1st One of the hardest things that stop many potential writers, or even seasoned authors is that they overthink; they do not know where to start. Just get the ideas onto paper. If you have an idea for an ending, some characters, a beginning, then get them written down, even some random scenes. They...
Expand post1st One of the hardest things that stop many potential writers, or even seasoned authors is that they overthink; they do not know where to start. Just get the ideas onto paper. If you have an idea for an ending, some characters, a beginning, then get them written down, even some random scenes. They do not need to be in great detail, only put the bullet points if you cannot write the full scene yet. The rest of the story will start to come together. As you progress through your book, some of these ideas will alter, change significantly, maybe even removed. Some of your original ideas, even entire chapters from the first draft, will be taken out and kept for the sequel or another book in the series. 2nd The 1st draft should be purely for writing the story, forget about the editing. You are writing an idea; you do not want to be distracted by editing literature, spelling mistakes, paragraph size, etc while writing the first draft. Put all of your attention into the story itself, not fancy words, etc. The second draft is when you read over the work and decide what needs to be changed, removed, added. Again, even on the sixth draft, you may add or change parts. Get stuck into adjectives, tenses, fix your para size. The “nightmare” that is editing begins. Eventually, you should publish the work, so stop tweaking here and there, or it may never be released. 3rd Literature, especially literature graduates, clam down on fancy words. Sometimes keeping basic everyday English is needed. Try to imagine how that character would speak in their actual life. When you describe something, you can choose two or three words for that para; not every second, third word needs to be some fancy word. It comes across as amateurish, hard to read, trying too hard, and gets binned. I have taught several hundred leading English experts, and they had this problem. They are ok to speak like this in reality, etc, but not their written work. I say to them, imagine who your audience is, are they young kids, then why are you writing like a doctor. If they are writing formal analytical papers, then yes, add terminology and words that only 3% of the populace use. 4th Any creative writing or literature student should know these, but funny enough, I still see it from CW/Lit post-graduates and senior high school English teachers. Keep the sentences longer; do not write short five-six word sentences. If you have three short sentences, then maybe you can write then up as one sentence, by adding a comma instead. Cut down on the word count, if the para can be written in twenty-five words instead of ninety, then great. You do not want to drag the audience on. Less is more; this also counts for dialogue, and you do not need to write dialogue just for the sake of it. Remaining silent or fewer words can be more powerful. 5th It is normal to be writing several books at the same time. Some people stick to one, from chapter one in exact order, others start from the finish, and work their way back. I have finished several series though the editing does my nut in, so to stop the boredom, I edit one chapter from one book, then go onto another. I am in no rush to release them, and would rather be happy with the finished product that smashing my way through the 6th edit draft. Have a large word count, even after cutting out the unnecessary words, think about making it into a series. One of my series is 150k words, so I deiced to cut it into a three-book series instead, focusing on adding one chapter at a time as I fight the soul-sucking editing battle. Even if you want to keep it to one book, is there a particular part that would be a good cliff hanger, it usually needs to be around the 30, or 50k mark depending on the genre. It may work out better to make it into a series.
