Once I decided to try my hand at fiction, I was left with a rather important point. I had never written any fiction before. I didn’t know where to start.
Luckily, I ran across an online ad touting How to Get Started Writing Fiction. It was an online webinar taught by a guy named John DeDakis. It just so happened that I knew John from CNN when he was a writer on Wolf Blitzer’s show.
The webinar was really helpful. John stressed the importance of coming up with compelling characters and having your narrative entail those characters’ changes and challenges. He had us do an exercise where we would describe an imaginary character. The one I depicted was a Black medic in an Army unit in World War II. My character was a graduate of Meharry Medical College and was an accomplished resident. However, because of the racism he faced at the time he was not allowed into the Army’s Medical Corps. (Sound familiar?)
So, I was on my way. I followed advice given by John, who I later hired as a writing coach, I started thinking of experimenting with characters for the novel. Just how I came up with different ones will be the subject of subsequent blogs.