We are constantly updating the Novel factory software, and thought we'd drop a quick post detailing some of the latest updates and developments, in case you missed them...

Don't forget you can get a free trial of the Novel Factory here: http://www.novel-software.com/

So... here's the latest:

Licence now allows unlimited personal use

Many of our users have been very happy to discover that now we allow unlimited installs of The Novel Factory for personal use.

New mystery and romance templates added

The latest version added several new templates to the story templates available in the software, to broaden the genres covered. We'll continue to add new genre templates and improve the existing ones as we go on - so let us know if you have a particular request!

Highlighting added

You can now highlight text in yellow or the colour of your choice.

Random Character Generation

Need a quick supporting character and don't have time to come up with a name, age and basic physical description? Just click 'generate character' and away you go!

New image viewer

We've updated the image viewer to allow images to stay open while you continue to work on your novel.


We're working on loads of new exciting updates right now, which will be free to all our existing users - so watch this space!

Here are a bunch of quick ideas to help you beat that creativity killer – writer’s block…

Take a walk

Much more effective than you might think. It's not simply about a time out. Fresh air invigorates your brain and the muscle movement releases chemicals into the bloodstream. Also, new visual stimulus will get your synapses crackling.

Freewriting

For ten minutes write non-stop… anything at all. Seriously, anything. Even if it's just the same word over and over and over again. Misspellings, sense, we care not for these things!

Work on some notes instead

Less pressure, fun, and a good chance it will kick start some prose writing.

Listen to some music

Engage another part of your brain to kickstart creativity.

Make a pointless rule and write to it

Such as: you can't use the letter e more than once per sentence or each sentence must have an even number of words. Limits create focus and change your perspective.

Read the papers

Great for ideas that nobody will ever believe are true.

Write a rant

Who really got up your nose this week? What would you say to them if you could? Get those juices flowing, let the emotion pour out onto the paper.

Explain your dilemma to a teddy bear

If you can't think how to proceed, explain your problem to a soft toy. The process of formulating the problem out loud is often enough to let you see the solution.

Create a strict schedule

With short periods dedicated to writing. For example, write for ten minutes, then water the plants, then write for fifteen minutes, then hang the laundry, then write for ten minutes, then do the dishes. Stick to it. That means when it says to stop as well, even if you're in a flow. Having very short time periods can help you focus and stop you thinking you’re going to write a whole novel at one sitting.

Don't obsess when you're drafting

Are you in a draft stage and worrying about word and sentence level? What on earth for? Haven't you heard of editing? Just get it down any old how and the polishing will come later.

The 20/5 technique

Get yourself an egg timer, set it for twenty minutes, put it on the table and get as much done as you can in that time. When it goes off, your fingers must leave the keyword (or paper and quill or whatever). Set it for five minutes and do something else for that time. Relieve yourself, stare out the window, play with the puppy, learn a few words of Spanish, whatever. Then repeat.

Set a small, achievable goal

Finishing the novel is not going to cut it. Finishing the paragraph, the page, or at most the first draft of the chapter, is a fine catalyst.

Use a photo

Describe all the details of the photo.

Hopefully you’ll find something there to get you going!

And if you want help writing a whole novel then you should check out our novel writing software.

“Gee whiz, that person is doing something mighty suspicious, let’s follow him and see what happens…”

And hence the story begins.

This is fine for Nancy Drew or the Famous Five, but if you want to keep modern adult readers engaged, you’re going to need to be a bit more sophisticated than that.

Pretty much all stories are based on change and transformation, either of a situation (if the story is more plot driven) or if a character (if the story is character driven). In order for transformation to take place, there needs to be a reason. 

If Sarah has been plodding along at her nine-to-five for the past ten years and nothing changes, she’ll probably plod along for another ten. You can’t just have her wake up one day and decide she wants to be a ninja archaeologist – nobody will buy it. There needs to be some trigger, preferably which can’t be ignored.

Triggers can be ‘towards’ or ‘away from’.

‘Towards’ triggers will be something the character desperately wants. This could be a the appearance of a person, a job, a prize, an environmental outcome, a wealth opportunity etc.

