![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rabid1stToday, I learned about the writing process of YA author, and child prodigy, Christopher Paolini. For those of you who do not know, Paolini wrote the New York Times Bestselling Inheritance series, which began with the wildly popular book, Eragon. That's a study in pronunciation, by the way, for all of you non-English speakers to ponder. It is a book about a dragon and the word dragon is spelled almost exactly like the word Eragon, but you sound them out quite differently.
Anyway, while young Mr. Paolini was presented to us as a wunderkind by the publishing industry, it seems that his methods for writing are very much like those of the common man. He worked hard for many years to achieve success. He did start earlier than most, coming up with a plan to write a novel at the tender age of 14. I did much the same as I recall. And we had similar results with our early attempts as well. It appears that, like most of us, Christopher Paolini found he couldn't get past the first few pages of a story before he ran out of steam and stopped writing. The story foundered and he lost interest.
Unlike most of us, however, Christopher didn't chide himself and assume he simply wasn't talented enough or disciplined enough to be a writer. Instead, he assumed that he didn't know how to write a story properly. So, he took a couple of his writing books off the shelf. Yes, look over at your own collection of "How to Write" books and consider this point. He took three of those books and studied them for a couple of months, taking notes and developing a plan. Next, he created a story concept and outline. He outlined Eragon in paragraph form, not in traditional outline form, listing each major scene and ending up with about 10-12 pages single spaced. This bare-bones outline is what he eventually expanded to 500 pages. The expansion step took 2 years, working for four hours a day. During all of this toil and time, Paolini didn't think about publishing the book, he only thought about finishing it and making it fun to read.
Eragon was initially self-published. Christopher and his family went on promotional tours to libraries and bookstores, using up his college fund and holding the wolf of bankruptcy from the door as they sought an audience for his novel. And miraculously, of the 10,000 copies that originally sold, one fell into the hands of fellow YA and Mystery novelist Carl Hiaasen. He showed it to his publisher. And the rest is wunderkind history. That first print run was 2.5 million copies. Even at a dollar a book, that is 2.5 million dollars--amazing success for an 19 year old young man. Something definitely paid off for him. But was it genius or perseverance?
To Learn More About the 100 Things Challenge...go here...http://jdbracknell.livejournal.com/165714.html
Anyway, while young Mr. Paolini was presented to us as a wunderkind by the publishing industry, it seems that his methods for writing are very much like those of the common man. He worked hard for many years to achieve success. He did start earlier than most, coming up with a plan to write a novel at the tender age of 14. I did much the same as I recall. And we had similar results with our early attempts as well. It appears that, like most of us, Christopher Paolini found he couldn't get past the first few pages of a story before he ran out of steam and stopped writing. The story foundered and he lost interest.
Unlike most of us, however, Christopher didn't chide himself and assume he simply wasn't talented enough or disciplined enough to be a writer. Instead, he assumed that he didn't know how to write a story properly. So, he took a couple of his writing books off the shelf. Yes, look over at your own collection of "How to Write" books and consider this point. He took three of those books and studied them for a couple of months, taking notes and developing a plan. Next, he created a story concept and outline. He outlined Eragon in paragraph form, not in traditional outline form, listing each major scene and ending up with about 10-12 pages single spaced. This bare-bones outline is what he eventually expanded to 500 pages. The expansion step took 2 years, working for four hours a day. During all of this toil and time, Paolini didn't think about publishing the book, he only thought about finishing it and making it fun to read.
Eragon was initially self-published. Christopher and his family went on promotional tours to libraries and bookstores, using up his college fund and holding the wolf of bankruptcy from the door as they sought an audience for his novel. And miraculously, of the 10,000 copies that originally sold, one fell into the hands of fellow YA and Mystery novelist Carl Hiaasen. He showed it to his publisher. And the rest is wunderkind history. That first print run was 2.5 million copies. Even at a dollar a book, that is 2.5 million dollars--amazing success for an 19 year old young man. Something definitely paid off for him. But was it genius or perseverance?
To Learn More About the 100 Things Challenge...go here...http://jdbracknell.livejournal.com/165714.html
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-22 06:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-22 09:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-22 09:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-22 09:45 pm (UTC)