The Long and Winding Road of Writing a Novel

I have been a writer my entire adult life. As a journalist, I’ve written and edited thousands of newspaper and magazine stories, always aiming to give people something they want or need to read.

When I took the leap into fiction, I had to expand my creative envelope to create a compelling plot that would capture readers’ attention with gripping scenes, vivid characters, adequate foreshadowing and a pace to transport them into the story. The process for taking a raw idea to a full-fledged novel proved to be a circuitous adventure. Underlying that process was my belief that a book should do at least one of three things:

• Entertain: Make readers laugh or cry. Keep them on the edge of their seats and help them escape the stress and boredom of their lives;
• Resonate: Tell a story where readers can relate to or recognize the characters or plot in a meaningful way;
• Enlighten: Educate your audience about an important issue, current trend or historical era. People like expanding their understanding of the world.

Ground Zero

For me, writing is equal parts artform and craft, a construction project that starts by building a strong foundation out of a germ of an idea as the basis for a good page-turner. I love this process. Some authors take the time to develop detailed 40- or 50-page outlines, storyboards, or even diagrams before they start a book. I am not one of them. I like to think it’s because when I was a newspaper reporter, there usually wasn’t time to do prep work. But even in junior high school, I didn’t like doing outlines and was never good at it. 

The fact that I’ve spent decades as a professional writer and editor does give me an edge in this regard. I am quite comfortable sitting down at a computer and putting words on a blank page—knowing that I can come back and polish what I’ve written. 

But a book does require a plan, and when I embarked on my first novel, Summer Club, I knew I couldn’t just wing it. I started by asking myself the same question I’d routinely asked as a journalist: why would anyone want to read this? I spent a lot of time thinking through the idea, then sharpened it with lots of notes and a basic outline, a roadmap that guided the storyline with a beginning, middle and end. 

Summer Club was inspired by my own experience as volunteer president of a neighborhood swim and tennis club rife with whining and complaining, politics, parent drama, drunken soirees and snarkiness. You can’t make this stuff up, I kept telling myself. I’ve got to write a book. It’s the story of one crazy summer where a journalist-turned-stay-at-home mom must juggle keeping a rundown, dysfunctional swim and tennis club afloat and chasing down a dark fraud scheme that puts her life in danger. 

Create Some Tension

Writing the book was a years-long, fits-and-starts journey. It started out as a fun, funny story about the daily antics at the club, some of which are quite outrageous. Many are based on actual events which, of course, I fictionalized. Because I had “lived” much of the story, I didn’t need to do extensive research. I know how swim clubs operate and the ways people cheat at tennis. I’ve seen helicopter parents and neurotic swim team moms at their worst. I’ve served on numerous volunteer boards and observed how members use the organization to further their own agendas. These are universal behaviors that emerge when people are thrown together in a situation—from the PTA to the HOA to church councils.

I also took pains to portray events realistically and accurately. For example, for the pothead snack bar manager who runs her own marijuana-growing operation, I researched the provisions of the law in a state where recreational marijuana is legal.  

Then things changed. As I got further into the story, I realized I needed a dark element, something to create some tension juxtaposed with all the silliness. The prospect of almost starting over wasn’t discouraging. In fact, I was thrilled I’d had an epiphany that could only make the book more appealing to readers.   

Coming up with the scenario was easier said than done, however. I researched news stories and cases about drug rings, timeshare fraud and organized crime, but couldn’t figure out how to weave any of those angles into the book. I was stuck. Meanwhile, I got busy with other projects and put the book aside.  

A few years later, I learned about a complex investment scam. That got me thinking. I did some research on investment fraud and Ponzi schemes, careful to use only legitimate sources, and pulled some affidavits and court documents on some actual cases. Now, I had the basis for the sinister side of the story, allowing me to take the narrative from simply poop in the pool to a body in the river. 

Thus began my overhaul of the book. My first task was to rewrite the first page with an opener that would immediately grab the reader and make him or her want to read more. I kept it simple, but powerful, setting a vivid scene to suggest the prospect for a good suspense story. 

With the addition of this dark twist, I needed to incorporate the right amount of foreshadowing, clues, and red herrings that would build as the book progressed. I wanted to keep readers entertained by the inane, often hilarious, goings-on at the club, while intriguing them with hints that something more was in store. 

That’s where organization and problem-solving came into the picture—presenting the story in a coherent way that is easy for people to follow. I tweaked my roadmap, then did some cutting and pasting. I also focused on those all-important transitions that seamlessly take readers from one scene to the next, present-day to flashback, character to character. I chose good beta readers, who provided invaluable feedback on the plot and the execution.

From Non-Fiction to Fiction

Especially challenging was the transition from non-fiction to fiction. As a journalist, I’d always had a deadline to meet and limited space, meaning I had to write fast and tight. As I was writing Summer Club, I could feel myself lapsing into that mode, rushing through scenes to get to the next part of the story. My beta readers saw it too. So, I had to learn how to relax and slow down, consciously work at letting the scenes unfold fully and fleshing out the characters to make them come alive. 

Typically, I spent about three hours a day writing, always stopping at a place where I knew I could hit the ground running the next day. Not knowing how you’re going to pick up where you left off can keep you up at night! I’m a morning person, so that is when I carved out time to do the writing. 

Finally, the finishing touches. I started each day by reviewing what I’d already written, sometimes even going back to the beginning, to rework and refine. I made the characters stronger, the scenes richer and more engaging. I made sure the story flowed and the transitions were smooth. And that there was enough drama and suspense to keep readers turning the page.

I completed my first draft 18 months before publishing the book. During that time, I did more rewriting and even resubmitted my manuscript to the publisher based on further input from beta readers and an editor and my own meticulous revisions, including some last-minute additions to the story. Would the process have been easier had I done a more extensive outline at the outset? Maybe. But I enjoyed the ride.

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About the Author. In her debut novel Summer Club, KATHERINE DEAN MAZEROV explores the interpersonal dynamics that emerge at a neighborhood swim and tennis club rife with chaos and bad behavior–and where a journalist-turned-stay-at-home-mom stumbles onto a dark fraud scheme.

The former newspaper reporter and editor has been a magazine writer, worked in corporate communications for a Fortune 500 company, and written extensively on trends and emerging technologies for the global energy industry. As an editor at The Denver Post, she was on the team that won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting. She has always been passionate about writing, expanding her horizons along the way as a wife, mom, tennis player, skier, cyclist, and world traveler. She can’t imagine a world without dogs. She lives in Greenwood Village, Colorado.

For more information about Summer Club and to connect with the author please visit www.katherinedeanmazerov.com 

Follow her on Twitter @kmazerov

Summer Club 

Murder meets the absurd in the sizzling thriller Summer Club by journalist Katherine Dean Mazerov.
Normally, poop in the pool, cheating, politics, parent drama, sex-capades and more reign at Lydia Phillips’s swim and tennis club. Now, a strange car following the club manager, a break-in at Lydia’s home, and a shocking discovery on the club grounds have this stay-at-home mom dusting off her newspaper-reporting skills to unravel the mystery.

Then, a body surfaces in the river, and Lydia’s life gets a whole lot more complicated—and dangerous.
In one moment, readers will be laughing at the colorful characters’ outrageous antics. The next moment, they will be riveted as the story reveals a troubling, complex scheme involving fraud and murder.

Summer Club casts a beam of dark humor across the hidden reality that makes “domestic” life—raising children and volunteering for community and school groups—sometimes more harrowing than even the most cutthroat of corporate jobs.

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing