Have you ever had the urge to write a book, but don’t know where to start? If so then this blog post is for you! I’m going to give some tips that have helped me write books. So far, I’ve written four and am in the process of writing my fifth book -Check out my H.L.S. Projects page for some information on them.
*Note: I won’t be going over publishing or the publishing process in this post this is strictly focused on writing*
Step 1: Do You Have an Idea?
The first step for writing a book is to have an idea you want to write about. For me, ideas come into my head at all times of the day, so I’ve started to write them down in a notebook or on the notes app on my phone. Whenever you have an idea that you think you could write on jot it down. If no ideas are coming to you maybe try looking around you at people, places, nature and see if anything sparks an idea. What is key is don’t discount any of your ideas; jot them down.
Step 2: Which Genre does that Idea Fall Into?
You have your idea. Now determine which genre does that idea fall into? This is important to do early on so you can determine how to write. Example, if you are writing a realistic fiction then your book isn’t going to take place in a fantasy world.
Step 3: Who is Your Audience?
Also, determine early on who’s your audience? Who do you picture reading your book? What is their age range? This is important because you want to make sure the voice/topics of the story will be able to be read by who you want. It will also help you determine the word count to aim for when writing. For example, the average word count for a Young Adult book is 50k-90k words.
Step 4: Are you a Plotter or Pantser?
When I get an idea I like to write at least a light outline of the plot and note down a few of the main characters bios before I get started writing. If you also like to outline then you are a Plotter. This would be a good point in the writing process to get any outlining, bio sheets, setting descriptors, or magic systems written down. If you are a Pantser then you like to just dive into writing without any pre-writing worksheets, so skip this step and start writing!
Step 5: Just Keep Writing, Writing, Writing
Now is the time. You are ready to write! Put pen to paper or hands to keyboards and get to putting the words together. My best advice for writing a book is to just keep writing! Don’t worry about editing, just focus on getting the story out of your head and onto the paper. Once you are done you can go back and edit.
My first draft of my first book had one paragraph chapters in some sections, and I had unintentionally renamed some of the characters by the end of the book. It doesn’t matter because once you get to the end you can go back and fix those things, but you would have written a book! Even if it’s a disjointed hot mess you have still achieved the goal of writing a book! It’s not ready to be published yet, but that doesn’t make it any less of an accomplishment because that’s a really big deal to turn wisps of thoughts into an actual world. Go you!
Some Helpful Tools
Some tools I have found useful for writing a book is following the #writingcommunity on twitter, you will interact with fellow authors also going through the writing struggle and a lot of them have great tips (check out my blog post on the subject here and feel free to follow me @HLSwritings).
The NaNoWriMo website is another great resource. They host an annual book writing challenge in November, where everyone tries to write a book in a month. It’s a good way to motivate yourself with a deadline and stay connected with other authors trying to do the same thing.
I also find the writing tool Scrivner as a good resource for outlining your book (if you are a plotter). It has character and setting work sheet you can fill out. You can make virtual flash cards to outline your story.
Hope this helps you achieve your goal of writing a book!
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