How would you go about writing a novel?
Get Rid of Writer's Procrastination and Put Your Words to Work For You Now with: Writer's success. This is 100% No Risk to You
I’m 17 years old and I have been working on writing a novel. I have a lot of different ideas and my dream is to be a published author. One day I would also like to publish books of poetry and short stories and maybe even one day writ a screen play.
What I want to know is how you go about writing a novel and how would you get it published?
i found this article online:
I wrote three novels before I got a nibble from a publisher. Several people have asked me how I managed to keep myself motivated, pushing myself to finish each one without any guarantee my work would ever be published. There’s no secret sauce, I’m afraid – it very much depends on your personality and how determined you are to see things through to the bitter end.
So, what does it take to write a novel? Only five or ten percent of those who embark on the process end up with a finished draft, and while I may not be an expert I can at least share the experience from the perspective of someone who has done it before. I can’t promise these tips will work for you, but they might work for the next writer to come across my web site and they certainly work for me.
By the way, my publisher just released a free ebook of my first novel to celebrate the launch of book 4 in the series. Feel free to grab a copy while you’re here!
Skills – First things first. Wanting to write a publishable book is no different to wanting to play an instrument in a top Symphony Orchestra. You need thousands of hours of practice and familiarity with the tools of the trade. In their case, music and instruments. In ours, language and words.
Fortunately writers don’t have to pay for our education. No expensive lessons required … all you have to do is read books. If you want to write fiction, read fiction. The more you read, the more the tricks of the trade will seep in. So, if you suspect your writing isn’t up to scratch, haunt the local library.
Practice – I once considered retelling a favourite book just to get an idea of the level of detail needed. I decided I would duplicate the characters and plot exactly, rewriting the entire book scene by scene in my own words. I never did it, but I still think it could be a very useful technique. After all, you don’t have to worry about plot or characterisation … that’s already been done! (Of course, you couldn’t submit the result to a publisher. This would strictly be for your own consumption.)
Consistency – try and write something every day, no matter how little. I jot down half a dozen sentences, each of which describe a scene I think I’ll have to write soon. When I review them, one of them often fires my imagination and that’s what I start writing about.
Plotting – some people plot out every twist and turn beforehand, and some people just write. Although I’ve always been a ‘write first and think later’ kind of author, I’m slowly coming to appreciate having a detailed outline to work from. One reason is because I now write to deadlines, not just when there’s nothing on TV and the wind is in the right direction. Writing to a plot keeps me on track.
Coming up with a plot is a topic big enough for an article of its own, and you’ll find my take on the whole process here.
Characters – I generally don’t have ‘good’ and ‘evil’ characters in my novels, just people with opposite goals. The conflict this generates is more than enough to escalate things to a satisfactory climax and conclusion. I don’t spend too much time developing bit players, unless they become more important during the writing. If someone’s only going to appear in your book for one paragraph, treat them like a piece of furniture. Also, try and limit the number of characters – sometimes you can combine two moronic henchmen into one – and if your book makes it into film, the casting people will thank you for saving them money. (Hey, it worked for Sleuth.)
Want to get on with it? See my speed writing tips. Includes progress forms for hourly and daily word counts to keep you right on track.
As a general rule your protag should be sympathetic – someone the reader can identify with. I realise that’s difficult if you’re writing about a serial killer, but in those cases the ‘less is best’ rule applies. As in, the less we see inside this monster’s head, the more we fear them. If your killer is familiar and the reader starts to identify with them you’ve destroyed all the tension. That’s why whodunits are called whodunits and not weknowwhodunnits. (Someone asked me this, so … protag = protagonist, the major character.)
Scenes are the story units, and there are one or more of these per chapter. You’ll find a good article on writing the perfect scene here.
Revisions – Don’t bother! Okay, what I mean is… finish writing the book. You will have plenty of time for improvements later, and it’s easy to kill a book by being too critical during the writing process. You’re not trying to produce finished work at this stage – remember, by the time a major publisher releases a book it’s been through several drafts and has also had input from a professional editor and a proof reader. Think of your first draft as a block of raw material, from which you will chip your finished work. Throw everything into it! Don’t worry about inconsistencies and dead ends, they can be trimmed out afterwards. I can’t emphasise this enough: finish
Ha, my dream is to become a published author too!
Okay, so I’m writing a novel, so far its 200 pages, and the first thing I did was decide on a main character. After that, I chose a problem, and supporting characters. And, well, I started writing.
But, uh, I think maybe you should try to come up with a situation that really bothers the main character, and just build into it. Like, for example, if your main character is seeing things, then maybe you should start with them seeing one thing, and never telling anyone, then more, and then finally something so terrible someone finds out.
It’s really hard to explain.
And, for publishing, there are a whole bunch of websites that give you information on that, and most authors do as well, on their sites.
Good luck!
