Writing Your Novel

Before I start, I think it is better to clarify something. This is a guide to write a novel, not to publish it. Publishing is a totally different art, which I never mastered or really understood, and is up to each writer to find his way through success. Writing novels, on the other hand, is something that I dedicated much study using a variety of books, and in that, I think I can help.

Have you ever heard someone saying that someday he or she might write a book with some story they have in the head for years. Well... those will hardly ever write a novel. The most important rule to write a novel is the simplest of them. It is "Write". You must write as much as you can so you can put 100.000 words in the paper, and it won't happen only producing positive thoughts in your mind. You must defy yourself to sit in front of a computer screen or a blank sheet of paper to write for at least two or three hours a day if you want to start in a slow pace.

That first rule, "Write", is the most important one, and I think with only that you could have your novel written in a while, but there are other sub-rules and techniques that may become handy.

The second rule, that is primordially a sub-category of the first one, is to develop a writing schedule. That rule I took from Dean Koontz in "Writing Popular Fiction" and Dick Perry in "One Way to Write your Novel", and when I worked that rule, I realized, amazed, that it works. Most wannabe writers will say that they work in their own time, and when inspiration comes they write ruled their own rhythm. Those are the ones that maybe, and just maybe, will have a novel written in three or four years. Writing is like everything else in life. It takes discipline. Believe-me; if you force yourself to write for a specific time everyday (not procrastinate, surfing the web), it will be hard in the beginning, but your mind will get used to it and will start to help. Inspiration will come much easier if you have a writing schedule. You just need to develop your inspirations muscles, and that won't happen if you don't force the Muse to get outside and workout.

Some will ask: What about writer's block? Then I will say that in 99,9% of the times, people call writer's block what some other person could easily name as laziness. That's right and true. Don't hate me if you have used that excuse hundreds of times; it is still true, and the earlier you face your laziness, the faster you will overcome it.

The second rule, which I believe I must be borrowing from Lawrence Block's "Writing the novel, from plot to print" (forgive me, Lawrence Block, if I didn't take that from you), is that you must create a daily writing goal. Dick Perry suggests two pages, six days a week, for a hundred says. He believes you will have a novel by then. Back then, I bought the idea, but I was never able to write on Saturdays and Sundays, so it took longer to me. Also, 100 days weren't enough; my novel wasn't ready yet, but I developed some discipline, and that prepared me for the other rules.

The next one is Plot. Plotting before start to write will guide you through the workdays. Know what you are going to write before you actually write it, gives time to your mind subconsciously work that ideas for you. Dean Koontz, and Dick Perry strongly advise you about building a story structure before you write. Dean Koontz believes you must hold that idea in your mind, but Dick Perry goes further than that and teach a way to build the whole plot before you even write the first line of your novel. His technique was the one I enjoyed most.

The plotting technique that I borrowed from Perry and that I strongly recommend, starts with buying a notebook and writing in the top of the thirty first pages "Chapter 1,2,3...30". After that, you think about how you want your story to begin and write it on chapter 1; then, how you want the novel to end, and place it on chapter 30. Next, think about your climax and place it somewhere around chapter 18 to 22, and voilá, you have the main concept written down. Now, you just have to write down, chapter by chapter, what you think should happen from 1 to 30 for the last chapter to be consequence of the first. I also create Character profiles. One page for each profile that I create with descriptions of the Characters. That will also become handy if you forget at some point how a character looks like.

Before I continue I must advice that Lawrence Block and Stephen King in "On Writing" aren't fond of that kind of plotting. For me... it worked fine. I needed a whole week to work the plot, but it was worthy it. Of course that while I was writing my novels I had to make a lot of alterations in the Plot. Still, this guide helped me a lot.

Well... if you have the plot in your mind or on the paper (and think very carefully about the plot before touching the keyboard), it's time to go back to the first rules. Write a lot and build a schedule. When I started believing in myself, I planned something ambitious. I would write 5 pages a day, 5 days a week, for two months. It worked. I suffered in the first weeks, but in the next ones, I would write 6 or 7 pages in good days, writing during four to five hours a day. On Saturdays I wouldn't even touch the manuscript (all the authors I read are terribly against work-free days), and on Sundays I would revise. That way I wrote the entire "The Seals of Legacy" which I'm posting a chapter for week in fictionpress.com.

Those are, what I believe, the most important guidelines but there are a couple more tips I think are also important. The first one is "read". Read as much as you can from the gender you want to write. King and Koontz support me on that one. You must find a time in your schedule and read a lot. If you can't find time to read, I doubt that you will find any time to write, so, always read. Reading books from the gender you love will help you to develop the thinking that those books demand in their writing including the vocabulary, and in addition, you will feed your mind with ideas that you can dissect and combine to create new ones.

Marion Zimmer Bradley wrote in her article "Advice to New Writers" that you should also subscribe "Writer's Digest", but I could never do it. I live in Brazil and that subscription would be too expensive for me. Maybe it's an advice that one of you can take.

One important thing that you should already know is, write well. Spelling and Grammar mistakes scream to the reader's eyes. To write in English I had to study hard. English and Portuguese grammar structures are very different and I never had any support in Brazil that I could use to help me writing my novels. The ones of you reading this Article that are American or British, on the other hand, have no excuse. English is your native language. By now, you should already know how to write well, but if you don't, King and Perry suggest a fantastic book: "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White. My years studying English in private schools were little compared to the aid this book gave me. It's fantastic. The words of King on this book are "There is little or no detectable bullshit in that book" and "I'll tell you right now that every aspiring writer should read The Elements of Style". And that takes me to my last advice, which is named as "rule 17: omit needless words" in "Elements of Style", but was a tip presented by all the authors I previously mentioned.

The more words you need to tell your reader something, the more boring will sound your story. There are many words that simply don't need to be there, and if you are an avid reader, you will know which ones are just by re-reading the paragraph. Oh... and that also takes us to adverbs. Adverb is the favorite tool of the lazy writer. Instead of describing something, is much easier to put an adverb on the phrase and just forget about it. News to you: Adverbs kill the text. They suck the life away from you sentences, turning them into lame phrases with no power at all. Cut as many adverbs you can and leave only the essential ones, and believe me, there are very few of those.

Well... I hope that my advice helped you in any way. The tips and rules I mentioned are my guides to write and come from writers much more experience than I. Hope you enjoyed, and if you have any question, feel free to message me.

References:

"On Writing" by Stephen King

"The Elements of Style" by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White

"One Way to Write your Novel" by Dick Perry

"Writing Popular Fiction" by Dean R. Koontz

"The Novel from Plot to Print" by Lawrence Block
"Advice to New Writers" by Marion Zimmer Bradley in mzbworks.home.att.net/advice.htm