As some of you may know, it’s football season.  I grew up watching the game though I haven’t watched it much in recent years.  However, I’m back into it this season and I realized if I approached writing the way these guys approach football, I might be more successful.

Training Camp – This is where we line up all the important players.  See who is working and who isn’t.  Weed out the weak ones, find our strengths, and spend a few extra hours watching game footage.  Otherwise known as reading as many books in our genre as possible and diving into a craft book or workshop.

Preseason – This is where you try out your characters.  Put them to a couple of light tests, see if your voice is working.  Are the players talking to you?  Do they have chemistry with each other?  Are they willing to follow the play book or are they going to go rogue and drive you apeshit?

Regular Season – This is the murky middle.  In football the challenge is a new one every week but the basics are the same.  Move the ball down the field with every play.  A team must be successful every week if they want to get to the playoffs and eventually to that HEA – the Super Bowl.  As writers, we need to move the story with each scene, build in every chapter, and do it well enough to get the reader to stick around to the end.

Post Season – This is where the odds go up.  Everything is on the line.  The last thing any team wants to do is choke in the playoffs.  And the last thing a writer wants to do is get to the black moment and blow it.  You might think you’ve made it this far, you can relax.  But no.  This is where you have to bring your “A” game.  Step it up, slap on that cup, and break those hearts!

The Big Game – It all comes down to this.  It’s you and the characters.  Less than a minute …err… a chapter to go and your hero made a terrible fumble five pages ago.  You’ve got to find a way to give the reader the HEA they expect and deserve.  But you can’t just walk it in and say they lived happily ever after.  You have to throw the Hail Mary, make it believable, make the reader sigh.

Who’d a thunk all these dudes banging into each other could teach us anything about writing a Romance novel?  But I think this could work.  Even if you’re a pantser, you simply drop back and call an audible every chapter.   If you’re a plotter, then you have a complete play book before the season starts and pray your players can execute.  Either way, the bottom line is always make progress.  You can’t win if you don’t play.  And you can’t finish a book if you don’t write.

Where are you in this football analogy?  Are you still in the preseason (like me) or are you stuck in the middle of the regular season and worried you’re team is going down in flames?  Have you gotten to the big fumble and realized it’s more like a non-event?  Or have I lost everyone and am about to be voted off the ship for daring to talk sports?