‘Away from’ triggers will be something the character definitely does not want, that they are fleeing from. This could be a looming, life-threatening danger, or could be more subtle than that, just something that will disrupt their comfortable life.

Here are some examples of triggers that oblige a character to act from popular literature:

• Nala coming to tell Simba that the pride needs his leadership in The Lion King
• Juliette is offered the job of Sheriff of the silo in Wool
• Danny’s dad doesn’t come back from a poaching trip in the woods in Danny the Champion of the World.
•  James Herriot is offered a new job as a vet in the Yorkshire Dales in If Only They Could Talk

Think back on the last few books you have read and make a list of the turning points or calls to action that the main characters encountered. 

Next make a list of ten triggers or calls to action that you can think of yourself. Make five of them ‘towards’ triggers and five of them ‘away from’.

Feel free to add your ideas in the comments below!

If you found this article useful, and you haven’t checked out the Novel Factory novel writing software yet, then you really should…

It is a ‘feature’ of western society that we tend to value analytical thinking more highly than creative thinking. Thus, subjects like maths and science and considered more ‘proper’ subjects than things like art and drama. Children are told to get practical qualifications, because everybody knows, artists can’t make a living.

The sad effect of this is that while our analytical processes get a good work out, our creative capabilities are often neglected, but creative skills can be learned and developed just as much as logical ones.

The more you work your creative muscles, the stronger they will become and the more easily stunning metaphors and incisive descriptions will ‘spring to mind’.

Try this exercise to give your creative brain a bit of a stretch:

1. Make a list of concrete nouns. Nouns are things, words that you can generally put ‘a’ or ‘the’ in front of, and concrete nouns are visible, solid things that you can usually touch. Some example of concrete nouns are:
•    Dog
•    Fire
•    Garden
•    Airplane
•    Handkerchief
•    Mug
•    Computer
•    Aubergine
•    Aspirin
•    Keys

Think of as many as you can, but at least 20.


2.    Make a list of abstract nouns. So, these are still ‘things’ but ones that you can’t see or touch.
•    Hunger
•    Wealth
•    Life
•    Friendship
•    Desire
•    Intelligence
•    Instructions
•    Excitement
•    Death
•    Joy

3.    Now randomly pick two of them (ask someone else to pick two numbers between 1 – however many you have or cut them up and pick them out of a hat) and put them together, then write a paragraph explaining.

For example:

Life is like computers. Completely unfathomable, with so much going on under the surface you have no hope of ever understanding the complexity. Sometimes life does what you want, but sometimes it just refuses, for no apparent reason at all. Life can be entertaining and informative, but it can also make us want to tear our hair out.

Or

Death is like aspirin. It’s tucked away out of sight and easy to ignore. But when our health is threatened it comes to the fore, fizzing in our brains, dissolving into an invisible, pervasive mist. We have no choice but to swallow it.

Think you can do better? Post your remote associations in the comments!

Credit to The Five Minute Writer by Margaret Geraghty for the inspiration for this post – if you liked it, you should buy her book.


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

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. 

There appears to be a rather popular trend out there of people making trite little cards which start with ‘You know you’re a writer then…’ and then finishing with some pithy little statement which no doubt makes the kind of people who approve of such things titter in amusement, probably while coyly covering their giggles with a delicate hand.

Whenever I see these, I either want to cringe or vomit, but rarely bother responding, because we all know it’ll just end up in a reference to Nazis (was that some kind of pre-emptive Godwin’s law?).

However, I thought I’d take to the time to list a few of the biggest humdinders here, and explain while they’re such a pile of tripe (and I have a dog, so I know how stinky tripe is):

You know you’re a writer when…

…deleting whole paragraphs of your manuscript is the emotional equivalent of stabbing yourself in the chest repeatedly.

Quote the opposite. The less you have written, the more attached you are to each word, and the harder it is to cut the waffle. The less experienced you are, the better you think your writing is, and the more precious you are about it. Deleting a whole paragraph? Give me a break. You should be doing that to warm up. The sign of a seasoned writer is one who can cut an entire chapter, nay, half a book, and just shrug.

You know you’re a writer when…

…You absolutely can’t write anything down unless it’s with that pen,  no matter how good the idea is.

