Writing fiction: Where to start?
- bkntouris
- Aug 22, 2023
- 4 min read
When you first start your writing journey, you'll receive loads of advice from writers and readers alike.
"Write what you know."
"Outline."
"Just start typing; it'll all come together."
"Write about what inspires you."
All these are, let's put it bluntly, bad pieces of advice.
So what should you REALLY do?
1. Come up with an idea
Not all ideas will have novel potential. Some might work best as short stories or novellas, and that's totally fine. As a matter of fact, you might want to consider testing out the writing waters by coming up with a piece of flash fiction. Anything to get those gears working and inspire you.
For the sake of this article, though, I shall stick to novel writing.
2. Explore that idea in detail
This is the time for you to be asking yourself as many questions as possible. What do you want your novel to focus on? Is there anything about the idea that makes you tick? Are there any burning questions or ideas you want to address?
As you must have guessed, this is the beginning of your plotting and world-building process.
3. Build your world
Choose a world you want to spend a lot of time in. If a setting or a time period inspires you, make as many notes about it as possible and do some research. You, as an author, have to be passionate about your world, as you will spend months, if not years, residing in it. If you get bored halfway through, your readers will feel it and will get bored, too.
Some authors love making maps of their world. If you're writing fantasy or science fiction, this might be quite useful for tracking your characters' progress and their journey. Even if your world is a modern-day world, a map or two wouldn't hurt. Google maps are an excellent tool: you can use satellite and terrain view to get a better grasp on the area you're describing.
4. Form your characters
Think about who your characters are.
This task is no easy feat. You, as a writer, need to know everything about your characters, and not just information that reaches the pages. You need to know their family tree, history, habits, ailments (if any), relationships, motivations, their own unique voices. And most importantly, you ought to know how they will react in different situations.
For this, you can use a program that will help you with character development, or you can put together character fact files and create character 'mood boards' full of images which relate to them.
5. Plot, then plot some more
Plot is the series of causes and effects that produce the story as a whole. Event 'A' leads to event 'B' which results in event 'C' (you can add as many as your story needs), which leads to the story’s climax.
If you don’t know where to start, but you have a few ideas about what you want to happen in the novel, it might be best if you start with the conflict. Conflicts come in many types, but in two main forms: external and internal. External conflict is one between the protagonist and an antagonist in any form (natural catastrophe, a long-lost lover, politics, murder...) and can, for some writers, be easier to tackle. Internal conflict focuses on the struggle within the individual (poor life choices, addiction, disease, grief...) and is often hard to write, especially if you're just starting. Well-written, internal conflict can often be more powerful than the external one.
As a part of plotting, you'll have to explore your characters even further, since they will be changing as the story progresses. They will be put in a position of making decisions with consequences. What will happen if your character refuses to go on the journey you meant for them? What will happen if they do? How will the journey change them?
Bear in mind that the main conflict should be introduced within the first 15-20 pages. Everything else can wait.
6. Work out your structure
Take some time to think about the structural features of your novel.
What is the time frame you'll be covering: a week, a month, a year, a decade, a century, or millennia? I've seen them all, and if properly done, they can all work. Will you be sticking to one scene per chapter, or you'll have longer sections corresponding to a certain time period that passes (e.g.: years)?
Who is the best person (or persons) to be telling the story? Once you make your decision, there will be some more decisions to make. You'll need to choose between the first and third person narration, as well as the tense you find the most suitable for the story (past VS present).
You can also break your story into acts. Classic stories follow a three-act structure, but you can also divide your story into three acts. Take a look at the charts below:
7. Plan your ending
Even if you haven't planned the beginning or middle of your novel yet, think ahead and ask yourself what sort of ending will be the most satisfactory for the reader. Flat endings are dissapointing, so I'd advise you to work on an ending that both makes sense, but is also moving. Also, having a clear ending in place may help you build a story and set of characters that all drive toward that ending.
8. Take some courses
This is definitely not a must, but a lot of authors I know said their writing improved after they attended webinars or took some courses. PWA has free webinars once in a while, and although some lessons are repetitive, you can definitely learn a lot, and for free!
If you're financially able to afford some quality courses, you might wanbt to consider the following:
Happy writing!
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