Everybody loves people watching. 

And for authors, it’s a central part of research. If you want to create realistic characters that leap off the page and live for themselves, then real life is where you’ll find a rich variety of details, ripe for the picking.

So, find yourself a café with an outdoor table, get yourself a coffee / hot chocolate / orange juice and start taking notes about the following aspects of your every-day passer-by, such as:

How do they walk? Speed, bobbing, weaving, with what demeanour?

What fidgets can you see? How do people fidget with different parts of their body?

Speech styles, patterns and tics – listen to people on the phone or chatting to each other. What do their voices sound like, what tics or habits do they have? Do they continually say ‘man’ ‘right’ or something else? Do they use a lot of questions, or say everything as if it’s unarguable fact?

Clothing – there’s lots of aspects here. Obviously, what clothing do people where, and what impressions does it give about their personality, job, wealth level, attitude to being in public, comfort level? But you can dig deeper and look for accessories that tell a little more detail, a little more depth. Badges, jewellery, shoes, bags – what do these things say about this person’s life experiences?

Relationships – what kinds of gatherings are people in, do any look like unusual partnerships of families?

Try making up stories about where each person has come from and where they’re going. Give yourself a limit of 60 seconds for each person.

If you enjoyed this article, you might want to check out our novel writing software. Designed by writers for writers. 

Frankly, I don’t know how writers ever survived before the internet. I suppose they must have gone outside more.

Now, there’s definitely no substitute for real life experience, getting out there and seeing the world for yourself, meeting interesting people, even doing the job of your protagonist.

But it’s not always possible to do so for every single setting and every single character, let alone job.

And for that, we have the internet. Here are some of my favourite resources from the intarwebs, I hope you find them useful.

Plot

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I find the Novel Factory plotting method the most useful (having come up with it and all that) and I couldn’t imagine the tedium of trying to plot my novel without using the software: http://www.novel-software.com/

http://www.novel-software.com/novelwritingroadmap.aspx - Again, I’m going to be unashamedly biased and point out this step-by-step roadmap / formula / thing I’ve developed to help me successfully plot my novels.

Character

http://faceresearch.org/ - create a character portrait by merging the faces of lots of random people. Unfortunately a limitation is the interesting fact that the more you average people’s faces, the more attractive they get, and that it’s face only – no body.

http://whatsin-yourpocket.tumblr.com/ - this person takes pictures of what’s in people’s pockets – great for inspiration for more in-depth character development.

http://www.markmenjivar.com//projects/you_are_what_you_eat - this photographer carried out a project taking pictures of the contents of people’s fridges – fascinating insight into character!

Location

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/ - I often use Rightmove to find out more about where my characters live. It’s fantastic because you can often get blueprints, as well as pictures of the outside, inside and garden of real people’s homes. The only downside is that people tend to make their houses presentable, which is somewhat unrepresentative of reality.

http://www.eplans.com/ - fantastic resource of blueprints and computer generated pictures.

https://www.thehouseplanshop.com – more blueprints, including some commercial buildings – great for getting the nuts and bolts right, especially if you’re plotting a mystery, where the details are critical.

General

http://www.flickr.com/ - there are thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of amateur photographers on flickr, and searching their database can give you better quality imagery than simply searching google images.

http://www.deviantart.com/ - deviant art is a great resource of amazing artwork that can be used to inspire and build depth for character and location.

http://www.google.com/imghp - Google images. Pictures of whatever you want. From the intarwebs.

For more articles about creative writing and novel writing, visit The Novel Factory website.

Stuck for inspiration? Here are some of my favourite inspirational ideas for writing a short story:

1.  Find a poem and rewrite it as a story. (If you’re having trouble finding a poem, search for ‘The Nation’s Favourite Poems’ and browse through) 
2. Choose a limerick and turn that into a full blown story. (Search for Edward Lear for the master of limericks and delightful nonsense)
3.  Ask five random people to give you a noun, an adjective, a verb, colour and a random object, and write a story that incorporates them all. (or search for an online random word generator) 
4. Write a single scene story which describes one of your most painful of embarrassing memories. (the more painful it is for you to write, the better)
5.  Read synopses of poorly rated movies and base your story on one. (You can browse Netflix – even if you’re not a member – or browse the DVDs in the library or rental store – assuming those places still exist…) 
6.  Open a book at a random page, find the first new sentence and use that as the first line of your story. (Or just use it somewhere if you’re feeling wishy washy)
7. Write a story about change from the point of view of a fruit. (Or a plant or an item that is sitting on your desk) 
8. Write a story about loss from the point of view of your youngest child (regardless of whether you have any children).
9. Write a story about a terrible crime from the point of view of the criminal, so the reader sympathises with them. The greater the level of sympathy and empathy, the better. 
10. Find an idiom, such as ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’ and write a fable to explain the ‘origin’ of the phrase.

If you enjoyed this post, then you should probably check out the Novel Factory. 

So, you want to be a writer?

