Discover the fundamental tips every aspiring novelist should know to craft compelling stories and characters.
Create a writing schedule
If you're writing a novel then you've got to get words on the page. There's no way around it. Creating a system or schedule for your writing will be your saving grace. Got extra time in the mornings or during your commute? Perhaps you can squeeze in a few minutes after dinner. Setting time out of your schedule to sit down and commit to writing is the first step in successfully completing a novel. Even setting aside ten minutes at a time will add up to a substantial writing effort. Creating a writing schedule and sticking to it will lead you to a completed first draft.
Create an outline or structuring system
Once you get into a routine of getting words on the page it's important to stay organized. Create a map of your work by listing chapters or scenes. Know where to find each moment in your document or journal. Cross off the scenes you've successfully written. Make note of which scenes or chapters come next in your writing schedule. This will give you a head start on structuring your first draft. Rather than having dozens of unorganized pages to comb through you'll have a systemized draft that can be easily reorganized and reread.
A novel is nothing without a plot. This is the lifeblood of the story. What happens to your characters and why? Why do certain moments come before others? What events trigger the climax? How does everything resolve? Even if your writing includes elements of discovery, moments that surprise you, or moments you didn't expect to come up with, it's important that the bones of your story are in place. Without a solid plot you'll lead your reader down a winding road and may lose their interest or confuse them. Keep your plot tight and you'll be happy you did.
Create engaging, grounded, and believable characters
Without our characters our plot would have no significance. Each character is a beautiful color on the tapestry that is your novel. It's important that each character feels real and three dimensional. It's important that these characters come with their own quirks and personality traits. It's important that each character has a desire and is moving toward it even if they are tangential to the main character. It's important that each line of dialogue is in service of both the main plot and each character arc. If your characters can't standalone as real people then unfortunately, you're doing it wrong.
While building your plot, pacing is a delicate art. Take too long to set up plot and you've lost readers' attention. Move too fast or include too much information and you've confused your reader. What you should ideally hope to aim for is a sweet spot in the middle where the pacing makes sense, engages the reader, and moves the story forward at a believable rate. The inciting incident for your story should take place within the first few pages. Beyond that each character decision should drive the plot forward in deliberate, believable steps. By the end of the story, the main conflict should be resolved. Or if you're building toward a sequel, that conflict should be introduced just before the end to leave the reader intrigued and wanting more.
Writing a rough draft is imprecise work. You will make mistakes and have new ideas that cause you to want to circle back or scrap what you've written and start over. Everyone has their own writing process, so do what makes sense for you but I advise that you write forward. Writing forward means avoiding doubling back for rewrites and choosing to "retcon" and keep moving forward to new material. This helps me to get more words on the page and make more progress on my story. I aim to keep rewrites minimal until at least the first draft of my story is complete.
When working on a particular project - like a novel - it's always a good idea to read content that's similar to what you're writing. This isn't for you to bite the writing style or ideas of a different author but it allows you to further research the genre you're writing in. It allows you to get a glimpse into what readers are expecting when they pick up novels of that genre. This way you can go with or completely subvert expectation.
I'm writing a Queer love story and so I've been reading tons of Queer romance novels (TJ Klune's House on the Cerulean Sea, Madeline Miller's Song of Achilles, and Everina Maxwell's Winter's Orbit to name a few). This research clues me into the wide breadth of what's out there. It also helps me to have a more singular and unique voice, standing out within the genre.
To make your dialogue sound more natural try saying it aloud after writing it. The way people speak to each other is often less flowery and less eloquent than the way certain dialogue is written. You may be inspired to cut down your dialogue or remove it entirely if, when saying it aloud, it doesn't sound as natural.
The key to keeping audiences engaged in your story is keeping information from them. Think of writing a story as creating several small mysteries. Find a balance between telling the reader everything at once and keeping them in the dark completely. Use clues and foreshadowing to leave a breadcrumb trail of your story's biggest secrets. Let the reader in on more and more information as your story goes on.
Enlist the help of a beta reader. A beta reader is someone who reads the prototype version of a written project before it is released. Beta readers help the author by marking areas of improvement in a work.
For my first novel, I chose a group of friends and loved ones whose feedback I trusted. Chapter by chapter they read the unreleased version of my novel and offered their perspective, often suggesting improvements. My book would not be as polished as it is without the help of my beta reading team. Thank you all!
If you're looking for beta reading services, then look no further. I offer beta reading services for $75 per 3,500 words or roughly 15 pages. I'm happy to read over your work and give feedback in the form of written notes, edits, and suggestions.
