Writing a Novel - Phenomena

 Hello. C J here. A novel is never written in isolation. Yes, the craft of storytelling is a solo sport. It’s a one person job. But the craft of finding inspiration never follows those rules. It’s a phrase I’ve heard somewhere that novels are never written in a vacuum. This is true. All fiction builds on the stories that came before it and has since they invented theatre in Ancient Greece. Since Ancient Greece people have been learning about feelings, conflict resolution and teamwork through narratives.

So when you’re young you get to pick what you set your sights on for the rest of your life. The options are many and hard to sort through. Having a family. Travelling often. Learning to cook tacos. Learning to sing. Being a programmer. This is how life should work. And what you pick you should get but not without a bit of work. Otherwise it would be too easy. Me? I picked a word. One word.

Phenomena.

To explain, this word is a quote from J. K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series. Phenomena was what she wasn’t expecting when she released Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. But the book got big. Real big. Real fast. The world was paying attention to the life of one author named J. K. Rowling and wanted more. We still want more. There are still Harry Potter video games coming out almost daily for the PC laptop I own.

I grew up during this chaos. So me, the author, I think to myself something. ‘Can I have what she has? Can I have one of those?’ Phenomena. That’s her word for what Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone did to the world. She didn’t see it coming. She knows she will never have it happen twice. She gets one of them. Me, though, I’ve always wondered something. Could it happen twice but to someone else? And why couldn’t that someone else be me?

I’m not known to gloat or brag much about my work. Maybe this is a thing I should do more quite frankly. I’m good at what I do. I write some of the best fiction known to mankind. It’s me, J. K. Rowling, J. R. R. Tolkien, Issac Azimov, Frank Herbert and a couple of others who have the skill at the written word and the craft of storytelling to innovate and to do it right. I know I’m good at what I do because the work and the legacy of these great storytellers makes sense to me. Can I have one of those? One of what they had?

Apparently the answer is no. Flat no. I’ve documented here before how horrific the publishing industry is on the inside. I’m not doing that documentation again. Then they all went bankrupt when the Amazon Kindle was invented. Thank god. We didn’t need them. The Amazon Kindle works but it’s impossible to market on that platform without a blog or a Facebook account so I kept looking. I finally landed on the paid by donation model and on selling print books that I make and bind myself.

My point though is that we need another of those phenomena. We need one more. One more that will repeat. That’s what I’ve spent my whole life building. I’m engineering one of those into existence. I am that good. And a phenomena has rules. A lot of rules. So I learned them and followed them to the letter. The novel has to involve teamwork. It has to be meaningful to its reader. It has to have themes and messages of importance. It has to innovate a genre and then take up all the room in that genre for itself. And, most of all, it has to be enjoyable to read. I’m standing on the shoulders of giants here listing these. Does that make me a giant too?

C J Mcpherson