If you want to be taken seriously, here are the top ten phrases to avoid, or you’ll have seasoned writers groaning and casting you as comedy bit parts in their novels…

My punctuation / grammar / vocabulary is terrible

Punctuation, grammar and vocabulary are the nuts and bolts of writing. If you aren’t good at them, you’re not going to be a good writer. Now, don’t get me wrong, the last thing I’m saying is that if English isn’t your strong point you shouldn’t try to be writer. What I’m saying is, you need to roll up your sleeves and learn this shiz. No excuses. Editors will not fix it for you.

Speaking of which…

I expect when I get an editor, they’ll sort all that stuff out

Think again. If your manuscript isn’t in tip top shape, and that means only the absolute tiniest sprinkling of typos, then it’s not getting anywhere near an editor, Buster.

I like to break the rules, because I think it makes me edgy

If you are Chuck Palahniuk or Irvine Welsh, then fine. You may break the conventions of writing. However, usually when people say this, it’s because they don’t understand why the conventions exist and what effect breaking / following them has.

In writing, there’s a reason we use 1^st person instead of 3rd person, or use very long or very short sentences or even break the rules of capitalisation or whatnot. But if you’re going to break the rules, you’d better make damn sure not only do you know EXACTLY SPECIFICALLY what you’re doing and for what purpose, you’d better make sure it’s completely consistent, throughout the entire work.

If it’s not, I’ve got news for you – it’s not edgy, it’s lazy and sloppy.

Go to your room.

I want to be a writer, but I don’t have time

Then you’re not a writer. If you’re not writing, you’re not a writer. Don’t say you don’t have time, say nothing at all until you’ve started writing.

People don’t like my work because they don’t understand the genius of it

Well, what to say about this?

What ‘people’ are we talking about? If the people who have read your work don’t like it, it is possible you are giving it to the wrong people.

The other option is that it’s not very good.

 

Read more about 8 worst new novelist mistakes.

Feedback is useful. It can help you highlight areas for improvement and can be encouraging, identifying your strengths.

So, it’s a good idea to get your friends and family to read your work, right?

Well, actually no.

It’s fine to get your friends and family to read your manuscript if all you want is to be told how wonderful and amazing it is (depending on how kind your friends and family are…). If that’s your goal then go on ahead and show them.

But as a writer, what you should really be craving is useful critique of your work. Incisive comments regarding character, pace, plot and drive that will help you improve, sentence by sentence, word by word.

Your loved ones are extremely unlikely to be able to supply you with this sort of input.

This is not their fault, it’s simply that in the vast majority of cases, your friends and family will not be professional or experienced writers (if they are, then you are probably the exception to this rule), and in most cases won’t have an interest in words any further than reading magazines and novels.

This means that the insights they can give about your work will be limited to ‘I liked it’ and ‘I didn’t like it’.

And not only are these comments  not particularly constructive, but they may not even be honest. I mean, is your mum really going to tell you she doesn’t like your writing? Probably not. And if your best mate says they don’t like it, it could just be because they like beach romance and you’re writing hardcore sci-fi.

So, if you really want someone to read your work, make it other writers, and make sure you read their work in return.

We've put together this short video which explains The Novel Formula method for writing a novel all the way through planning, plotting, editing and submitting your novel.
You can read in much more detail about of the steps of the Novel Formula on our main website here, or an overview on this blog here.

But for now just sit back, relax and watch the video!

One of the biggest problems I have when it comes to novel writing is the beginning (though to be fair, that’s probably just the first problem, before I come up against the other two major issues – the middle and the end).

I work hard to try to make the story really start with a bang, with action, immediate goals, and conflict – the lot. But time and time again, my writing group tell me that it just seems to ‘take a while to get going’. There’s a problem. They’re not hooked.

So how can you make sure you’re story really grabs people by the eyeballs?

Apply the 400 word rule

Imagine you’re entering a writing competition, but you’re only allowed to enter the first 400 words of your novel. Those first 400 words have to grab the judges immediately and leave them wanting to know more.

I find if you go back to your first scene (after you’ve finished your first draft of course – no editing is allowed before the first draft has been dragged out of you) and strictly follow this rule - not 500 words, not 450 words – then you can really make sure your story has power and punch from the first page.

You’re forced to cut out any unnecessary scene setting (readers don’t need to know the backstory, they’ll pick it up as they go along), any waffle descriptions (no words to waste!) and forces you to establish a protagonist, a goal and conflict.

All within the first 400 words.

 

Check out our writing theory resources:

Finding inspiration to get started writing a novel

Many writers constantly have ideas bubbling around, each waiting for Novel Software Articles their turn to be put down on paper (or screen).

How to create characters

There are many, many, books on creating decent characters, and we're going to try to summarise character creation in a few brief study notes.

 

 

Novelists often moan and groan when it comes to writing a synopsis, and complain that their masterpiece can’t be whittled down to a single page. Well, it’s time to get over it, because if you want any agents or publishers to look at your work, you’re going to need to write a decent synopsis.

If you used The Novel Factory to plan and write your novel, then you’re already halfway there. But if you didn’t, here are a few important pointers when writing your synopsis:

Don’t rush it

It’s tempting to think that it’s only a single page, it’s not as important as the novel, so you can just dash something off and be done with it. But this is really shooting yourself in the foot, because if the synopsis isn’t up to scratch, then nobody’s ever going to see the full novel.

