How to Write a Bestselling Book

It seems like EVERYONE wants to write a book. When acquaintances, friends, or family members find out I’m a writer, they often describe, sometimes in long-winded detail, the book they want to write. Then, inevitably, they ask for tips on creating their great American novel.

I wrote a book about things that fall from the sky. The first chapter dealt with weather phenomena. Now, as a scientist, an astrophysicist by degree, I actually have a fair understanding of how weather works. After all, it’s just physics applied to the atmosphere. But, as so many writers do, I wanted to check to see if I incorrectly explained anything weather-wise, so I sent it to a well-known, local meteorologist. I explained that I was writing a children’s book (I had already published four at that time) and asked if she would go over the chapter dealing with meteorology. She emailed me back gushing about the children’s book SHE wanted to write. That was four years ago, and she still hasn’t written that book. (And, by the way, she never responded to what I asked her, to verify my meteorological science.)

Many of my writer friends tell me similar stories: friends wanting help in writing the book that they’re certain will be the next New York Times best-seller. Essentially they are asking for a ten- minute description (or four-text chain, or quick email exchange) on how to write a great novel.

That, of course, is impossible. The best way to learn to write a great book is to read a lot and write a lot. In fact, the great science fiction writer Ray Bradbury once said about becoming a good writer, “Write a thousand words a day and in three years you will be a writer.” That’s a million words! That’s the equivalent of 10-20 full-length novels.

That is a bit of exaggeration. I honestly don’t know of any writer who wrote and threw away 15 novels before becoming a best-selling author.

Ray Bradbury’s advice, however, is sound in this sense: almost no one is born being a best-selling writer. Like any craft or skill, one must hone it over a long period of time with practice and failures to become excellent at it.

But I can, and do, tell people who ask me how to become a novelist that there are some skills they must learn to do well.

First, learn grammar and spelling, or use a good grammar checker and a spell checker. When Word, or whatever word processor you use, underlines a word you’ve written, it means something. It never ceases to amaze me when I judge various writing contest entries how many people ignore those and have misspellings, improper punctuation, or simply bad grammar. Editors will reject such books, and, even if you self-publish with no editing, readers will reject such books.

Second, and I can’t state this strongly enough, AVOID PASSIVE VERB CONSTRUCTION. When you use words like be, have, had, is, was, were, are, did, do, can, etc., your writing is weak. Using passive verbs TELLS the reader what happens in the story instead of SHOWING the reader how the story unfolds through actions, dialogue, and character responses to situations. And, along the same lines, avoid overuse of adverbs, all those –ly words many beginning writers use in abundance. Like passive verbs, they tell the reader what the characters think instead of showing.

Third, make sure you know everything about your two most important characters: your protagonist and your antagonist. What does the protagonist want? Why does s/he want it? What obstacles can prevent him/her from achieving the desired goal? How is the antagonist able to thwart the protagonist, and why does he/she want to? Remember also that an all-good hero or an all-bad villain is unrealistic. Those are 2-dimensional, cardboard-cutout characters. Even though the villain may be quite evil, he/she might still feed a stray dog.

And, along the same lines, KNOW YOUR STORY. What happens in the course of the story to hinder the protagonist? What is the climax and why is it a virtual do-or-die circumstance? How is the hero changed by the entire chain of events? If there is no change and growth by the hero, you don’t have a story, you have a vignette that ultimately makes no difference in the end. The reader will feel cheated by that book.

Hundreds of books exist which describe everything that goes into making a great novel, and this short blog can’t begin to cover everything a novice writer needs to learn. But those are by far the most common mistakes I see wanna-be writers make.

I also add a fourth “must” for new writers. Join a writers club and/or a critique group. Go to writer’s workshops and conferences. You need the lessons you get from the workshops and conferences and the critical reviews you receive from your critique group.

Read. Read books in the genre or genres you want to write. Read books about writing. Hell, read the newspaper. Those writers have to write every day and they eventually get quite proficient. That’s why a surprising number of great authors began their careers as journalists.

And after you’ve done all that, start on your million words. It may not take you that many, but we all need goals.

Origin of Life on Earth: The Phosphate Problem

Biologists currently don’t know where or how life began on Earth, but they do have plenty of theories. They have a pretty good idea of what chemicals are required to create life. Five elements are critical for all life on our planet: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus. Of course, many other elements come into play, but the basic structures in our cells absolutely demand these five. While all exist in our environment, they need to be highly concentrated relative to the environment in general for life to take hold. So much of the investigation into the genesis of life focuses on how to concentrate these elements.

The first, widely-accepted notion suggested that life began in tidal pools at the ocean’s edge. As tides moved out, pools of water left behind concentrated chemicals when the water evaporated. This idea held sway for many years. In the late 1970s, scientists discovered hydrothermal vents on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. These are locations where seawater seeped into Earth’s interior, became super-heated, and came back out through volcano-like vents. The hot water leached minerals out of the rock as it returned to the ocean.

This seemed to many to be even more plausible. But one puzzle still remained. Neither scenario seemed to provide the needed concentration of phosphorus. As Jonathan Toner, a University of Washington research assistant professor of Earth and space sciences described it, "For 50 years, what's called 'the phosphate problem,' has plagued studies on the origin of life.” He led a research team that studied alkaline lakes for a possible solution to the ‘phosphate problem.’ These form in low-lying areas where water collects via drainage from dry environments, often in volcanic regions, like Mono Lake in California.

Mono Lake, California. Credit U. S. Geological Survey

Typically, carbonate combines with and traps phosphorus, but in these alkaline environments, carbonate also combines with calcium which would otherwise lock-up phosphorus, too. The net result is a phosphorus concentration high enough to support life on Earth. Once again, origin-of-life theories have come back to the idea of bodies of surface water as the starting point for life on our planet.

Each month, I write an astronomy-related column piece for The Oklahoman newspaper. On the following day, I post that same column to my blog page.

This is reprinted by permission from The Oklahoman and www.newsok.com.