It’s easy to say you want to write a novel. It’s harder to do it. You have to create a plot with vibrant characters that’s engaging enough to draw your readers in and keep them entertained. Having a beginning isn’t good enough. You have to take that beginning and weave it into a story that’s truly worth telling, and you’ll need characters that have realistic emotions and reactions. Writing these reactions can be a complicated and difficult task. However, there are two techniques that can help you to engage with your own characters and develop them in a way that is both realistic and in keeping with your story.
Learn to Play “What If” With Your Characters
Once you understand the basics of writing fiction, you have to weave your tale effectively. However, sometimes you’ll not really know where to go with your plot. You may not have any idea what your characters should do, or what they might do when presented with certain situations. In this case, it might be helpful to play “what if” with your characters.
Get out a blank piece of paper and scratch out a few “what ifs.” Play with each idea for a little while. Keep some basic notes about what might happen as each idea is explored. Eventually, you’ll find one that works, but don’t discard your list of “what ifs.” Put them in a folder somewhere. You might find a place to use them later in your story, or they might be useful in another book, especially if you intend to reuse some of your characters.
Put Yourself in Your Character’s Place
If you’re not sure what your character might do or say in a given situation, try being you character for a moment. Use your imagination and put yourself in your character’s shoes. If your character is going for a brisk jog across an icy lake, and you have no idea how that feels or how to describe it, take yourself outside and jog across an icy lake. Be your character and you’ll soon figure out exactly how it feels and what your character would think about the icy lake.
This also works for entire scenes that you might be trying to construct. Get up and act them out, even if you have to play the role of multiple characters. By actually considering real reactions to certain situations, you’ll be better able to create a story that seems plausible and engages your readers.
It’s easy to write yourself into a corner and not be entirely certain how to write yourself out again. However, by playing “what if” or taking the time to imagine or enact certain scenes, you will be well on your way to writing your first novel.
After writing and revising, rewriting and editing, submitting and resubmitting, you might feel exhausted. And you have every right to want to take a break, sit back, and just wait. Maybe someone will publish your work, maybe they won't, but you're tired and you don't want to think about it any more.
But you still want to be published. You want to see your name in print. So, is there anything left that you can actually do? Your plot is completed, your characters are done for the moment, and your story is in the mail. Surely there's nothing left to do.
But there is. Keep writing. Move on. Come up with that next great story and get it down on paper. You've already done it once, so do it again. If you want to make a living as a writer, you have to keep writing, even when you think you're done. If you really can't find it in you to write another novel just yet, think about launching a career as a freelance writer. Being a professional writer can mean more than just writing novels.
Whatever you do, keep writing. Keep that pen sharp and ready to create the next great work.
If you've written your first novel and submitted it to a couple of publishers, you're might find yourself at a loss. What do you do now? You could do any number of things, really. You might choose to take a break and wait for the results of your queries. Maybe you'll sit in a chair and fret about the queries you sent out. but neither of these is very productive.
Instead, keep your work out there. Look up every publisher that specializes in the genre of your novel and submit more queries. If you're looking for an agent, fire off queries to as many as you can find. Keep at it until you've submitted to every publisher and agent with a publicly available address. If you don't keep your work out there, you'll never be a published author.
For those who've chosen to self-publish, you'll have to promote your work to get any sales at all. With the Internet, this has become easier, but it still requires effort. Promote your book on social networking sites, link exchanges, and anywhere else you can think of. You might also want to consider approaching your local bookstores about stocking the book. This is harder than it sounds, as many bookstores are reluctant to carry a self-published work. However, with a little persistence, you might be able to change their minds.
If you really believe in your book, keep it out there. If it's truly worth publishing, someone will publish it. And if it's well written and entertaining, people will buy it. But it's up to you to make sure your novel stays out there, getting attention and hopefully being noticed by the right people.
Okay, so you wrote your first novel, actually finished it, and declared it abandoned. Now what? Well, if your intention is to be a published author, the next step is probably the most frightening of all. You have to put your work out there. This can mean many things, and all of them can terrify a novice. It terrified me after finishing Arianna's Tale.
Now that you have what can be considered a finished product, you should start sending this work to either agents or publishers. This means locating publishers and agents who take on your type of novel. This is easy to do with a quick web search. For example, if you're a fantasy writer (as I am), try 'fantasy book publisher.' You'll find some publishers listed. Those that accept manuscripts will have a submission guidelines page. Look carefully, as sometimes these guidelines are buried on the site.
Once you find the guidelines, follow them and fire off your manuscript. If you fail to follow the guidelines of a particular publisher, your manuscript will not even be looked at. Send it out and see what hapens. If your book is publishable or close to it, publishing houses will tell you that.
Of course, you could also choose to self-publish. This means you are responsible for everything. Editing. Layout and format. And fronting the money to publish the book in the first place. This is quite a risk for many people, and sometimes self-published books are frowned upon. This is not to say you should not self-publish. I have seen some truly wonderful self-published work. However, it will be your responsibility to ensure that the book is truly ready for the public.
Whichever method you choose, just get your book out there. You can't call yourself a published author until your book is in print and available for the public to purchase, so don't delay. The publishing process can often take longer than the writing process.
