Tuesday 5 January 2016

How To Write A Novel

By Rebecca Bennett


Many people love novels and wish they could tell their beautiful stories using one of their own. Very few have managed to write novels which makes the process to appear daunting. It is not the absence of stories that cause many people to fail to write. The reality is that very few people know how to write a novel. Here are simple steps that will ensure that you have your book in the shortest time possible.

Summarize your idea into a single sentence. This sentence should not exceed fifteen words yet must capture your intentions. In fact, this is the sentence you are going to use when selling the title upon completion. It should be convincing enough to make editors, publishing committees and book stores to accept your book. Leave out the names of characters or scenes from the sentence. Look for major book reviews and craft a sentence similar to what they give.

Follow up the sentence by expanding it into a summary paragraph. This paragraph is a brief of the main occurrences and characters in your story. It captures the triumphs and disasters in three acts where the first introduces the main disaster, the second captures two other disasters while the third is the triumphant act and the ending. This should not exceed five sentences.

Your novel will be anchored on characters. Since you have an idea of your story line, it is time to develop your characters. Give them names beginning with the main characters. The minor ones will be developed during actual writing. The story of each character should be summarized into a single sentence. Give each of them a goal, motivation, conflict and epiphany.

Do not hesitate to revise your one sentence or one paragraph summary from time to time. This is an indication that the details of your novel are teaching you things that were not clear at the beginning. Take the steps as a learning point. Do not target to write a perfect summary at the beginning or capture the characters fully when you start. Some things will become clearer as the story develops.

The process of developing the story line and characters is time consuming and may takes weeks based on the amount of time dedicated. This is one of the most interesting novel writing phases. Upon completion of this exercise, develop a one-page summary of your novel. This is the summary that will be used to produce the 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.

Novels are as a result of focus and dedication to a course. You will be required to set a completing date that will guide your writing exercise. Create an outline and plan of action to guide your daily activities. A lot of reading is required to gain facts about occurrences and scenes. Research must be conducted even by fiction writers. This will enable them to produce a plausible story. The time taken to complete the book depends on amount of time dedicated. Six months to one year should be enough.




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