Distilling an entire novel into a single page is an extremely difficult task, and should be given the attention and effort it requires. It’s much harder to be concise than it is to waffle, and often writing a synopsis is an excellent exercise for writers who are sloppily wordy.

Include emotion

Many novelists make the mistake of writing the synopsis in a very dry, this happened, then that happened manner. This is a mistake, because what draws readers into a book is emotion (yes, even in spy action novels!) and leaving inner turmoil out of the synopsis will give the impression of a flat novel. The synopsis should include the key emotional struggles the protagonist goes though, the major relationships between the key players and how they change by the end of the story.

Don’t try to include everything

This is probably the most common pitfall. You may feel that all the details, characters and events are important and fascinating, but the core story arc of your novel needs to stand up on its own, without the sub-plots and all the twists and turns. Every single word and point has to justify its inclusion in the synopsis – if you’re not sure whether it’s critical to the core plot and relationships between the main characters – leave it out.

Do include the end

Novelists might be reluctant to give away the end of the novel feeling that it will ruin the book for the agent before they’ve read it. But a synopsis without the end is incomplete and will not serve its purpose. The agent wants to be sure that they’re not going to invest the time reading the book only for it to have a spectacularly poorly thought out conclusion, such as aliens, an act of god, or ‘it was all a dream’.

The Novel Factory is novel writing software which helps you write your novel, and practically writes your synopsis for you (sort of). Why not have a free trial? Go to the www.novel-software.com.

If you enjoyed this article, you might want to check out our novel writing resource bank? We have articles on everything from the hero’s journey to beating writer’s block to a step by step guide to writing a novel.

Getting feedback on your writing is a critical part of the professional development of any writer. If you haven’t shown your work to anybody yet, and you’re shy to – that’s not a problem. It just means you’re in an early stage of your artistic development. You still have peer review to look forward to – and believe me, as long as you genuinely want to master your art, peer review is one of the most exciting and enlightening experiences you can have.

However, unless they are also writers, getting your friends and family to read and give their opinions on your work is not peer review.

Below I’ll explain why I don’t recommend getting your friends and family to read your work and give you feedback on it.

They’re biased

Unless you’re doing really something wrong, your friends and family probably like you. This means that they will be biased in favour of your work. In some cases they may just not want to hurt your feelings, so even if they don’t think it’s very good, they will still tell you they loved it.

However, even if they do intend to give you genuine feedback, they will be influenced by everything they know about you, including your personality, views and background. This may mean they read it positively because they are impressed that a real human that they know can string a decent metaphor together. On the other hand, they may be overly critical, second guessing and analysing it in ways that a stranger might not.

Inaccurately positive or negative reviews can both be damaging as they can both lead to delusions. One that you’re better than you are, the other that you’re no good when you may well be.

Not all opinions are equal

The problem is that unless someone is a writer themselves, or at least have a strong interest in literature, they are unlikely to be able to tell what makes a good piece of writing. They are simply going to be giving their own personal response to a piece.

This does have its place, but as I outlined above, if the emotional response is biased, it may be unhelpful or even harmful. And even if they are utterly genuine, getting just one or two emotional responses still doesn’t really tell you much. What you really need from feedback is educated reasons why things don’t work and suggestions as to what might work better.

You need a range of opinions

Even when it comes to highly educated, experienced peer review feedback, getting only one or two can be risky. As you’ll discover if you go to a critique group, people’s views on pretty much every aspect of writing will vary wildly. A sentence or even word that riles one person up might be the other’s favourite. The pace might send one person to sleep, while another finds it just perfect. By getting feedback from a range of people you don’t end up making unnecessary changes just based on a single person’s niggles. And on the other hand, when you find ten people are unanimous about something – you know you have to pay attention.

Click here to read more about finding inspiration to get started writing a novel.

As the title suggests, this is the second part of an article about first lines in popular novels. You’ll probably want to take a look at the first article to check out the first lines we’ll be looking at, and see the general conclusions we’ve drawn so far.

In this article we’re going to look at the first line of A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens.

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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

A TALE OF TWO CITIES (1870), Charles Dickens

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­­­­

The first thing that strikes me about this first line is that it’s so long. These days you would be extremely unlikely to see any sentence that long, let alone a first line. I mean, it’s an entire paragraph. The first phrase is interesting and intriguing, but in my opinion it would be far stronger if it just stopped there. Instead it waffles on repetitively until the reader is bored, and then finally confused.

I’m sure there will be hundreds of people who will throw their hands in the air for me being so sacrilegious as to criticize the great Charles Dickens, but as far as I’m concerned, nothing should be sacred, because that can only lead to blindness. And you can say I’m simply uneducated and don’t ‘get’ it – that’s a valid opinion. Just as mine is valid.

So, I’m going to say that I think while there are strengths in this line – the juxtaposition, the strength of the opposites, something like this would never be acceptable in modern times.

If you enjoyed this article, you might want to check out our novel writing software. Designed by writers for writers.

I would love to hear other people’s opinions on this.

Getting Started Writing a Novel

Our completely unscientific poll suggests that getting started is one of the biggest obstacles for novel writers (of course, there’s a bias towards procrastinators who are reading blogs about writing and completing polls rather than getting on with it, but we’ll gloss over that for now).

