Advice to the New Writer
I have recently gotten a lot of aspiring writers asking me for advice, so I figured I would write a post about it. Many people have told me they love to write, but aren’t sure where to start. Writing can be daunting when you are thinking of starting a novel. It’s a long process and will look different for every individual. I am by no means an expert, but I like to think I have some good things to share. This is geared toward those who are writing fantasy, but most of it applies to all genres.
Let’s dive into my top 3 pieces of advice for the aspiring writer!
1. Brainstorm Before You Write
When you first have a book idea, it’s really tempting to just dive right in and write the draft. But, from my experience, you’ll get stuck about halfway through with no idea where the plot is going. In my first draft, I did just that. I got stuck, and the more I reviewed what I had written, I realized my characters had no depth, the storyline didn’t make sense for what the characters themselves would choose, and the romance was like a jump scare — it came out of nowhere, with no buildup that made the reader root for them.
This doesn’t mean you should spend months or even a year just planning; that’s overkill.
Brainstorming will look different for every writer, but here are the general steps most people follow:
Grab a notebook and write everything you can about the book
Set a timer if you want and see how much you can get done in 5 minutes
write everything from the setting to relationships
remember: it doesn’t have to be perfect, and it won’t be!
2. Create a character profile for your main characters
There are lots of these you can find online, so do a Google search!
The most important things you want to know about your character include: name, age, physical appearance, emotional state, habits, goals/motivations, and what they believe about the world (a lie that influences their actions)
Really get to know your characters!
One way I like to get inside their heads is to write a diary entry as that character, dive into their thoughts and feelings because they will be different from mine.
3. Create an outline of your book
get an idea of how many chapters you are going to have and what is going to happen across those chapters
chances are, the outline will change throughout the writing process, but it serves as a good starting point
ask yourself these questions:
what do I want to happen in this chapter?
what is this chapter trying to accomplish?
what motivates (character)’s actions? what is his/her belief?
how does this chapter add to the overall story?
4. Have a grasp on your world/magic system/politics
This is optional, but I really recommend having a base idea at the very least before you start writing. Because without it, it’s hard for the reader to fully be immersed in your book. I started off with barely any knowledge of what Wyvernhold really was, and now I am having to go back and add bits and pieces throughout the entire book, which is a drag of a process. So, if I were to give you a piece of advice here, it would be to develop the world before you try to set a story in it.
Are there dragons or any other mythical creatures that your characters see or have dealings with? What is life like for most people? What does the leadership look like and how does the normal person view it? etc.
One thing I had to get a grasp on was the question “does everyone have magic or only the royalty”. At first I wrote everyone with magic, but then I realized that made everyone equal and kind of ruined the peasants v. royalty aspect of the novel. Just recently, I switched it again to be that only very few of the royals (within a specific bloodline) are born with magical powers.
Where does their magic come from? Taking from my book, I tied the magic with the stars and constellations. Throughout the whole book, my protagonist is waiting for a special eclipse to happen to unlock his full powers. Is magic tied to the world or something else? What’s the backstory there?
5. Once you’ve at least taken a shot at all of that, you’re ready to write!
2. Get Something on the Page
One thing that most writers struggle with is Writer’s Block. One vein of this is the ability to start writing when staring at a blank page. But you can’t perfect something that isn’t there. Any writing is better than no writing. Try to write something every day. Whether it be for 15 minutes or 3 hours, that content is what gets you one step closer to completing your manuscript.
Start somewhere, anywhere. My first chapter has changed at least four times and I’m sure it will change some more before I publish my book. Yours will too, but you can’t change anything around if you have nothing to start with.
Start with an introduction to the world or your main chapter. Some stories follow a logical progression (mine had a clear place to start because my MC starts out as a siren and changes into a human in the first chapter). But not every story follows that structure as simply as mine did.
If you have absolutely no idea where to start your story, try these things:
1. Begin with action
Nobody wants to sit through descriptions of settings and character descriptions right off the bat. Hook your reader and bring those things in naturally.
2. Set up your protagonist’s main goal
By the end of the first chapter, the reader should have some idea of what the protagonist wants in life. For example, by the end of the first chapter in Wyvernhold, we figure out that Ravenna will do anything to get her voice back before the end of the fifth year, when she loses it forever.
* This will come from answering the main goal/lie they believe about the world I talked about in the section about developing your characters
3. Read as Much as You Write
One of the most important things to be aware of as a writer is that you can always learn more and grow. You need to consume the same genre you are writing in. It’s good to see how each author approaches certain topics or even just to get an example of a writing style you might want to use. I’ve used this tactic to figure out what point of view and tense to use.
“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.”
— Stephen King
Outside of reading for research for your book, read for fun. You learn something new each time you read, and you need to exercise your brain in that way. Nobody has written a best-selling novel by hoping they are doing it right and never reading a book.
That’s only my top 3, but I don’t want to make this extremely long. I hope this helps all my fellow writers out there!
I’ll leave you with a quote from my favorite author, Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
But how could you live and have no story to tell?
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Do everything you can to tell the story you so desperately want to. Because your novel may just be the book someone has been searching for. We must write because that is who God made us to be.
Feel free to reach out with any questions or comments!
Thanks,
