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Writing a book is a life goal shared by many people, and perhaps this will result in at least a few more awesome debuts. Note: There’s an overwhelming amount of general productivity advice out there that applies to just about anything. While much of that is relevant, these recommendations are specific to writing your first full-length novel.
- Plan and Structure Your Book and Your Time
- Keep Any Research You Need in An Organized, Accessible Place
- Write Every Day, Without Fail
- Put Excuses For Not Writing and Put Them to One Side
- Write Out Helpful Questions to Ask Yourself as You Go
- Continuously Change Your Mind About Your Story Idea and Start Over
- Underestimate What It Takes to Write A Novel
- Focus on Building Your World to The Exclusion of Compelling Relationships
- Make Everything Fit Your Preconceived Plot
- Tell The Reader Everything About Your Character at First Introduction
Writing a book is a mid- to long-term project (unless you are one of those rare authors who can churn a book out in a week or two). If you don’t want writing your novel to drag on, planning is essential. Planning also makes sense because an underlying plan will help to avert writer’s block. To start writing a novel, set a deadline for completing yo...
Some books demand more background research than others. If you are writing about an unfamiliar location, take a tour on Google Street View and note down landmarks and what the architecture or natural environment is like. One way to organize your research is to keep a master document that is like an alphabetized dictionary of your story-in-progress....
As author Steven Raichlen says in his post on how to write a first novel for Writer’s Digest: ‘The secret to writing a novel — or any book — is writing. You won’t turn out elegant prose every day. But it’s important to keep cranking it out. Bad writing eventually leads to good writing and paragraphs eventually add up to pages, chapters, and a finis...
As writers we find endless reasons why we can’t write: “I don’t have the time” and “my writing sucks” are two common ones. Yet as author Susan K. Perry says of writing your first novel: ‘Distractions are powerful. Writers are famous for coming up with buckets of rationalizations for not writing, including the suddenly-urgent need to thin out who yo...
If you’re detail-oriented by nature, you might get lost in describing the particulars of a sceneand lose sight of how your novel will read as a whole. On the other hand, if you’re focused on the whole plot arc and not individual characters, motivations and scenes, your novel might meander. Neither is a catastrophe, but you can keep a balanced persp...
If you are just working out how to write a first novel, committing to one story idea can feel daunting. Resist the urge to continuously abandon your novel for a ‘better’ story idea. It could simply be that the better idea appeared superior because it promised an escape from writing challenges you are currently facing. Instead, get help from a writi...
Some aspiring writers have visions of publishing success and acclaim from the start, but it will take hard work and perseverance to get to the submitting and publishing stage. Writing your first novel means having to find strategies for maintaining the following things: 1. Motivation 2. Discipline 3. Focus 4. Direction 5. Confidence in your story T...
This important advice on writing a first novelis courtesy of author Robert Twigger. Twigger cautions against focusing so much on descriptive detail that you neglect to create vivid relationships between your characters: ‘Nabokov informed us, convincingly, that a novel is a world. Reading this, a new writer of fiction hares off and starts describing...
Sometimes writers learning how to write a first novel follow commonplace advice to put plot interest first. Yet if every event in your novel is made to fit a template, it can feel forced and over-cautious. Instead, come up with the main events of your novel and describe each separately – you don’t even have to write them in sequence, necessarily. C...
When you first meet someone new, they are a mystery to you. Over time you discover details – their backstory, their core beliefs, values, likes, dislikes and details such as their favourite sayings and expressions. The same should go for characters in a novel. If you begin a character description with details of the character’s face, feelings, want...
First drafts are not the place to be obsessing over the perfection of your writing style. First drafts are for getting lost in the story as you tell it to yourself. Working on the way you tell the story is strictly for the editing phase. The first draft reveals the art; revision reveals the artist.” —Michael Lee. Image via Stokpic 3.
Oct 5, 2020 · Go step-by-step through plotting and writing a novel. Learn how to find and develop ideas, brainstorm stories from that first spark of inspiration, develop the right characters, setting, plots and subplots, as well as teach you how to identify where your novel fits in the market, and if your idea has what it takes to be a series.
In the same light, you'll never learn as much about writing a first book as you do from actually finishing your first novel. Whether or not you're writing a 50,000 word MG book or a 100,000 word fantasy novel, finish your story. Share it with others. And prepare for the second draft. Up the Stakes
May 6, 2018 · Excellent advice as always. My first novel (under a pen name and in a popular genre) *was* published. However. Before that I had written 100s of magazine articles on all topics from romance to male adventure so I was pretty confident that I knew how to write something people would read—and editors would buy.
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In a more professional sense, you should also outline your plot and overall character arcs. If you ever feel a bit stumped, it can help to write the ending first because then you'll have some sense of direction. I'm no professional. Just giving some tidbit advice as I come close to finishing my first novel. Best of luck!