Now, ‘getting started’ could mean one of two things (or possibly others we haven’t thought of). It could be about getting the idea in the first place, it could be about getting a first draft out once you know what you want to write about.

Our experience is that most writers are bubbling over with ideas that are just dying to get out, so coming up with an idea in the first place is not usually a problem. However, if it is, then there are a few methods you can use to come up with your kernel, which can be expended into a premise and eventually  a first draft.

Ways to find inspiration for your novel:

One is to ‘fill out the boxes’ in our premise, including the major story elements of: character, situation, objective, opponent and disaster. If you think this might be for you, read the full article here.

Another is to look for inspiration in the world around you. This could be anything from reading the newspapers (and not just doing the Sudoku), people watching, reading movie synopses or watching real life documentaries. You can read more about these methods here.

Ways to get the first draft out

We’re kind of big on planning and using techniques to make something really difficult (writing a novel) a bit less difficult. To this end, we think the best way to get to a first draft is to work up to it bit by bit, starting with a premise, expanding that into an outline, threading in some  detail and ending up with quite a clear structure. Once you’ve got this structure, the first draft just flies out as all you have to worry about is prose.

We've written software to walk you through every stage of a novel,  planning and further.

However, if you don’t like to plan everything through first, that’s fine too. In that case there are a few things you can do to get started, from starting a few chapters in (often the pressure of writing the first line can be paralysing), visualising the scene in your mind and then describing it or thinking about to simply refusing to allow yourself to get up until you’ve written the first five hundred words. If you're really having trouble with your first draft, perhaps you should consider going the planning route...

 

In either case, the most important advice in our opinion is to make sure you don't get hung up on
details in the first draft - just thrash it out, however awful you think it is at the time. It’s never going to be perfect first time, it’s going to be rough and ready and it’s going to need a great deal of polishing, so don’t get hung up on this adjective or that order. Just get it out!

Happy New Year!

Now we're in 2013 and you've got your new resolution set. You're going to write a novel.

Great! So, where to start?

Well, this blog is a great place. We've got a ton of articles for beginning writers on how to write a novel, including a step-by-step guide that takes you from idea to final editing (and beyond!) and standalone articles that cover things like beating writers' block, formatting a manuscript and much more.

This blog is run by the team behind the Novel Factory, and if you're serious about getting your first novel written this year, the getting The Novel Factory writing software is probably the most useful thing you can do. And, if you're not sure, you can always try it for free before buying.

So, for all you excited newbies raging to get going on your first (or perhaps second or third), here are the first things you should do to get into the mindset of a writer:

• Try to put aside time every day (yes that's EVERY DAY) to do some writing. You need to make writing into a habit, so much so that it feels odd if a day or so goes by and you don't do any writing.
• Start to think about what you want to write about. If you already know what you're going to write about, that's great, but if not, you need to figure out what sort of book you want to write, what genre and who your target audience is. If you don't know this stuff you'll be flailing about in the dark a bit.
• Learn the nuts and bolts. If you don't know the basics of spelling and grammar, you're going to need to learn fast. Word spellchecker is not going to be good enough and if you think an editor is going to 'fix that stuff' for you, you've got a nasty surprise on the way. If you can't spell and punctuate, you shouldn't be a writer. However, it's not that difficult or ever too late to learn.

All good novels can be summed up in a single sentence, which is often called a premise. This is what we like to start with when we write our novels, as it gives you a great anchor to keep your story tight. You can read about how to write a great, gripping premise in this article.

I have heard rumours that there are people who write their novel from start to finish, without even knowing how it's going to end - though I must say, I've never seen any hard evidence of this.

I've also met people who say constantly rewriting is a waste of time, and that you should consider every word carefully the first time you put it down. Admittedly, these are the kind of people who follow recipes to the letter, while I take instructions and quantities as more of a... suggestion.

However, the majority of quotes I've heard from successful, published quthors, suggest that nobody gets it right first time, and coming up with a decent novel requires drafting and redrafting.

I can't speak for anyone else's working process, but I'm going to set down here the process I've developed over the years, which I've found gives me the most benefits.

These include: pretty much eliminating writers block, increased effiency, being able to knock out a draft in a fraction of the time it took me before, and a more consistent, solid story.

The Novel Factory guides you through the planning steps

Planning

I'm not going to go into detail about planning here, because frankly, I could write a whole blog about it (and hey, look at that - I am!). But I do want it to have a clear position, because planning has to have been done (in my opinion), before you can get to blocking. If you say 'pah' to planning and want to get straight into thrashing out words, then so be it - but don't say I didn't warn you. If you want to know more about planning a novel, then you can read about my novel writing roadmap, or even better, check out the software that takes you through each step of writing a novel.

Blocking

This is a sort of pre-first draft stage, which I find invaluable. Following the loose notes I have for the plot, I go through and loosely write out what is going to happen in each scene. I often do it in the present tense, which also helps make it clear that I'm not writing prose (cue heated debate about writing in the present tense). It looks a bit like this:

Bob comes into the room and finds Joe there, who is acting suspiciously. They have a conversation about where Joe was last night and Bob drops into conversation that Sarah didn't answer her phone.

