on the sidelines going, Oh, I could have done that. Oh, I could have done that so much better. It's like. put on strap on the equipment, get on the field then, you know, because that's it's and so those are the people I surround myself with are the people who are willing to go out on the field, the people who are willing to bear their souls or to risk being mocked or laughed at or whatever in hopes of communicating something in hopes of entertaining in hopes of telling a story and sharing wisdom and I, yeah.
Rhonda:
I remember seeing this guy on the internet recently, I think he was a And he said something like, um, uh, this guy saved my life, four stars out of five. And the doctor was like, I don't know what I have to do to earn that fifth star. You know, like everybody's a critic. Everybody has got like, whether it's, oh, they found a typo on page 228, or they just didn't like your character because, because of who they are, you know, nothing to do with your book, they just brought a bias to the book and trashed you for it. And it happens. You know, it does happen.
So we've got to develop either a thick skin. I think that's important to kind of begin to develop a thick skin, but also the sense of like, I did the work, I put it out there and now I don't care. You know what I mean? Like, because otherwise I feel like you'd never create anything else again.
Kevin:
Well, this brings us back to that first draft, first author issues that they run into and something you don't understand until you've completed a project and put it out into the world is it's never going to be perfect. These first-time novelists, they're like, it's going to get there. If I put enough time, if I put enough effort, it's eventually going to be perfect. And it's not.
So everything you release, when you release it, you say, this is as good as it's going to get for the time, the energy, the budget I had for this project. And that's all we can do. You know, Have you heard about, I think, was it like Aristotle talked about how everything in life in the world is a pale imitation of the perfect version of it in heaven, in the metaphysical space, right? And so many authors have this perfect version of their book in their heads. And then when they start putting it on the page, they're like, well, that's not how it looked in my head. And it's like, It's like the Aristotle thing, right? Where it's like, yeah, it's never perfect when it's real, but it exists. It's like, this is not the perfect version of this month. The perfect version exists in metaphysical heaven or whatever, but like this gets the job done. I can drink coffee from this. It's good enough. And so with authors, sometimes criticism is valid. I have a review of my book, M. School, and the guy's like, This is just a mashup of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter and James Bond. And I'm like, that's exactly what it is.
Rhonda:
That's an awesome review. Thank you very much.
Kevin:
Right. I mean, like that's valid criticism. That was what I was going for. It just didn't work for him. Right. So it's not even like the critics are always wrong or crazy or whatever. Sometimes the critics are right. It's just not for them. It's like, that's what I was going for. That's not what they like. Oh, well, what are you going to do about it?
Rhonda:
Oh, well, write the next book. Yeah. I have, so Zadie Smith called that the great gap, I think, between the gap between, you know, the glimmering perfection we can see when we conceive of the idea and what our skills are currently able to produce in the world, right? Because the writer you are today with this book is not the same writer. You're going to be three books from now. So you have to be willing to do that. If I showed you the reading copies of my books when I've done like readings at festivals and stuff, there's notes in them. Right. Like I've scratched out words and added in other words and I read the new words. Like if you bought the book at the festival and I read from it, could be slightly different. Right. Because I'm a different person reading it. So absolutely. Yeah.
So, um, Kevin, thanks so much for being here with me today. I wanted to just let people know where they can connect with you. You have a podcast. Tell me about the podcast. Cause I think obviously if you're listening to this, you're a podcast person. So you're gonna wanna be searching at Kevin's podcast as well. So tell me about, it's called the writing coach, right?
Kevin:
That's right. Yeah, I've been doing the writing coach for a very long time. I don't, I'm not regular in terms of getting something out every week, but I'm at 200 and. 10 episodes or something like that. So, you know, I've been doing this for a long time. I've got a ton of episodes out there.
And some of the time I'm interviewing other writing coaches or other folks who work with writers, editors, marketing experts, anyone who works with authors to help make their lives easier or better or to teach them or support them. Those are the interviews I do.
And then I also just have standalone episodes where I share my thoughts on writing and the writing life and being a writing coach and literature and pop culture, those sorts of things. So it's, you know, we've got a great archive now of over 200 episodes that folks can dig into and lots of great conversations about working with artists and being writers and also just my general thoughts on writing and how to approach it.
Rhonda:
Cool. Well, I'll definitely put a link to that in the show notes and you can add that. to your podcast feed and definitely hit follow or subscribe or whatever we're hitting these days to have the next episode automatically show up. So thanks so much for being with me, Kevin, and I'm sure we'll chat soon.
Kevin:
Thanks so much for having me. This was great.
Outro:
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