The Novel Writing Art

Building a book from beginning to end is like walking around with all your emotions on your sleeve, reacting to everything with fear. Meaning: there's a quiet madness to writing a novel. It's not out of the question for someone used to using a computer all day-in a nice shiny cubical-to see no problem with novel writing. But think about it: you're sitting, writing down a story, from within your head, all based on how you see the world. The novel writing art is somewhat odd. On the other hand it can be joyous journey toward creativity.

In forming a novel, you build upon what's there and not there. Some of this story will be-in some way or another-you on the page. You created it; it's yours. Other parts of the story will be far away from you-there won't be an feeling that you wrote the novel, but there it is. To write a novel you need determination, a sense of yourself, and a sense of the world. Obviously you need more, but let's stick to those three points.

Determination at the Page is Divine:

Truly the storytelling world has nothing better than the novel. With the novel there is nothing between you and your readers. Your talent-or lack of talent-shows immediately. You can get away with some storytelling flaws, but rarely novel writing flaws. Your readers will catch them-and fast.

Divinity has no religious connotation, yet it could have many. Think of the first storytellers, those who began the first dreams of novels, and how they created these huge epics. These epics came from determination, and sometimes determination from somewhere else. You can call it what you will. At least we know it's a mystery.

A Sense of Yourself Isn't Quite Chaos:

But a sense of yourself is in many ways chaos. The point of novel writing is often to make sense of the world, and the world can be chaotic. Sitting at the computer punching keys is order. If you do it enough, you will find a sense for yourself. The novel writing art requires you to know yourself more than anyone else. For one, you should be able to create richly imagined worlds with realist characters. That's why it's an art: novel writing sounds easy when you put it on the page, only to get more and more complicated as you move forward.

How You see the World:

How you see the world isn't quite the end, but it could be. When I am writing a novel all my life experiences are put on the drawing board, ready to be turned into ideas, which turn into scenes, which turn into story. Again, sounds simple, but the novel writing art is far from it.

Seeing the world makes you ask questions. If you can ask questions, good, you're close. If you can find answers, you may be a novelist.