My First Novel
| In 1956, while sitting in a teen hangout during high school lunch breaks in Fort Branch, Indiana, Don McNair read the most incredible frontier novel he could imagine. “I still remember its details,” he says now, more than fifty years later. “Details like the hero’s forced hay-cutting contest to free a girl from her abusive father, and their flight upriver in a homemade canoe. I was with them in that canoe. I decided right then that, someday, I’d write a frontier book just as compelling.” That dream finally came to pass, as did a long, award-winning career of writing and editing. He recently launched McNair Edits, a freelance editing business based on his love of the written word, to help others achieve their own publishing dreams. Thoughts of that fictional trip upriver returned many times during Don's 40-year writing and editing career, as he edited trade magazines for twelve years, designed and ran communications programs for an international PR firm for six, then launched McNair Marketing Communications. For the next 20-plus years he researched, wrote and placed hundreds of articles for his own clients, and wrote three commercially published, non-fiction books. His creativity won him three “Golden Trumpet” awards from the Publicity Club of Chicago, and the nation's top PR award; the Public Relations Society of America's “Silver Anvil.” In spite of these successes, McNair still yearned to write compelling fiction. Finally, he started a novel. He still has five chapters of that aborted effort; a western he named "Vermillion Gold." “I threw in every cowboy cliché I knew,” he says now, laughing. “I got so confused I finally buried the poor thing in a file drawer. Every time I opened that drawer I thought about 'Vermillion Gold,' and that great book I’d read back in high school." He got serious about fiction. He took fiction-writing classes at night, read numerous books and magazines on the subject on airplanes and in hotels, and delighted in the worlds he invented. One day, while researching a 1770s short story for a writing class assignment, he again recalled that high school frontier novel. He knew it was time to write its rival. “I’d waited so long because I wanted my frontier story to be as real to others as that one was to me,” he says. “I had to develop both the skills and a soul-satisfying, true-to-life story about my young hero’s frontier-life struggles.” The story finally in mind, McNair drove to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley and physically followed much of his young hero's fictional 1770’s path. He visited a bend in the James River, for example, where Struthers' Inn and Noah Dandridge’s little cabin would be located. And he spent time in nearby Fincastle, where the court would award his book's hero--by now he’d named him Matt McLaren--to Dandridge’s care. By reading Fincastle library research materials collected by local historians he got an accurate mental picture of the town’s 1770s appearance. He also bought a primitive froe (a wrought-iron shingle-making tool) at a Fincastle antiques store, and now considers it Matt's froe. “I kept it next to me as I wrote the book,” he says, “as a reminder to pay attention to detail.” While this touch-and-feel approach to writing his frontier novel helped, he knew accurate book-based research would be vital. "I became a real bear for facts," he recalls. "Over several months I filled a four-drawer filing cabinet with research, much of it published in the 1800s. Most of what happened to and around my young hero had actually happened to someone in history. Even the little things, such as many of the neighbors' names and activities, are true to life. I tried to write Matt into the true fabric of our great country’s early exploration, to make him an icon of the times." Apparently, he was successful. When he sent the completed manuscript to a freelance fiction editor for evaluation, she wrote: "I want to tell you how impressed I am with your ability to handle with a great sense of immediacy the layering of characterization, setting, plot, and action into scene. And with your writing style. You have voice, which is something that simply can't be taught. It is either a gift or must be forged through practice by the writer. I think, without a doubt, you can write salable, even powerful fiction." Those comments pleased McNair. “They were my career’s highest awards to date,” he says. "That freelance editor was very encouraging, and helped me get a handle on the monster I'd created." But the highest award of all came after he sent the manuscript to Medallion Press, and the company’s president herself called to praise it and to offer a contract. "She told me of their plans; an embossed, leather-like hardback cover, illustrations inside, wide distribution, the works. 'This isn’t just another book,' she said. 'Don, your book is going to have a life.'” McNair, now retired from the PR industry, remains involved in the nation's history. He and his wife Rita exhibit and sell at antiques shows throughout the South and beyond. Often, while Rita is in the show booth selling 1800s furniture and glassware, McNair can be found in their motor home nearby, writing true-to-life fiction on his laptop. He has since had two more novels published-- a romance novel and a young adult novel--and has two additional fiction manuscripts making the publisher rounds. While he loves writing fiction, he also loves editing it. Remembering how a freelance fiction editor helped his own career, he recently launched McNair Edits, to use his years of editing experience to help other writers achieve their dreams. "I've been an editor all my life," he says. "Nothing pleases me more than to help massage a manuscript into a powerhouse that may let another writer live the thrill of being published." |
| The birth of a novel… the crowning of a career. |
| Don McNair Author and Freelance Editor |
"I want to tell you how impressed I am with your ability to handle with a great sense of immediacy the layering of characterization, setting, plot, and action into scene. And with your writing style. You have voice, which is something that simply can't be taught. It is either a gift or must be forged through practice by the writer. I think, without a doubt, you can write salable, even powerful fiction." Leslie Kellas Payne Freelance Editor |
"THE LONG HUNTER is a fabulous insightful historical thriller that showcases some of abuses of colonial society. The story line focuses on the adventures of Matt as he tries to survive under laws that offer no protection towards the young similar to Charles Dickens’s complaints about Victorian living conditions for the poor and disenfranchised. The support cast augment the enlightening look back in time. The final twist seems so plausible that it enhances the entire novel adding to the realism of a well written late eighteenth century American tale." Harriet Klausner, Reviewer |
more than to help massage a manuscript into a powerhouse that may let another writer live the thrill of being published." Don McNair |
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