Nebula's Guide to Wattpad: How to Write Books Like a Boss!

Adding Onto Your Idea

You have an idea that's just downright genius? Great! Let's get this baby rolling!

So you finally got your idea and you're ready to write, but before you can jump onto your laptop and starting typing away, you gotta do some intensive planning first. Now, that might sound boring, I know, but it will seriously help. Trust me. Let's start off with an example, thanks to a story I really love by a good friend of mine.

Let's say that you've come up with a very cool idea for a book that you want to write based around a zombie apocalypse, which is something that everyone loves to read and write about, which makes this example a perfect thing to demonstrate with.

Anyway, while everyone is familiar with the concept of a zombie apocalypse, it's up to you to create an idea that's completely unique to your own making. Think about this for moment. The zombie apocalypse in things such as... Say... The Walking Dead is different from that of Dawn Of The Dead, which in turn is different from 28 Days Later, I am Legend, or Michael Jackson's Thriller. If you don't have a clear framework for your particular idea, which in this case is a zombie apocalypse, before you start writing, the chances are you'll end up with glaring inconsistencies which will confuse and annoy your readers. After all, there's nothing worse than reading a zombie book where the rules seem to change from scene to scene.

To create a good book, you have to follow like a sort of guideline for your ideas. Now when I say guidelines, I don't mean pull your essay rubric from 5th grade out of your 8 year old backpack you got from Walmart all those years ago. No. I'm talking about a sets of things or notes that you write down or something that adds depth and feature to your story.

For our example, there are rules for how your zombie-filled world works need to cover things, like how it started (a virus, radiation poisoning of some sort, chemical contamination), how fast it spreads, what type of zombies will roam your apocalyptic landscape, etc. All this kinds of stuff helps pinpoint and make clear the details about things, such as your characters, settings, and plot.