7 Tips for Writing Novels
These are a couple of tips I learned from expirience writing and reading on my own and from a youtuber named Katytastic. She makes vlogs solely about books. This is her 7 tips with added details from me :)
1. Characters
-Complexity. Even if the details aren’t included in the book, you, as the author, need to know all the deets!
-What changes between the beginning and end of your book in the characters?
-Even minor characters need to have an entire backstory.
-They have to be at least mildly likeable.
2. World Building
-Complexity
Climate
Geography
Mythical creatures?
Living spaces
Animals native to the area
Aliens??
Politics
What’s happening in “World News”?
-Make sure to tie these things into your plot.
3. The Story/Plot
-No plot holes! It makes the reader retreat from the story and say, “Wait. That’s not right?”
-It has to be actually possible, or at least plausible in the future.
-The actions of characters need to make sense.
-What IS the premise?
-What life changing things happen to your character(s)?
-Exactly what genre(s) are you writing?
4. Structure and Style
-What mood do you want the story to have? Humorous? Dark? In-between with lots of philosophic thoughts?
-POV? First person can give a sense of intimacy, while third person can relay different parts of the story to the reader.
-Decide what length of time you want to pass in the story, the general length of chapters, how time passes, ect.
-Structurally, you need to FIRST figure out where you want this story to go. Look back to Story/Plot.
-Also, you need to figure out where character-changing moments happen.
5. Description
-Paint the story into a reader’s mind.
-What is the atmosphere or mood?
-Use complex adjectives, but DO NOT over describe.
- Make sure not to leave details of the character’s looks way after the reader has already defined them in their brain by their personality.
-Use creative ways of telling the reader about colors, shapes, sizes, and textures.
-DO NOT state everything about the character because this is boring and overused. It’s an easy way of getting out of writing a clever way to define your character(s).
6. Emotion
-It’s what connects the reader to the story
-Use basic emotions to take your reader on the rollercoaster that is the character’s (main or otherwise) emotions.
-Get the reader emotionally invested into the characters.
7. The Writing
-Prose
-Word usage
-Weirdly worded sentences jolt the reader out of the story
-Typos also jolt readers out of the story.
-Proper grammar. At least try.
I'll be making a chapter on each of these 7 things and elaborating on them. This is just a general overview of what's to come :)
Note: I'll be making this specifically for people who want to eventually be published so this does not necessarily guarantee success on wattpad, but it should help in the real world.
Also, external link leads to katytastic's video.
Love, hugs, and pugs,
~Grace
YOU ARE READING
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