Learning Curve: Where's the down slope?

by
Leni Checkas


My learning curve started after I'd submitted my children's mystery novel, seven or so years ago. I prided myself in that I wrote it in no less that one week.

My submissions kept getting rejected. Apparently, I wrote superb queries, but something was wrong with the main product. I didn't know what to do. So, I picked up a book on craft recommended by judges of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers' Conference. The book was "Scene & Structure" by Jack Bickman. Couldn't hurt, could it? Plus, this guy was an author of over 70 published books and a former faculty member of University of Oklahoma School of Journalism. So he had to know what he was doing, right?

Well, in the book, after Bickman divulges his own foibles in getting started writing fiction, which sounded oddly familiar, he drops a bomb on me and states that fiction is conflict.

"Nut-uh," I screamed before slamming the book shut and shelving it. This guy was crazy. He did not know what he was talking about. I was mad.

Except...after that seed was planted, I started noticing conflict in every single book I read, even "My Little Pony" books that my daughter read at the time. What a drag. Bickman was right. I realized my anger came from the fact that I had been putting words on paper for over a year, but I completely missed this basic premise of fiction. Worse, now I was going to have to rewrite everything that I ever wrote. I loathed editing.

But, my writing improved. Thanks to Mr. Bickman.

I tried another one of those craft-type books, to see if there was anything else I might be missing. This one was called "Writing Fiction" by Janet Burroway. Wow, full of things like P.O.V. and characterization and plotting that I had no idea about. Ugh! This writing thing is tough. More rewriting ensued, accompanied by many four letter words, like edit.

I got a book called "Creating Characters Kids will Love" by Elaine Marie Alphin, when I realized I didn't know the difference between writing for adults and writing for kids. Life was getting a little easier, because I knew before cracking open the book that I would have to edit. But I had no idea how much work until I got through chapter six, not even half way through the workbook, in one year. I wasn't actually ready for that much learning, mainly because it involved learning how to edit and to be flexible, like getting rid of what doesn't work.

Hoo, boy! It's been six years since I ventured into Jack Bickman's fateful reference, and I'm still climbing the learning curve of how to write fiction. I finally get it when anyone says, "Writing Fiction is a process." Too true. And that process involves editing. We're BFF's now, by the way.

So all I need to know now: is there a book that can show me the down slope to this learning curve?