Bob paces around the room angrily, and Joe eventually storms out, saying he's never done anything wrong, and it's Bob who's the bad friend.

Bob throws some stuff around, then finally settles into the armchair with a glass of whiskey. He rolls the whiskey round and thinks about things. Could he have been wrong? Maybe Sarah really did run out of battery...

Etc etc.

You can notice a few things about this.

Firstly, I break the cardinal rule by telling, instead of showing. That's because it's blocking, not prose. I just want to sort out stage directions and roughly what's said. I'm not slowing myself down by thinking about making sure it comes across in a good way.

Secondly, I don't write the actual dialogue. If I had a particularly witty line that I just knew would have to be in, then I would note it, but generally I avoid going into actual dialogue, because if you do that then before long, you find yourself writing in too much detail (writing prose, basically), and then you'll get tied up before the blocking is finished.

As I'm doing my blocking, plot holes and snags come up, and I'm able to go back and make changes without having wasted hours, days or weeks, polishing a particular scene which then has to be hacked about or even completely cut.

Once  you have steamed through the blocking and you have a strong scaffold with all the biggest problems noticed and fixed, you can move onto the first draft.

The First Draft

This awesome writing programme shows you all your plot & structure notes

I used to hate writing the first draft. That's because my planning was poor and I hadn't done blocking, so I'd find myself constantly going back and having to change huge chunks of prose that I'd lovingly crafted. Also, I'd spend hours staring at the blank screen trying to think of what to do next, and trying to keep all the story elements straight in my head so I didn't mess anything up, all while simultaneously trying to think of a killer metaphor. It's enough to make your head explode.

Not anymore. Now the first draft flies out of my fingers, and I can usually get a 40,000 word first draft knocked out in a couple of months (versus a year and a half for my first novel).

That's because all my blocking is there to tell me what's happening next, so I can concentrate on immersing myself in the scene, visualising my characters in their locations, having their discussions, comfortable in the knowledge that the large scale things are taken care of.

The first draft is where I really start to write prose. I'm trying to write as if that's what the readers will be reading.

However, at this stage, I still try not to obsess too much about the exact details, such as balance of action and description, action > reaction (see below), or getting descriptions perfect. I do try to show not tell, and avoid adverbs, but I don't freak out about it.

As with the blocking, I do my best to force myself to get all the way to the end, rather than becoming distracted with polishing a particular scene or conversation.

The Second Draft

The Novel Factory keeps track of novel drafts - and it's free to try!

The second draft is an interesting time because you have so much material to work with, and it's so satisfying to rewrite, cut it up, cut bits out, rearrange sentences, swap paragraphs, and generally hone and polish. I would say that at the second draft I probably rewrite almost every single word, but it doesn't feel like it.

This is where I really start to feel I'm getting towards a finished product (I'm not, it's still miles off, but I like to fool myself).

Now is the time to obsess about completely eliminating anything that's not perfect. Doesn't add to plot, atmosphere or character development? Cut it. Description a bit waffly? Compress it. Sentence clunky? Restructure it. Every word should be perfect.

A major technique I use at this stage is checking the action > reaction cycle in the small scale prose. Basically, this boils down to making sure every two paragraphs follow this structure:

Paragraph One: External, impersonal description of the facts. E.g. Boris pulled a gun from his jacket.

Paragraph Two: Internal reactions, going through: feeling, reaction, thought. E.g. Samantha's heart started beating in double time. She reached for her own gun, thinking: Not this time, sucker.

I'll go into the action > reaction cycle in more detail in another post, but if there's a secret to writing great prose that yomps along and just feels, right,the action > reaction cycle is it.

The Third Draft

Depending on how well you did your second draft, and how fussy you are, your third draft may be a similar process to the second draft, or it may be more of minor exercise, tweaking a word here and there, but no major changes.

Around this time it's really useful to get a second opinion from someone who can read it afresh and give you a sense of what works and what doesn't. Obviously, you have to use what's available to you, but personally I highly recommend using a local, face to face writing group for this, as family and friends generally don't offer the kind of feedback you need, for various reasons, and online feedback also has its limits.

Polishing into Eternity

The advice before you attempt to submit your work to agents, is that you should make sure it's absolutely the best it can be. I understand that they receive a baffling number of half cut, lazy manuscripts - with hopeful, but hopeless wannabe authors expecting the agent to edit it for them - and they want to avoid that.

But the question of when a novel is the best it can be is an impossible one. Of course, you can always, always, make improvements. But that is the road to insanity. So, at some point you simply have to put down your pen and call it finished. At least until it's A) been rejected by at least twenty agents / publishers and B) You've finished your next novel.

Good luck, and comments on how other people find the drafting process and what you think about my process are very welcome!

And in case you haven't noticed, if you find this or any of my other posts useful, I'd highly recommend having a free trial of the Novel Factory, a creative writing programme by writers, for writers.

Descriptions of locations and settings in novels vary from broad strokes which suggest you fill in the rest yourself, to the nauseating detail. How much you describe your character's surroundings will depend on your preference and style, but either way it needs to be a conscious decision. As an author, you need to know all about your locations, including where the furniture is placed and how it smells.

