Characteristics of a Best Selling Novel (Part 1)

In starting this journey to Indie Authordom, my first step was "market research" -- did the most popular YA novels share any common characteristics? My favourite pastime is reading, so it was a pleasure to go through these books to learn how to plot a compelling story. If you are into the YA genre you've probably already read these books, but I've included the one-sentence log-line for each for context (obtained through random googling). In this first installment, I will discuss three series that were absolutely extraordinary, in my opinion.

1) Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling (jkrowling.com)
Eleven year old famous wizard, Harry Potter, is sent to wizarding school to learn magic, but ends up solving a mystery over life and death all with the most evil of wizards, Lord Voldemort, trying to kill him.

Like hundreds of thousands of others, Harry Potter ranks among my top favourite books of all time (followed by anything written by Brandon Sanderson). I predict that it will be a long time before any other book has the same rich quality of Harry Potter, but if I were to chose a few simple characteristics, these would be it:

• Rich, descriptive, creative storyworlds you can get lost in
• Groups within the storyworld that the reader can form strong positive or negative connections with (Houses)
• Strong supporting characters
• A strong series-arc as well as a book-arc.
• An overarching enemy in the series, with individual lesser enemies driving the plots in individual books.
• While romantic elements were present in the later books, they were tastefully set as a backstage to the main story line

2) Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (suzannecollinsbooks.com)
In a future North America, where the rulers of Panem maintain control through an annual televised survival competition pitting young people from each of the districts against one another, sixteen-year-old Katniss's skills are put to the test when she voluntarily takes her younger sister's place.

While not as fantastical as Harry Potter, Hunger Games had a gritty, immersive, action-packed style that was helped along by Collins' unusual choice of first-person present tense. The symbolism in this book was the best I've encountered in the genre. I also enjoyed how romance was integrated into the books: Katniss was very practical in her relationship with Peeta, and her goals were central. I felt the movie did the book injustice in this regard, because it looked like just another love story without the calculated maneuvering of the intelligent Katniss.

• Rich culture and politics linked to and regularly influencing the main plot (in this case, oppression by the government)
• Symbolism which drastically increased the quality of the book
• Coal district is lowly, treated like dirt, but coal is also combustible and their district is where the revolution catches fire
• The mockingjay
• Realistic romantic elements which take a back stage to the main plot
• Excellent character development: Responsibility, commitment, sacrifice 
• Gritty, realistic
• Distinct groups of people (districts)

3) Divergent by Veronica Roth (veronicarothbooks.blogspot.ca)
Beatrice Prior, a teenager with a special mind, finds her life threatened when an authoritarian leader seeks to exterminate her kind in her effort to seize control of their divided society.

I felt Hunger Games was a more carefully crafted and nuanced read than Divergent, but Divergent had superb pacing. While the political setup didn't feel as rich as in Hunger Games, I felt Tris's internal conflict was more realistic, and I enjoyed the believable love story element, which was central to the plot.

• The most believable relationship I've encountered in the YA genre
• Show a connection between the romantic pair; don't force by telling. It must have substance.
• See Roth's description of InstaLove! for her thoughts.
• Internal conflict can drive many scenes
• Tris debates what to choose for most of Act I
• Again, the concept of distinct groups within the storyworld that different readers could relate to (factions)
• Lean writing; a sense of urgency
• Strong focus on character development, grounded in the characters upbringing and their new experiences.

Next week, in part 2, I'll talk about series that were extremely popular and offer some good pointers, but were lacking in some aspects.

Writing a novel while working full time (and having a family)

I did a lot of googling when I was trying to figure out how to squeeze writing a novel into my already full day. I work full time, teach part-time, and have two young boys who want me all to themselves when I get home. Most sites seem to advocate writing while the rest of the family sleeps (either getting up quite early, or staying up late), but they seem to be written by people with only one job. How could I squeeze in a full-time job, a family, and another part-time job? My schedule looked something like this:

• 6:30 am - 7:30 am: Wake up and get ready for work
• 7:30 am - 5:30 pm: Go to work; work; come home from work
• 5:30 pm - 8:30 pm: Play with kids, have supper, do bedtime routine
• 8:30 pm - 10:30 pm: Exhaustion sets in, but day is not done; do laundry; make lunches for next day; piddle around on the internet in an effort to wake up
• 10:30 pm - 1:30 am or later: Do teaching prep after getting second wind
• 1:30 am: Collapse in bed

The first thing I had to do was find more time... I had applied for and been offered a second part-time job which would have been great for our family financially (I'm the only breadwinner), but I really wanted to take a chance on my dream of writing a novel. Declining that position meant more time to focus on my book, and while we would have had a better life if I had taken the position, I keep telling myself that I'll have a happier, more balanced life without three jobs...