Clear sign of a non-writer, becoming obsessed with irrelevant details when there are far too many important things to remember, including: fleeting ideas, the exact colour and texture of the leaves that carpet the forest floor at the beginning of November, birthdays of an entire cast of characters, whether you’ve already mentioned the knife sheath pattern, time of day for each scene, character motivations, what makes a character stand out, twists etc. etc. etc. If you’ve got time to spend worrying about which pen to use, you probably don’t have the brainpower to write a novel.

What this is actually a sign of, is obsessive compulsive disorder, which – while possibly a common symptom of writers, does not actually signify one.

And why on earth would anybody be using a pen to write? This isn’t the middle ages.

You know you’re a writer when…

… you remember the backstory of all your characters, but you’ve yet to write down a single one.

The clues are all there in this one, if you think about it. What this person is, is a daydreamer. To be a writer, you have to write things down. It’s not rocket science.

So, now that I’ve laid into example of what a writer clearly is not, perhaps you’d like my view on how you really can tell if you’re a writer?

It’s very simple. You’re writing.

Nanowrimo will be here soon, so I thought I’d write an article about nanoplamo, or national novel planning month. This goes hand in hand with nanowrimo, and in my mind is the absolute key to successfully completing the challenge.

If you are completely baffled by all these nano words, then you might want to check out this article about what nanowrimo is and why it’s useful and / or this article about nanowrimo success.

A step by step nanoplamo!

Step one – get your tools in order

By tools I would include:

A place to work – preferably somewhere to call your own, where you can leave your stuff permanently, but if this isn’t an option, then at least a get a box where you can pack up all your nanoplamo / nanowrimo related things and keep them together.

Computer / software – unless you write on paper (in which case you must be insane), you’ll need a decent, reliable computer and somewhere to back up your work. All you really need for the writing itself is Word and a folder system for putting notes on various things in – but if you’re like me and hate spending time on admin when you could be writing, you might want to consider some dedicated novel writing software – and as you might imagine (because we built it) we would recommend The Novel Factory.

A moleskin notebook / app – while you’re immersed in your novel planning (and writing), lots of things you see in the rest of your life will give you ideas, and unless you have a photographic memory, you’ll need somewhere to note them down. A pocket sized notebook or an app on your phone is perfect (I use iA Writer on the iPhone).

Research materials – if you are setting your novel in a particular time or place, then borrow some books from the library on the period (or buy them from if you prefer – try Green Metropolis for ethical and cheap) and have them in lovely inspiring piles around your workplace for dipping into.

Step two – make a plan

You should have a plan of action for what you need to have achieved by whatever day of the month. It may look something like this:

Day one – write your premise

Day two – sketch out the rough overall plot

Day three – outline main characters

If you don’t want to work all of the steps out from first principles, then The Novel Factory includes exactly this step by step guide, or as we like to call it - Roadmap. You can read more about the Novel Factory Roadmap without having to download the software (which is free to try anyway) here.

Step three – follow the plan!

If you’ve followed steps one and two, then you’re in a good position to get started, and all you have to do now is have the willpower and determination to follow it through. And if your plan is in good shape before the 1^st of November, then you’ll be in much better shape to get that first draft knocked out in one month.  

Good luck!

Bring to mind someone you have strong feelings for, someone you’re indifferent to and someone you hate. Try to think of what kind of circumstances could swap those positions around.


For example, you’re out for dinner with your spouse (loved one, hopefully) when they tell you that they’ve been cheating on you – with the waiter (who you were indifferent to, but now hate). Your overbearing boss (hated one) happens to be in the same restaurant and comes over, whisking you away and comforting you with brandy and kind words. Huddled on their sofa under blankets, you notice for the first time that your boss actually has the most beautiful sparkling eyes, and seems to have the exact same love of jazz as you…

Now you try.

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

When we have emotions, they are accompanied by a range of mental and physical feelings. As authors, we should try to explore all the feelings (even the bad ones) in order to inform our writing and ensure it really reflects reality as closely as possible.

By becoming skilled at translating our own feelings into words that our characters experience, they feel more genuine and real.

