Friday, January 8, 2016

A Guide On How To Write A Novel

By Rebecca Bennett


The desire to write a novel burns in many hearts. There are many stories waiting to be told through novels but the authors wonder where to start. It is only by understanding how to write a novel that you will make your dream come true. The rewards of completing a book are overwhelming. By following simple steps, you will have your best seller in months without much effort.

Begin by writing a summary of your story. This summary should be a single sentence that is less than fifteen words. This sentence will be used to sell your book once it is completed. It will be valuable as you seek to convince editors, committees and book stores to stock your title. It must not contain the names of characters. An example is what would be found on reviews by major news outlets.

Grow your summary sentence to a five sentence paragraph that tells of the main occurrences in your story. The paragraph should give a hint of the plot, the disasters and triumphs and the ending. Adapt a Three-Acts structure where the main disaster is introduced in Act One, two secondary disasters in Act Two and an ending in Act Three. This paragraph should be precise.

Characters are the drivers of your story. The summary sentence and paragraph provide an idea of what is expected of you. It is time to grow them by assigning names and attributes. This should only be done for the main characters. Minor characters will emerge during the actual drafting. Use a single sentence to describe each character. Each of them should have a motivation, goal, personal conflict and epiphany.

In the process of drafting your plot and characters, you will encounter the need to change your summary sentence or paragraph. This is acceptable and an indication that the development process is teaching you something. There does not exist a perfect summary. So many other things will become clearer as the story develops.

It will take several days to a week to develop these characters, scenes and story line. It is time to provide a summary to your work. It is a lot of fun to dismantle a story line and engage individual characters as you attempt to connect them. But with the one page summary and a view of individual characters and scenes, you are ready to produce your first draft.

Since the details of characters and the scenes are now clear, you need to tie them down into a single thread. This acts as a filler process since you will generate characters and scenes that did not exist. Ensure that the new characters and scenes do not override your original idea since you might be required to change the plot. To successfully complete this phase, a writing routine must be developed. Set aside time and space to engage in writing. Ensure that you can concentrate for long hours.

Writing a novel requires dedication and focus. You must be committed to work on your goals till the end. Split the goals into fragments that make them manageable. Pick an end date which could be six months to one year depending on the time available. You will need to research on some facts even in situations where you are writing fiction.




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