Locations interface in our novel writing software

You can use novel writing software to guide you through the development of locations and keep all your notes in order, or you can just keep the info loose. If you're really lucky, you may even be able to keep it all in your head.

Here are a few pointers to help you get started:

1.Start with just a name and brief description of the place, brainstorming and noting down anything that comes to mind.

2. Go into a bit more detail, and deliberately make note on sights, sounds, smells, tastes and things your characters might be able to feel (with their hands, feet, cheeks, whatever).

3. Find some pictures that are close to what you envision for your location. The real world is always far more detailed than anything we can ever come up with in a single brain, so the images you find are likely to add rich detail to your location.

4. Make sure thre description of the location fits the atmosphere of the story. It should add to the mood with everything that's mentioned,not mentioned, and how it's mentioned.

5. If the location appears more than once, then think about how it changes. Describing it in a differnt way is a great way to show change and passing of time in your story and to reflect and complement your character's development.

If you're writing a novel and found this article useful, you might want to take a look at our novel writing software. It's completely free to try for 30 days. Click here to visit the novel writing software website and find out more.

 

So how do we make our settings come to life?

How well you can gather detail about your settings depends a lot on your constraints - time and money.

Ideally, you'll immerse yourself in each setting - including in each relevant time of day and season. 

However, this may not be practical (particularly if you're writing a steam punk novel), in which case your imagination will have to pick up the slack.

If you can go to the locations you're going to use as settings, then go - take copious amounts of photographs (which can easily be saved and kept track of with The Novel Factory Novel Software) make reams of notes about everything you can see, smell, taste, feel, hear. Take samples of sand, pebbles, dried leaves - whatever you can. Try to look at the place through the eyes of your characters - what would they notice? What would they ignore?

However, if you can't go there - you'll need to research - and lucky you, you live in the era of the Internet. Get online and find pictures, even videos - of places and buildings that are as close as possible to what you envisioned. Study the pictures and you're guaranteed to find more delicious detail in real life (or some artist's imagination) than you could have come up with on your own.

A quick exercise to prove this if you're so inclined:

Take ten minutes now and write a description of a sweet shop, without doing any research online - no cheating! You know one of those old ones where all the sweets are in jars. Go on, go right ahead and do that.

Done? Now go and spent ten minutes searching for images of these old style sweet shops. Keep the pictures somewhere handy. Now, constantly referring to the pictures, spend another ten minutes on a second description of the sweetshop.

Compare.

And if you like - post your results in the comments.

 

Draw maps and plans

It's hard to overstate how important it is to have floor plans detailing each of the places your characters visit.

Seeing exactly which rooms are adjoining; where the doors and windows are, where they lead and what can be seen through them; what furniture is where - really anchors your characters, rather than giving the impression they're drifting around the space. Having this information will add realistic detail to your story as you will see what in the environment the character can interact with, where they bump into each other and things, how they enter and leave.

 

List the senses

It's time to get analytic about the abstract. Prosaic though it may seem, go through each of your settings and make a list for all of the senses.

• What can you (or better, your point of view character) see?
• What can you smell?
• What can you taste?
• What can you feel?
• What can you hear?

Just make a list. You probably won't use everything on the list. You may use hardly any of it. But when you're writing your scene, you'll have this box of colours, ready to dip into without having to break your flow.

Next - advanced plotting - consistency and clarity

It's time to take a closer look at settings.

It's important to remember that settings aren't simply a stage for your puppets to walk about on - each setting is an opportunity to:

• build mood and atmosphere
• develop character
• foreshadow plot points

 

Building mood and atmosphere with settings

The house could gleam brightly with a fresh coat of whitewash; have aging, peeling, lead-heavy paint; or give the impression of a gaping skull with sightless windows as eyes and a door forever closing its mute mouth. The sea could roll heavily, recline in reflective tranquillity or froth with lively white horses.

If you're trying to build a sombre mood, make sure the park isn't filled with cheery colours, just because that's what was there the last time you went to the park. Make sure every word of description supports whatever mood or atmosphere you are trying to build in that scene.

 

Developing character with settings

How do your characters respond to their surroundings? This can give the reader a lot of information about your character without you having to say it outright.

For example, one character stuck overnight in a forest will build a bivouac, take a few slugs of whiskey and settle down with their heavy boots up on a stump. Another character might collapse into a weeping huddle, hysterically swatting at the creepy crawlies.

Of course it can be much more subtle than that - as much as what they notice and don't notice, what they touch, how they move around the area.

 

Foreshadowing plot points with settings

Every element of the settings you describe should be relevant, and have a justification for its inclusion.

For example, if you're describing someone's bedroom, not only should every item accurately reflect their character (see above), but it should also be relevant to this particular story. If they're going to reach for that bag of marbles to knock out the intruder in chapter 9, it'll be that much more satisfying if you mentioned them in passing in chapter 2.

The photographs in your characters house and room are an excellent opportunity to expose their character and history - just try not to get too heavy handed about it.

Read more about developing settings here.

The next article will explain how we can make our settings come to life.

The Novel Formula - A Novel Writing Method: Step Six

Extended Synopsis

It's time to expand on your short synopsis. This is a really fun time, because you can let your imagination loose and start adding the detail that will make your story delicious and compelling.

