Wanting to write your novel is a common desire. Walk into any coffee shop or office building and start asking random people, and many will have a book in mind. Most of them, however, will never start. And of those who do, very few will ever get a completed manuscript out of it.
The very first thing to do is know what you want to write. Jumping into a story with no idea what the plot is, who the characters are, or where anything is going is a recipe for failure. While a few famous books have come from beginnings like that, many more have not. People who plan and make lists in real life might also want to start with an outline.
Genre is a tool that helps readers and writers understand what they have in front of them. It is shorthand for what is inside the pages. It also can give writers a bit of an outline to follow. For instance, in a police procedural, the villain needs to be caught by the end. The good guy lives. Anything else will alienate readers and make editors wary. Research is a good way to avoid messing with those expectations.
Making things simple for a first attempt is a key to finishing that first book. The more difficult or convoluted the story, the less likely you will ever finish it. Likewise with following the rules of storytelling. Still, it needs to be interesting enough to keep you going during the doldrums in the middle.
Writing is where the real challenge comes in. Getting started halts some, the nightmare dragging middle gets others. They are run off by an empty screen, or the thought that their idea is not good enough, or interesting enough, or unique enough. Perhaps they lack time, or willpower. Getting started, though, just requires putting words down. They do not need to be good, just written down.
Once they get started, the main thing that holds the truly determined back is lack of time. So those determined to finish writing need to make it a priority. That means waking up early and writing for half an hour before work. Or giving up television. Or staying up after everyone else has gone to sleep.
After all the words are down, it is time to edit. Many edit while writing, and that can be a bad idea. After the story is recorded, though, you can go back, find all the problems, and fix them. Perhaps a character has blue eyes in the first chapter, but they are brown in the fourth. Cleaning up those small mistakes, and larger ones as well, can add to word count. It can also create a manuscript that editors are more willing to contract.
If you really want to write your novel, you will. It just takes time, planning, and determination. Many a writer has started with questionable language skills and made it. But like with many things in life, putting words together to make a story takes practice. It may turn out that, after finishing a book, you never want to write again. And that is okay.
The very first thing to do is know what you want to write. Jumping into a story with no idea what the plot is, who the characters are, or where anything is going is a recipe for failure. While a few famous books have come from beginnings like that, many more have not. People who plan and make lists in real life might also want to start with an outline.
Genre is a tool that helps readers and writers understand what they have in front of them. It is shorthand for what is inside the pages. It also can give writers a bit of an outline to follow. For instance, in a police procedural, the villain needs to be caught by the end. The good guy lives. Anything else will alienate readers and make editors wary. Research is a good way to avoid messing with those expectations.
Making things simple for a first attempt is a key to finishing that first book. The more difficult or convoluted the story, the less likely you will ever finish it. Likewise with following the rules of storytelling. Still, it needs to be interesting enough to keep you going during the doldrums in the middle.
Writing is where the real challenge comes in. Getting started halts some, the nightmare dragging middle gets others. They are run off by an empty screen, or the thought that their idea is not good enough, or interesting enough, or unique enough. Perhaps they lack time, or willpower. Getting started, though, just requires putting words down. They do not need to be good, just written down.
Once they get started, the main thing that holds the truly determined back is lack of time. So those determined to finish writing need to make it a priority. That means waking up early and writing for half an hour before work. Or giving up television. Or staying up after everyone else has gone to sleep.
After all the words are down, it is time to edit. Many edit while writing, and that can be a bad idea. After the story is recorded, though, you can go back, find all the problems, and fix them. Perhaps a character has blue eyes in the first chapter, but they are brown in the fourth. Cleaning up those small mistakes, and larger ones as well, can add to word count. It can also create a manuscript that editors are more willing to contract.
If you really want to write your novel, you will. It just takes time, planning, and determination. Many a writer has started with questionable language skills and made it. But like with many things in life, putting words together to make a story takes practice. It may turn out that, after finishing a book, you never want to write again. And that is okay.
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