References :
i found this article online:
I wrote three novels before I got a nibble from a publisher. Several people have asked me how I managed to keep myself motivated, pushing myself to finish each one without any guarantee my work would ever be published. There’s no secret sauce, I’m afraid – it very much depends on your personality and how determined you are to see things through to the bitter end.
So, what does it take to write a novel? Only five or ten percent of those who embark on the process end up with a finished draft, and while I may not be an expert I can at least share the experience from the perspective of someone who has done it before. I can’t promise these tips will work for you, but they might work for the next writer to come across my web site and they certainly work for me.
By the way, my publisher just released a free ebook of my first novel to celebrate the launch of book 4 in the series. Feel free to grab a copy while you’re here!
Skills – First things first. Wanting to write a publishable book is no different to wanting to play an instrument in a top Symphony Orchestra. You need thousands of hours of practice and familiarity with the tools of the trade. In their case, music and instruments. In ours, language and words.
Fortunately writers don’t have to pay for our education. No expensive lessons required … all you have to do is read books. If you want to write fiction, read fiction. The more you read, the more the tricks of the trade will seep in. So, if you suspect your writing isn’t up to scratch, haunt the local library.
Practice – I once considered retelling a favourite book just to get an idea of the level of detail needed. I decided I would duplicate the characters and plot exactly, rewriting the entire book scene by scene in my own words. I never did it, but I still think it could be a very useful technique. After all, you don’t have to worry about plot or characterisation … that’s already been done! (Of course, you couldn’t submit the result to a publisher. This would strictly be for your own consumption.)
Consistency – try and write something every day, no matter how little. I jot down half a dozen sentences, each of which describe a scene I think I’ll have to write soon. When I review them, one of them often fires my imagination and that’s what I start writing about.
Plotting – some people plot out every twist and turn beforehand, and some people just write. Although I’ve always been a ‘write first and think later’ kind of author, I’m slowly coming to appreciate having a detailed outline to work from. One reason is because I now write to deadlines, not just when there’s nothing on TV and the wind is in the right direction. Writing to a plot keeps me on track.
Coming up with a plot is a topic big enough for an article of its own, and you’ll find my take on the whole process here.
Characters – I generally don’t have ‘good’ and ‘evil’ characters in my novels, just people with opposite goals. The conflict this generates is more than enough to escalate things to a satisfactory climax and conclusion. I don’t spend too much time developing bit players, unless they become more important during the writing. If someone’s only going to appear in your book for one paragraph, treat them like a piece of furniture. Also, try and limit the number of characters – sometimes you can combine two moronic henchmen into one – and if your book makes it into film, the casting people will thank you for saving them money. (Hey, it worked for Sleuth.)
Want to get on with it? See my speed writing tips. Includes progress forms for hourly and daily word counts to keep you right on track.
As a general rule your protag should be sympathetic – someone the reader can identify with. I realise that’s difficult if you’re writing about a serial killer, but in those cases the ‘less is best’ rule applies. As in, the less we see inside this monster’s head, the more we fear them. If your killer is familiar and the reader starts to identify with them you’ve destroyed all the tension. That’s why whodunits are called whodunits and not weknowwhodunnits. (Someone asked me this, so … protag = protagonist, the major character.)
Scenes are the story units, and there are one or more of these per chapter. You’ll find a good article on writing the perfect scene here.
Revisions – Don’t bother! Okay, what I mean is… finish writing the book. You will have plenty of time for improvements later, and it’s easy to kill a book by being too critical during the writing process. You’re not trying to produce finished work at this stage – remember, by the time a major publisher releases a book it’s been through several drafts and has also had input from a professional editor and a proof reader. Think of your first draft as a block of raw material, from which you will chip your finished work. Throw everything into it! Don’t worry about inconsistencies and dead ends, they can be trimmed out afterwards. I can’t emphasise this enough: finish
References :
http://www.spacejock.com.au/WriteANovel.html
I totally understand where you are coming from. There are lots of writers out there that are not getting the kind of recognition they deserve because number one, they do not know where to turn to to get their stories across and number two, not everybody has the same level of thinking that they have – which of course results to them turning the book down.
Writers like you have every potential to get started on a publishing career. If you are looking for self-publishing companies to publish your book, I know of a few companies that practically holds court to everything a book needs from getting you your copyright, size preferences, book cover design customization, layout consultation, copyediting and even marketing – at affordable costs.
Publishing companies now have all the resources to publish books with the same productivity and efficacy as that of regular black and white books. Considering the fact that most books are in full color, you should choose a publishing company whose book’s are of the highest quality, bar none.
It’s fun that you get to see your book published with the same expertise and professionalism as the regular books that you see in bookstores.
Self-publishing entirely means that you get to retain full control of your book’s production and that it gives you the option to publish your work and claim authority of the photos that you have chosen to be published.
References :
How to get started with publishing:
http://is.gd/19HLB
Your free guide:
http://tinyurl.com/yourfreeguide