Take your short synopsis and expand it into about four or five pages - but don't worry about being too dogmatic, give yourself a free rein. If it turns out to be ten pages, so be it.

The combination of your short synopsis and character synopses mean you'll probably be bursting with ideas, and getting new ones faster than you can get them down - but these ideas can be fitted into a robust structure, rather than just being an incoherent spaghetti mess.

You'll probably find that you need to keep going back and making small adjustments as you realise this or that needs to have happened, been foreshadowed or mentioned, in order for something later to work.

Having this high level overview but beginning to work the character and story threads together, and seeing the scenes unfold allows you to spot plot holes and inconsistencies early, and iron them our before you've written ten chapters that will all need binning because of the flaw.

This synopsis will not only give you a great grounding for writing a great story with the minimum rambling and wasted effort, but is also what publishers will be asking you for when you want to submit your novel. It's likely to be the deal maker or breaker, before they even read the first line of your manuscript - so you want to make sure it doesn't let you down!

Click here for the next step - full character questionnaires.

The Novel Formula - A Novel Writing Method: Step Three

Character Introductions

Note - if you haven't already, you may wish to read the previous steps of the first novel writer's method: step one or step two.

Now you've got a basic grasp on your plot, it's time to bring in the cast.

We're going to use a technique to quickly build a basic character and then will build on that foundation in later steps to ensure each character is layered with depth, inner values and mannerisms.

As you write your story, you will probably find that the characters will change the plot from what you envisioned and characteristics will emerge as you put them in different situations.

So we're not going to try to proscribe and pin down every aspect of each character right from the start. 

We'll begin with a broad brushstroke, then slowly fill in the detail and dig down into the character's persona until we discover what really drives them, then we'll keep adding spices and surprises until we have a fully formed, contradiction prone character with history, values and motivations.

Carry out the following steps for each of your major characters:

 

Layer One: The gameshow introduction.

Write a gameshow style  introduction for your character, a single sentence. This can be fairly flexible, so it'll probably be easiest to demonstrate the right kind of thing with examples:

·         

• A depressed housewife whose closest friend is her little terrier.
• A geography teacher with sweaty armpits and lots of nicknames.
• A naive young prince with a good heart.

Good - so far so shallow, right?

 

Layer Two: picking apart the overview

Now take each word or cluster of words in the gameshow introduction and ask and answer as many questions about it as you can think of.

 

A depressed housewife whose closest friend is her little terrier.

Depressed - How does it manifest? Is she actually on medication? How long has this been going on? Does she confide in anyone about it? 

Housewife - Does she have children? If so, how many? How big is her house? Where is her house? What does her husband do? Is it a loving marriage? Does she enjoy being a housewife? Is she a good housewife or a bad one?  How long has she been a housewife?

Closest friend is her little terrier - What kind of terrier? How long has she had him? How did she get him? What do they do together? Are they ever apart?

 

A geography teacher with sweaty armpits and lots of nicknames.

Geography Teacher - Is he a good teacher? Did he always want to be a teacher? What age does he teach? What sort of school does he teach at? What sort of methods does he use? What sort of geography doe he teach?

Sweaty armpits - Why does he have sweaty armpits? Is it a medical problem? Does he wear too many layers of clothes (why?)? Do they smell? Does he exercise on the way to school?

Lots of nicknames - What are they? How many kids use them? Do the teachers use them as well? His wife (is he married?)?

 

A naive young prince with a good heart.

Naive - Why is he naive? Is it a lack of education? A lack of experience? Is he deliberately sheltered? Or is he simply a bit slow? Or maybe just optimistic about people?

Young - How old? Does he act young for his age?

Prince - Prince of where? Where is he in line to the throne? Does he have servants doign everything for him? Does he have brother to temper how well he's treated? Is he being lined up for responsibility? Being groomed to be King?

Good heart - How does he show he has a good heart?

By the end of this process you should be starting to get an idea of your character. To tidy up the loose ends, also make the following notes about each character:

• ·         Full Name
• ·         Age
• ·         What motivates this character?
• ·         Single sentence summary of character's role in story
• ·         Single paragraph summary of the character's role in story

Great! Now your characters are starting to take shape,  it's time to paint a bit more detail into your story. To avoid creating a rambling first draft, most of which will need to be cut later, we're going to slowly build our story, ensuring all the necessary elements are in place, and that we're not creating any blind alleys or irrelevant waffle.




Click here for step four - writing a short synopsis.

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The Novel Formula - A Novel Writing Method: Step One

The Backbone Sentence - aka. The Premise

Note: You may wish to read the Novel Formula Introduction if you haven't already.

This sentence is a bit like the question on an essay exam paper - you should keep referring back to it to make sure you're not wandering off the point. It will help keep you anchored and moving forward at the same time, helping to avoid meandering, wasteful scenes and chapters (and time!).

It will also help you work out if you actually have a story idea to begin with - or only a kernel. And if it turns out you do only have a kernel, it will help you turn it into something you can work with.

So, let's get started...