Analysing and naming feelings

The first stage is to try to identify each feeling and emotion as exactly as possible.

At a most basic level, you could say that each feeling is good, bad, or neutral. But of course, each of these types can be split into many different variations of emotion, which don’t all sit on a flat sliding scale.

For example, under good we might have: happiness, joy, delight, relaxation, contentment, excitement and anticipation.

Under bad, we might have: sadness, anger, frustration, impatience, depression, discontent, irritation and rage.

Try to label your feelings as accurately as you can as a first stage of identifying the range of emotions and their tones.

Investigating the feeling tone

Once you have started identifying the vast range of emotions in your palette, you can start to look at them more closely in order to notice the tone and physical feelings associated with them. The more you do this the better you get at it and the more detail you notice, which you can then use to inform your writing.

Here are some examples:

Anger

 

Anger is energetic and speedy. It’s hot and explosive and doesn’t pause for thought. It makes you feel tense

and hot. Your heart and breath speed up to feed the energy usage. It often comes with a tightness in the chest.

Next time you’re angry, try to step out of the anger for a moment and experience it as if you were your own character. How would you describe the feeling to a reader? Which part of your body can you feel the strongest? How does it feel?

Delight

Delight is a particular facet of happiness that has an innocent, childlike quality to it. It is usually caused by outside stimulus and leaves us feeling light and buoyant. Our faces feel relaxed and ready to smile and our lungs fill with delicious air. We can feel giddy and lost in the moment and sometimes we might feel like the barriers between us and the rest of the world are not as thick and certain as they usually are.

Next time you feel delighted, try to identify the sensations in your body and mind that make up such a feeling. Notice how your relationship to the world around you changes.

Emptiness

Emptiness is a dark, grey feeling which is hollow and heavy at the same time. We lack energy, and everything seems pointless. Our limbs feel thick and clumsy. Sometimes we may feel unsteady, ungrounded. Our minds feel fuzzy, our thoughts trying to move through thick liquid. Emptiness often feels like it will last forever.

Next time you feel emptiness, try to analyse what makes it ‘emptiness’ and also how the feeling evolves. What immediately preceded the feeling of emptiness – did it come on suddenly or gradually? What happens as the feeling leaves?

Summary

By getting to know our own emotions and feelings and how the sensations affect us both physically and mentally, we expand our toolbox and prose writing depth and range. Bring your characters to life with descriptions of their feelings that really resonate with the reader, because they have their basis in real experience.

All good novels contain a few important building blocks, so it’s a good idea to make sure your novel has all of them.

The major story elements that you really need to get a grip on from before you write the first sentence are:

•       Character
•       Situation
•       Objective
•   Opponent
•     Disaster

Now let’s look at each of these in a little more detail.

Character

Most novels start with an idea of a main character, or protagonist. You can have more than one major character, but you should try to be clear who your main protagonist is. They must be someone who can take action and who we follow the progress of in a linear fashion, even if they aren’t in every scene. They should develop in some way, emotionally, spiritually or morally.

Situation

Your story can’t take place in a void – or if it does, then I guess your situation is ‘being in a void’. The situation includes the location, time period and other aspects like technological level, culture, important historical factors, etc.

Objective

Your main characters has to have a goal. A lot of new writers miss this point, and don’t know why their writing fails to be compelling. Your protagonist will have small scene goals to keep the story trotting along, but they should also have an over-arching story-goal, something major. They don’t necessarily have to achieve this goal at the end, but they have to really want it – as if their life depended on it – which it often will.

Opponent

Hero walks up to stone, pulls out sword, becomes King. The end. Doesn’t make for much of a yarn, does it? That’s why you need opponents, to cause conflict, to give your hero something to strive against and to give your reader the reason to keep reading. Opponents can be baddies, armies, movie executives, nasty bosses, aliens, the police, forces of nature, or even parents. Anything that can get in the protagonist’s way.

Disaster

Throughout your story the stakes and tension should be increasingly rising, with each situation more terrible then the last, and you want to end with a huge bang, not with a whimper. So your story must have a disaster to end with. It may have explosions, shooting, crowds, shouting, car speeding to get to the airport before it’s too late… it really depends on the kind of story you’re writing. But it had better be BIG and EXCITING.

