There is no such thing as ‘Ten Easy Tips to Writing a Novel’ because it’s too complex. Now, I will still say that writing a novel is easy, but it can be complex in the fact that so many easy, little pieces need to fit together.
Let’s face it, the economy is slow, the publishing industry is ‘playing it safe’ so if you are a new writer you are self-financing or self/vanity publishing your works.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves. We are talking about the simplicity and complexities of actually writing your novel.
Let’s take an overall look at what is required in the novel writing process.
Time: more than anything else in the world, beyond your method of writing, the genre you choose or anything else, you need time to write and time to work on promoting your work. It can be as little as twenty minutes at the end of your day to all but four hours a day (sleep critical amount).
Time is fickle. The more time you put in, the faster you could possibly have your novel ready. Each novel is different to take into account length, difficulty, plot issues, etc.
Ability: I don’t push unnecessary education. I think anyone is able to tell a story, anyone could write a novel and the basic knowledge is all you need. The basic knowledge would be a Basic English 101 class on grammar, sentence structure, etc.
I don’t recommend creative writing classes and I have elaborated about this on my blog on several occasions. I just don’t think that creativity could or SHOULD be learned. I strongly believe creative writing alters the unique creative writing voice that so many let others dampen. So, of course, it’s at every writer’s discretion.
Forming a Solid Novel Idea: Any story can fail and the same story can succeed; the real determining factor is how it is told and at what point in the story the writer is focusing on. A story that focuses on the events leading up to the destruction of an American landmark is a completely different story from that where families learn to cope with loss arising from the same situation or heartbroken volunteers working to clear away the rubble and debris. In the World of Writing, we would call this the ‘take’ or the ‘angle’ of the story.
Structure of a Novel: You need to know how the story ends. (My opinion, some would argue against my view here) Knowing how the story ends means you know what your main character’s (protagonist) ultimate goal is and can keep them on track. If your character wanders off willy-nilly at every bump and pin-drop in the night your readers may think they are on a wild goose chase and ultimately give up as well. So when we look at structure, we look at having a beginning, middle and an ultimate end or conclusion to the story, and mapping out what those main scenes are.
Momentum: Almost the same as structure, but it is more in the style of writing. Instead of long internal dialogue, you want to keep your character IN ACTION, constantly moving toward that end result. You don’t want your character to constantly be pondering the movement of leaves and grass, you want your character swinging from branches and feeling alive…alive in action.
A Crisis: Your character needs a dilemma, a crisis, a purpose. A purpose that drives your character to the ultimate end; so if the government mistakenly filters the air with poisonous ‘air packs’ (basically plot from ‘Serenity’) and only one person on the planet knows about it, that one person should be your main character and your main characters crisis should be to warn the people of the world and prevent millions of deaths. THAT is a crisis. Crises can be different on different levels of importance in different ways, but have some sort of crisis, whether world-scale or personal-world-shattering that needs ACTION.
Ultimate End: you need an end. That is how most stories go. Even if the end leaves your reader feeling angry, distain, whatever, it needs to have an end that has a feeling and the reader says ‘No more?’ and what they take from it at that point is up in the air, for the most part.
Editing: Ah, you thought you were done with that novel? Not yet. This is only the beginning. However long you spent writing your novel, think about spending the same amount of time or double that time just in editing. That is, if you are self editing. You should edit more than once, move on to the ‘Beta Readers’ part and then move back to the ‘Editing’ phase again. You should go back and forth several times.
Beta Readers: You need testers. Test readers that actually LIKE the genre you are writing and are also willing to read your story several times through out your editing process and give you quality feedback. Finding good beta readers and understanding how to interact with beta readers is very important; you shouldn’t be grilling your beta readers before they have even had a chance to sit down. You should be silent and let them say whatever comes to mind. This way, you are not swaying the ‘results’ etc.
Consider a Publisher or Consider a Self-Publishing method: I am all for the self-publishing method because I understand the value in owning full rights to my work for the rest of my life. This means no advances, but it also means I get 100% free reign on how much to price it, how it will be released, cover design, where it will be sold, if there is a book tour, etc. Self-publishing is where I am at. Does that mean I would look at a million-dollar book deal with a traditional publisher and scoff? Not a chance…but I know that the state of my writing and success as it is now, I should be completely happy with the methods of the self-publishing world.
Traditional Publishing: I could write a book on the Traditional publishing methods. Oh wait, someone already has! Hundreds of times over! My blog still covers traditional publishing topics like query letters, advances, royalties, marketing, rights, book tours, etc.
Marketing and Advertising: Welcome to the world of independence. As a self-publishing/ed author, I don’t care what your day job is, you ARE the entrepreneur of the century. You are handling everything from creating an idea, writing a novel, handling editing, test readers, and now marketing and advertising! You will have to maintain blogs, twitter streams, social networking profiles, make connections, come up with color schemes and slogans, and everything else that the marketing and advertising teams would do for you in a traditional publishing house. Though, in all fairness, if you’re not Stephen King, you’re doing almost all your marketing and advertising yourself anyway. That includes setting up your own book tours.
Print: Eventually, you will have written, edited, designed, marketed, advertised, blogged and tweeted your little heart out. You are going to eventually have to decide how to deliver your precious bundle of joy to your audience. There are many options and many companies, but the two words synonymous with Self Publishing are ‘eBook’ and ‘Print on Demand’. I cover both topics extraneously on my blog.
Rinse and Repeat: That’s right. You think you are finally done. You are exhausted, you don’t want to answer one more person ‘So, what is your novel about?’ and your brain hurts from learning marketing, advertising, editing, digital formatting, design layout, etc. in the span of what it took you to write your novel. It can be exhausting. But now that you’re done with your campaign trail it’s time to sit down, get cozy and write your next one.
Don’t worry, chances are that you were writing it while working on all the other stuff for the novel you already wrote. If you are Grade A multitasking madness, you should already be done with your second novel, working on advertising on it and be thinking about your third.
But if you don’t take one thing away from this overview, take this bit of advice:
THINK SEQUEL/ THINK SERIES.
That’s right. If you are going to put all this time, energy and heart into a book, at least have a few books lined up for the series.
Why is that so important?
* Novel idea and character creation is one of the hardest parts.
* 80% of your energy is going to be spent marketing your novel
* If you switch to a different novel you automatically lose all your marketing on just one novel. Capitalize on the marketing you have done: let it span a whole series and build momentum, a readership and hopefully a big fan base of some type.
This is essentially the entire blue print for how to write a novel from beginning to end. It looks complex if you look at all the pages, the long string of parts and roles you will play, but if you just look at doing one thing at a time, as it comes, then it is relatively simple. It’s all in time management and keeping your passion for writing alive.
So, do you think writing is still so hard? Is a Novel really so unattainable an achievement? Or are you excited to get your fingers clicking and your words on paper/screen?
Photo Credit: h.koppdelaney
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