Selected Articles from Cross & Quill

Dr. Mary Ann Diorio writes fiction and poetry. Her hundreds of articles, short stories, and poems have appeared in over 100 publications. She has won several writing awards, including Third Prize in the AMY Writing Awards Program, a Writer’s Digest Short Story Award, a National Writers' Club Short Story Award, a St. Davids Award for Novel Writing, and Third Place in Women's Fiction in the 2006 Genesis Contest sponsored by American Christian Fiction Writers. MaryAnn has also written three non-fiction books published by Enslow Publishers: A Student's Guide to Nathaniel Hawthorne, A Student's Guide to Herman Melville, and A Student's Guide to Mark Twain. She has nearly completed her first novel entitled Sicilian Sunrise, the first in a trilogy called The Italian Chronicles.

Writing a Novel

Dr. Mary Ann Diorio, Millville, New Jersey

Writing a novel is an art based on important principles. Here are five of them:

1. Character comes before plot. Just as people still argue over the proverbial question, Which comes first? The chicken or the egg?, writers of fiction argue over what comes first, character or plot? We Christians know that the chicken came first since God directly created the chicken. The egg, then, comes out of the chicken. The same is true in the best fiction — the kind of fiction that most impacts lives. The author creates the character, and the plot then flows from the character. Think about the most memorable stories you've read. What comes to mind first — the character or the plot? Most often, it is a character who remains branded in your memory, long after the plot is forgotten.

2. Plot evolves out of character. What your characters do is your plot. Therefore, before you even begin to write, know your characters — what motivates or drives them. It is out of this knowing that your plot emerges and develops.

3. Start your story in the middle of action or conflict. Think about screenplays and television dramas. The story always opens with something happening or in the middle of a conflict or problem. It is the same in fiction. This immediately captures your reader's interest and draws him into the story.

4. When writing, think of yourself as a camera. Stories are not written in words; they are written in pictures. Your mind operates in images, not letters of the alphabet. For example, when I say "house", do you see the letters h-o-u-s-e, or do you see an image of a house, most likely your own? The answer is obvious.

5. Remember that people read fiction for entertainment. Don't preach or moralize. Make your message intrinsic to the story, not tacked onto the end. True, our readers often learn something about life from reading our fiction, but they want to be entertained before they will be interested in listening to what we have to say.

MaryAnn’s fiction has appeared in Show and Tell, Today’s Christian Teen, the Young Generation k of Short Stories, Junior Trails, and Romancing the Christian Heart. She is currently working on a novel.

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