Current Events > Has anyone written a novel before?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Just curious. I've written poems, short stories, essays, but never a novel. It's a novel thing for me (LOL).

I'm attempting to do so now, and I'm having a lot of fun outlining it. Curious if you would have any tips/tricks/advice regarding anything at all during the novel writing process?

---

you reincarnate into a fantasy world as a slime

I dont think I ever heard of a novel being written

---

Kaiganeer posted...

you reincarnate into a fantasy world as a slime

Makes sense to me *becomes slime*

---

I've written two. Both were awful.

Where are you at in the process exactly? I can try to offer some tips, though I'm not really an expert or anything, but it'd help to know precisely where you're at with it as of now.

---

dotsdfe posted...

I've written two. Both were awful.

Where are you at in the process exactly? I can try to offer some tips, though I'm not really an expert or anything, but it'd help to know precisely where you're at with it as of now.

I have 3 of the character's story arch's broadly outlined and the general plot outlined to about 1-2 paragraphs worth. So at the very very beginning

I'm following the snowflake method
https://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/

---

Ive written several. I never do anything with them but its a fun hobby. My tips are:

Remember the 2% rule

https://medium.com/@abobrow/how-writing-for-the-tv-show-community-cured-me-d703b80ff3e5

and irony is the heart of all good stories.

Joker98 posted...

I have 3 of the character's story arch's broadly outlined and the general plot outlined to about 1-2 paragraphs worth. So at the very very beginning

I'm following the snowflake method
https://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/

I'm not familiar with that method precisely, but skimming it, it doesn't sound too different from my own method.

Starting with core ideas is obviously essential. Start trying to figure out the directions that you want the plot to take and the biggest story beats, then start mapping it out into a coherent story. You don't need to spontaneously know the whole novel in one sitting. I typically go from like a key plot concept to general plot points and then organize them and refine them over time.

The biggest thing that helps me, though, is to get a physical notebook to jot ideas down on. Having my ideas on paper helps so much, and in particular, I make pages for each character to help write out traits or quirks or just smaller details as I develop them. Even if they aren't all important and are just mentioned in passing (or maybe not at all), developing your characters like that really helps.

When you get to actually writing it, pacing is really important. I tried to just attack it on my first time writing a novel, and I burnt out pretty hard and didn't feel up to writing for quite a while after that. Even "a chapter a day" isn't always realistic when it comes to longer chapters. My biggest advice there is to just try to write something every day. Even if it's just a few sentences, keep making progress without pushing yourself too hard.

---

dotsdfe posted...

I'm not familiar with that method precisely, but skimming it, it doesn't sound too different from my own method.

Starting with core ideas is obviously essential. Start trying to figure out the directions that you want the plot to take and the biggest story beats, then start mapping it out into a coherent story. You don't need to spontaneously know the whole novel in one sitting. I typically go from like a key plot concept to general plot points and then organize them and refine them over time.

The biggest thing that helps me, though, is to get a physical notebook to jot ideas down on. Having my ideas on paper helps so much, and in particular, I make pages for each character to help write out traits or quirks or just smaller details as I develop them. Even if they aren't all important and are just mentioned in passing (or maybe not at all), developing your characters like that really helps.

When you get to actually writing it, pacing is really important. I tried to just attack it on my first time writing a novel, and I burnt out pretty hard and didn't feel up to writing for quite a while after that. Even "a chapter a day" isn't always realistic when it comes to longer chapters. My biggest advice there is to just try to write something every day. Even if it's just a few sentences, keep making progress without pushing yourself too hard.

That's really helpful! Thank you

---

Joker98 posted...

That's really helpful! Thank you

No problem. If you have any specific questions or anything, just let me know, and I can try to help out further.

---

Check out Jenna Moreci's youtube channel, shes got lots of tips in easy digestible videos

---

I finished an entire novel when I was about 11 or 12. It was basicslly a complete ripoff of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. Kinda wish I still had it so I could read it and laugh.

@Sunhawk
---

I've had an idea for one for a long time but I'm too much of a lazy hack to write a whole novel and too much of a perfectionist to not spend hours on one paragraph.

---

wrote one for fun as a teenager, but haven't "seriously" written a novel in my adult years

---

I'm about to self publish my third novel. :)

We used to have a CE writing topic.
---

DuranOfForcena posted...

also definitely worth a look, if we are on the subject of writing craft advice on youtube, is the videos of Brandon Sanderson's lecture series that he has given classes on at his alma mater BYU. i think he does it every year, and there are multiple years worth of the classes that have been uploaded to youtube in their entirety for free. it's a really great resource. he details many things both about the craft of writing and the business of writing, and it's all really good stuff.

Can vouch for this

---

>no mfa from Iowa

It never even began

---

@Joker98 start the next writing general please

---

MedeaLysistrata posted...

@Joker98 start the next writing general please

What does that entail?