Every story should contain all five of the major story elements, which are:

• Character
• Situation
• Objective
• Opponent
• Disaster

Let's take a quick look at each of these story elements:

(If you're totally sure you already know what all of these things are, you can skip forward to Creating Your Premise - but you'd better be sure...)

The Major Story Elements

Character

Many people believe that every story is an attempt to understand the human condition. That counts for stories with animals as their leads too. Whether that's strictly true or not, your story isn't going to get anywhere without characters. If you're George RR Martin you can have 30 leads, each with fully fleshed out histories, characteristics and idiosyncrasies, but for now let's just stick with a single lead character. That doesn't mean there won't be more later, but it's early days. Pick one, and note the following about them:

• Name
• Age
• Nationality (this can be fictional)
• Profession

Character examples: John the Plumber (36, American), King Edvard Bearheart (52, English), Candy Collins (19, French, wannabe actress), Patches the Guinea Pig (2, Brazilian, pet)

Situation

This includes setting and external forces. Is your story set in a futuristic factory or a giant-bee infested rainforest? Or perhaps everything happens in a restrictive manor-house in the British countryside. What kind of world does your lead live in? Note the following (don't get too hung up on what each thing means - interpret it however you wish):

• Date
• Place

Situation examples: New York in 2050, Medieval England, Hollywood (current day), A terrible pet shop (current day)

Objective

Your lead must have an objective. People in real life don't always have clear objectives, but many people in real life would make boring stories. Good fictional leads always have desires and goals. What's yours'? Is it to become rich and famous? To save a family member? Perhaps they need to win that critical contract or want to wed Johnny Depp? Figure out what your character's story objective is - here are a few prompts to help:

• Selfish
• Benevolent
• Money
• Love
• Principle

Objective examples: save earth and the people from alien attack, bring peace to warring lands, become a star, find a good home

Opponent

Conflict. Imprint the word conflict on your brain. If you want to write a page-turner that's going to fly off the shelves, then your story must be jam-packed with conflict. Conflict builds tension, excitement interest. A lack of conflict is a big fat bore. There may be multiple opponents; note down at least one. Here are some examples of types of opponents:

• Person / people
• Organisation
• Force of nature

Opponent examples: aliens, ambitious, greedy Lords, disapproving family, the pet store owner

Disaster

You want your readers to care, right? You want them to be gripped, eyes racing across the sentences to find out if the lead makes it? What you need is a potential disaster hanging over their heads. This must be something unspeakably awful (relatively speaking is fine) that will happen if they don't avert disaster. What is the worst possible thing that could happen to your lead?

• Loss of something
• Threat to family
• Threat to the human race

Disaster examples: being made a scapegoat by the government and thrown in jail, declared incompetent by younger brother and deposed, has a disfiguring accident, gets lost in the city street.

Creating your premise

Hopefully now you will have some idea of each of the major elements of your story. Now we're going to bind them together into a single sentence which summarises the premise of your story.

(Remember that word and use it when telling people about your story in order to feel clever)

You're bright, so you'll have noticed that our examples knit together nicely to create four story backbones. Observe:

When aliens attack New York in the year 2050, can John the plumber save the human race before the traitorous government manage to turn him into a scapegoat for the whole disaster?

Deep in medieval England, can King Edvard Bearheart bring peace to warring, greedy Lords, while his jealous younger brother is plotting to have him declared incompetent and overthrown?

The bright lights of Hollywood find Candy Collins seeking her way to stardom, but will she be defeated by her meddling disapproving family and a disastrous accident that threatens to leave her disfigured?

Trapped in a horrible petshop, Patches the Guinea Pig plots his escape, but the pet store owner isn't going to let him go easily - and how will he find a good home when he ends up lost on the city streets?

Note that each of these is a question, and that each roughly follows this pattern:

Situation > Character > Goal > Opponent > Disaster

Now write your backbone sentence using your major story elements and this format.

Ready for Step Two? Click here!

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Overview:

The Novel Formula is a creative writing method designed to bring together established fiction-writing theory, useful practical advice and all the major story elements, in order to help new writers learn their craft at the same time as completing their first novel.

The Formula works on the principle that good fiction novels which sell want are gripping, satisfying, and contain believable, interesting characters.

The Novel Formula uses a carefully structured step-by-step approach to build all the critical elements in a practical, relational way - allowing the characters, plot, situation, opponents and disaster to influence each other and evolve together as the novel is planned, drafted and edited.

The Formula assumes minimum prior knowledge, so if you're already familiar with many of the principles of creative writing, you may wish to skip some of the theory.

Each step contains an achievable task which builds on the last, and includes introductions and explanations of the common features of fiction writing which sells, and examples for clarification.
These are the fifteen steps:

1. The backbone - aka. The Premise
2. The skeleton - aka. The Universal Storyline
3. Character Introductions
4. Short Synopsis
5. Character Viewpoints
6. Extended Synopsis
7. Full Character Profiles
8. Head Scenes and Tail Scenes
9. Settings
10. Advanced Plotting
11. Scene Blocking
12. Draft One
13. Weather, Time, Senses
14. Draft Two
15. Final Draft

If you've followed all the steps and adhered to most of the theory, at the end of the steps, you should have a manuscript in excellent shape - ready to submit to literary agents!


Click here to go to Step One

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