Next, for my part-time job I decided to only teach courses that I had taught before, even if that meant not getting a teaching position. This drastically reduced the amount of prep work I had to do in the evenings. I also negotiated some flex time at my full-time job so I could do some teaching prep while still at the office.

With my work schedule as tight as I could make it, I had to figure out how little sleep I could get by on. On my old schedule I was a zombie. After I got to work I was semi-normal until about 1pm, and the rest of the day was a struggle. My kids often got the "I'm too tired" line when I got home. My evening work was inefficient and probably took twice as long as it should have. Creativity did not exist. Clearly, 5 hours of sleep a night was not enough!

After a semi-serious look into polyphasic sleep (not recommended by the way), I decided to just figure out how much sleep I actually needed. Adults typically need 6 - 10 hours of sleep, with 8 - 9 being the average (apparently those who only need 6 hours of sleep are genetically rare; see this cool article on Scientific American). I had been depriving myself of sleep all of my adult life, so I had no idea where I was on the spectrum. The solution? I started going to bed when my kids did (8:30 pm!) to see when I would naturally wake up. The first night I slept until my alarm went off -- 10 hours. Not good. No problem, I told myself, Probably working off some sleep debt. But how long would it take to work off 15+ years of it?!

After a week or so of going to bed at 8:30 pm, I started to naturally wake up between 4:30 am and 5:00 am. The more I had used my brain during the day, the closer to 5:00 am I woke up, which was pretty interesting. While I was saddened to learn that I needed 8 - 8.5 hours a night, it was better than the 9 or 10 hours I was estimating based on "catch up" nights following my crazy schedule.

The benefit to getting all this sleep was that I seemed to grow 30% more brain. My thoughts weren't in a fog anymore, and I didn't lose time to being inefficient. So even though I was getting more sleep, I got the same amount done. Win-win!

Knowing how much sleep I needed, I had to figure out if I should be an "early to bed, early to rise" kind of person or not. This had less to do with me and more to do with the little sleepless people in my house. My oldest son (5) regularly has nightmares, so he usually comes to our bed sometime between 1 am and 4 am and stays for the remainder of the night. When I tried to get up at 4:30 am, he wanted to get up... I had to tell creative white lies to get him to stay in bed (queue guilt...). On the plus side, my most aware hours were used on the book, which was awesome. Unfortunately I couldn't guarantee that I would get an uninterrupted 2 hours though, because my youngest son (almost 3) starts stirring around 4:30 am and needs to be settled regularly between then and 6:30 am when he gets up. My partner would normally settle him, but since I'm awake I feel I should do it (more of that guilt stuff...).

With mornings being less-than-ideal, I moved onto evenings, but encountered the same problems as when I was on my crazy schedule: my circadian rhythm has me at my sleepiest around 8:30 pm. I stare at the screen and re-read what I already have to kick my brain into gear, but I never really boot up before I have to head to bed at 10:30 pm. On the plus side, I get a guaranteed uninterrupted block of time... unless my partner wants to chat because I've been away all day... great for our relationship, but not so great for my book!

I'm still working out the early/late business, and flip-flop daily on which is better. Right now early is in the lead, because this evening I was exhausted and wrote this blog post instead of my book =P In the end I'll probably end up smooshing and squishing the novel into life's nooks and crannies, but it's nice to think that one day I may settle into a schedule!

Perhaps someday someone will read this

So I've started this blog and purchased a domain. I think my plot has to be more developed before I should call myself an aspiring writer, but if hope and enthusiasm are equally important perhaps I could claim the label now.

While the overwhelming statistics state that all that I write here (or elsewhere for that matter) will end up lost in obscurity, I have this delusional fantasy that someday I will be a famous writer who has sold thousands of books. Of course this also makes me insanely paranoid; what if someone pokes around in my blog to see how this all started and discovers that my first entry is grammatically flawed or poorly structured? If that turns out to be you 5 (10? 15?) years from now, please note: this blog documents an informal, personal journey along my path to becoming an Indie Author, and is the one place where I don't have to be as critical of my delivery!