---

Joker98 posted...

What does that entail?

Posting updates on your projects, whatever else

I'll try to write 100 words for every post in the topic

---

When I was very young and ambitious I wrote a handful of ~20 page long prose poems (would probably have equated to around 45-50 pages in book form for each one since spacing and margins were minimal), each one divided up into a range of topics. Was much less Montaigne, and much more Rimbaud. But quite a bit of it was pretty cool even in retrospect, mostly because it all came from the mind of a 17-19 year old who was in pristine mental/physical shape. Was writing the material from the summer before senior year in highschool thru my freshman college year. I reread a lot of it when I was 23-24 and thought it stood up over the years. At this point, if I ever tried to put it into the world, it'd have to be under a pseudonym, since I'm already in a professional career field. I have written a few more 30-40 poem collections over the last couple years, but nothing as outright lengthy as that older stuff. My actual poetry has improved since then, I think, but my prose from back then was intuitively well-hewn imo.

---

I've written four or five maybe
Set aside an hour or two each day and plug away at it. If there's simultaneous plots/narrators then make sure the timing matches up if/when the plots come together. Keep your tenses straight etc etc.
Basically it shouldn't be too strange any experience from short stories, just longer. Don't go too hard on outlining though cuz plots and concepts are inevitably going to break against each other and change in the process.

Juhanor posted...

I've written four or five maybe
Set aside an hour or two each day and plug away at it. If there's simultaneous plots/narrators then make sure the timing matches up if/when the plots come together. Keep your tenses straight etc etc.
Basically it shouldn't be too strange any experience from short stories, just longer. Don't go too hard on outlining though cuz plots and concepts are inevitably going to break against each other and change in the process.

When there are different plots, how do you decide whose perspective to write from, and whether to write from 1st or 3rd person?

---

TC you point out that you drafted all the character arcs, that is a great idea. I approached my story by having a general arc that all the characters played into.

I wrote about 30 pages of a novel before comparing it with a friend's work, mine was shit

---

MedeaLysistrata posted...

@Joker98 start the next writing general please

Yes pls

---

So what would I do, just update the writing general with the updates I'm coming up with?

The potential problem is that this book is pretty personal, utilizing mostly my experiences and familial relationships, and I was planning on publishing it anonymously or under a fake name, so I'm not sure I wanna post any updates here at all XD

---

Joker98 posted...

So what would I do, just update the writing general with the updates I'm coming up with?

Don't be specific then. It'll be a place for everyone to contribute and hold some accountability.

---

Hmmm... Ok I'm in

---

It has been created

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/400-current-events/79256747

---

I've had six published, in the final editing stages of a seventh (much more ambitious) novel, and several chapters into an eighth.

---

marthsheretoo posted...

I've had six published, in the final editing stages of a seventh (much more ambitious) novel, and several chapters into an eighth.

If you don't mind me asking, do you make a lot of money writing? If I turn out to be any good at writing novels I'd like to make it my career.

---

Joker98 posted...

If you don't mind me asking, do you make a lot of money writing? If I turn out to be any good at writing novels I'd like to make it my career.

Not in the slightest, lol. The six published were commission work and paid like shit. I'm hoping this big one will take off, but the odds are against it. Bottom line is, if you're in the novel industry to make money, find a new career.

One strategy I've seen have some success (for other people. I've never tried it) is the quantity over quality approach. If you can write decently and quickly, you can shit out a book every 6 months and self publish it on amazon. If you know your genre keywords, pay $100 for a genre-appropriate cover, and write good ad copy, you can get a pretty steady stream of sales going and even build a following. But rapid release is key to this strategy, as is having a grasp of tropes and genre expectations. If you price your books at $1.99 and sell 10 copies of each a week, you're making $400 a week, which isn't terrible for a writer. If you're good enough to be successful and sell a hundred of each a week, you're making a damned good living.

---

Joker98 posted...

When there are different plots, how do you decide whose perspective to write from, and whether to write from 1st or 3rd person?

I always write from 1st, just for the sake of the flow; third person I feel works better in short stories/novellas. But ultimately it comes down to what feels natural for you. Some writers prefer 3rd to 1st, or can mix and match as they see fit.

Regarding the choice of narrator, I try to think of two characters that are opposed (not necessarily antagonists, just from different sides of life in some way) yet if the story is to dovetail, have a "link" that can bring them together. For example, in my first novel the two narrators were a detective and a high school kid, linked together by sisters--the detective's partner and the high schooler's classmate. Although they never encountered each other, the partner did meet the kid, and the classmate, the detective.

So it's possible to write a story with interlinked plots and have the narrators be as ships passing in the night, or even kept completely distinct from each other and carry out "miniature" novels of their own accord, yet when read together function as two pieces of a greater whole.

And of course, the use of alternating narrators is a good trick to keep your mind and writing fresh. Chapter for one, chapter for other, chapter for one and so on.