A lot of people give tips on writing a novel. Most of the ones I've personally read included things like know your audience, determine your target age range, ect. Not me. When I write, I don't think of things like who I'd like to sell my books to. I write for the enjoyment of it and, more importantly, because I want to share that enjoyment with others.
To all my wanna-be authors out there, try not to get caught up in sales or in planning. Don't get me wrong, those are important too. I'll talk about them later down the road. For now, I'm assuming this is your starting line. We are simply writing. My question to you is, where are you standing? Do you have a storyline ready, or are you simply interested in the possibility of it?
Once we have that question out of the way, we can move forward. To those of you who do not have your story ready, get out a pen and paper. Those who have a storyline, get it out to look at as we move forward.
DEVELOPING A STORY
Let me tell you a personal story. How I came up with my first novel. It's basically the same as what you can find in my about page. The Fated King came to me one day as I thought of the books and movies that were available. I was in the mood for a story about medieval knights, but without all the magical counterparts. I felt that the magic in those stories took away from the bravery and formidability of the knights, because they never stood a chance against it. So, I said to myself, "Stubs, you can't be the only person who would like a book like that. Why don't you just make one?"
Little did I know that 100K words was more than a day's sitting...
You may be wondering, how does this apply to me? We'll, I'll tell you. Those who don't have a story, you actually do. There is a reason you wanted to write. What was it? Maybe you're not a fiction-teller like me. Perhaps you have a non-fiction book you want to write. Jot down what it is that you think of when you think of writing. Children's books? Information? You don't need a story, just give it a category for now.
Next, write everything that you can think of that you want out of your book underneath that header. For example:
Medieval Knights - No Magic
Battles
Chivalry
Old-timey Talking
Royals
Main Character with Complete Control
Now that we've jotted down the list, daydream a bit. It may not be a science, but it's my methodology. I don't approach a book in its entirety at the start. If you do, it becomes a daunting creature that you think you'll never be able to tame. I go one scene at a time. These don't even have to be in order, just be sure to jot them down as you come up with them. You can put them in order later, once you've made enough scenes to give your story a little more form. An example is the Fated King series. Book two was book one. I wrote book two first, then I realized that there wasn't enough background for the story to make sense. then I wrote book one to give book two the context it needed. (Sadly, after writing The Fated King & The Realm of Old, I had to gut and rewrite The Fated King & The Unloving War.)
CREATING A TIMELINE
This brings me to my next point, putting it all together. After you've made a few scenes, you start to get a feel for how you'd like the story to go. This is where the pen and paper come in, as well as those of you who have your storyline. Write down short terms for scenes that you'll understand when you read them later. Put them in the order you would like them to go, and use that to base the book off of. Now, there are things to remember.
Number 1: This is not permanent.
Don't think that this outline you've written has to be the book. Its just to help guide you. If the book changes on you, go with it. Be sure to refigure you outline so that things don't get confusing, should you change something.
Number 2: Keep the book the way you like it.
A major mistake you can make as a writer (I almost did it) is to write a book that you do not enjoy. How could you write a book you don't like? By writing something to make other people happy. Sure, we want other people to enjoy our writing, but they aren't going to enjoy it if we don't enjoy it. On some off chance that they do like it, you still will not be satisfied because you will always look at it as the battered carcass of your book.
A ghoul born of your beloved baby.
Number 3: Is the book still what you want?
During the developing a story section, we made a short list of what we'd want out of our novel. Check that list as you go. It's alright if you don't want the same things as before, but it is good to reference your list so that you don't take the story down a rabbit hole you didn't mean to.
BUILDING YOUR WORLD
Use what we've done so far to build your world and to tell your story. Remember, this is yours. Make it into what you like. You'll find that makes your writing easier. My only advice for this step is to control not only the world your making, but also the one you live in. That's right! Reality check.
Plan when you will write this book, and stick to the schedule you give yourself. If you're wondering how much time you need to set aside, I'll let you in on my personal schedule. I've found that in 8 hours I can write roughly 5000 to 7000 words. Doesn't seem like much, I know, but there is more than just writing involved. You are creating a moment, a place, a person. There is a lot of thought involved in this process. Take your time with it. Just be aware of the time you'll need to finish the book. It is important to stick with your schedule. If you take one day off, it'll become two. I remember days where I decided I'd start writing again after a week off, only to discover it had been two months! Don't be like me!
FINISHING TOUCHES
Congratulations, your beautiful creation is complete. Once the book is written, you'll need to do the finishing touches. I have found this to be the most daunting and lengthy part of the process. (I am currently on draft 29 of The Fated King and the Realm of Old.😒) How do you do this process? Well, here's how I did it.
Drafts 1-12
Read your book and see how smoothly it runs. The scenes should merge well with each other and everything should be simple to understand. If you don't like the order, change it up. The beginning of my first book, The Fated King & The Realm of Old, was not part of draft one. I added it later because I felt people wouldn't understand just how awful Cadoc was. (Side note: As the author, I love all my characters. Cadoc's grouchiness makes me laugh.) Another thing to look out for are background issues. I personally checked to ensure all of the doors opened the same way throughout the book. If they swing both ways, its confusing to some people. Other things to look out for are height differences. If one character is tall and the other short, display that through your text.
Drafts 13-17
After you have the story running well, check for grammatical issues. Simple things like commas and misspellings. You can also look into your sentence structure and all of that. When you believe you've groomed it well, continue to the next step.
Drafts 18-20
Have your computer read your book to you. (The voice is a little annoying at first, but it is helpful. I kind of like it now, to be honest.) Don't know how you can get it to do this? Look at my post Tech Support - Word Document Talk to Text. As it reads, you'll notice places where your commas and sentence structures are wrong. This is because of how slowly it reads. All commas are pauses, and with the dramatically long pauses you'll hear, you can see where changes need made. After one read-trough from the computer, read the story aloud to yourself or others. Reading it aloud also helps you see how the sentence structures effect you that way. You want to book to be easy to read and understand. Finish off with one last round of the computer reading.
Drafts 21-22
True grammar fixes. You think your book is good? Put it to the test against grammarly.com. Grammarly is free, if you get the simplest version. I did, and even that shows a lot of errors you didn't think you had. I ran my book through the program twice, and it did catch more the second time, after it got over my giant mess, so at least two run throughs is a good idea.
Drafts 23-29
After Grammarly helped me a lot for free, I did purchase what they had to offer, and it was great! Now, if you're thinking of doing that yourself, be aware that they automatically set you up to take another payment every-so-often.
The last thing you should do is get an editor. Someone else to look over your book and give you advice on how to make it better. Depending on your monetary status, you can do this different ways. There are people out there who are freelance editors, you can hire one of them to do it. (I didn't do this, so I can't vouch for this method.) A simpler way would be to find your publishing house, whether traditional or self-publishing. Note that if you want to send your book to agents, you should have it very well groomed before trying. Anyway, your publishing house will either have in-house editors, or a subcontractor you can work with. The last way is the cheapest way. (How I did it.) Find someone you know who edits. This can be a school teacher, a journalist, or something along those lines.
The smartest thing to do would be to send a snip of the book to different editors, and see who does the best job on it. Use those people. My advice for your snip-it would be to make it a very difficult scene. The one I used in testing had a lot of dialogue and it was a place I had questions on myself. The more red ink the better, in my opinion. It means they were paying the most attention.
Congratulations! That's the writing aspect of the process. Once you've conquered that, its on to publishing! I hope that this was helpful or at least enjoyable.
Regards,
S. S. Snodgrass
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