Summary

Does your story have all of the major story elements? If not, it might be worth having a think about those that are missing and seeing how they will enhance and improve your novel.

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

A picture speaks a thousand words! We love words, and we love pictures too. In case you haven't noticed, we're big fans of the Hero's Journey on this blog. And for those of you that agree with us about the importance and usefulness of the hero's journey, we've created this epic infographic, which demonstrates the stages of the hero's journey.



 The Hero's Journey Infographic

This infographic shows the following stages:

• Introduction to the Hero's World
• Call to Action
• Crossing the Threshold
• Mentor Teaches the Protagonost
• First Challenge
• Temptation
• Rock Bottom
• Final Conflict
• The Return Home

You can read more about The Hero's Journey on our main website or at this dedicated Hero's Journey website, where you can also download a free trial of The Novel Factory - novel writing software written by writers, for writers.

As you may know, this blog is written by the creators of the Novel Factory novel writing software, and shares a lot of the knowledge with that programme. The Novel Factory has been our baby for several years now, as we've worked on the formula, integrated a load of teaching knowledge, put together the guide and developed the software that brings it all together.

 

We launched recently, and already have had some really fantastic feedback. We're usually not ones to blow our own trumpets, but we're so chuffed with some of the comments we've had, because it feels like we're really achieving our aim of creating genuinely useful software for novelists, that we'd like to share some of the things we've heard.

If you haven't tried the software yet, you should know it's completely free for 30 days, so why not give it a go? You've got nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

"I have achieved more in the past two months than in the previous two years, using your program and would recommend it to anyone."

"It is a worthwhile program that would work for a beginning writer as well as a more seasoned professional. Well done!"

“I love how the scenes are linked to the characters. That feature of being able to go through and really think about and record what each character is doing at any given moment is wonderful!”

“I really liked the way it broke down the writing process and got me thinking about each section of my story. I tend to rush in with the start and know my end but don't put any thought into how to get there. I like having to write a synopsis of each section.” 

This idea is based on a technique described in Dwight Swain's amazing, fantastic book: Techniques of the selling writer, which is chock full of practical advice on writing selling fiction. We also owe a debt of gratitude to The Snowflake Guy, for bringing it to our attention...

Dedications out the way - let's get to it. So, what do we mean by the Action >> Reaction Cycle?

Well, when you write, you will usually have a mix of things that are happening around your protagonist (for the purpose of this article, we'll assume the protagonist is the point of view character in any given seen), and things that your protagonist is thinking and doing.

If you don't know any better, you will switch between these things randomly, putting down whatever 'feels' right. Many talented writers will naturally put things in the Action >> Reaction Cycle that I'm about to decscribe, but some of us benefit from learning the nuts and bolt of it in a more formal fashion.

Note - It should go without saying that any technique or tool that writers use, including the Action >> Reaction Cycle, are exactly that - techniques and tools. They are not laws. As a creative, you must decide for yourself when you will stick doggedly to these concepts and when you will deviate, because you know better. Just make sure you do know better.

The Action >> Reaction Cycle

Action

In one paragraph, you should have an outward description of the action. This should be completely detached from the characters point of view or opinion on the matter. FACT only. No bias based on the protagonist. This is easier said than done.

Reaction

Reaction can be split into three parts: Gut, Instinctive, Rational. Let's look at those in more detail.

Gut - this should be a visceral, bodily emotional response to the Action that's been observed. Something like a cold chill down the spine, a tightening of the throat or a twisting in the gut. It doesn't involve any movement or controlled thought.

Instinctive - This is still controlled by the body rather than the mind, but it will be more deliberate. It might be leaping back, or reaching for a gun. How useful this action is will depend on the character and how well they deal with the Action and their gut response to it.

Rational - Finally, now we've got through all the gut, instinctive stuff (which probably only took seconds, or less), we can get to the controlled part of things, where the character gets to express themselves. They may have a thought: "Not again. Oh no. Not again.", or they may carry out a controlled, deliberate action: "She raised the gun, aimed, and fired." Or both.

When you write, you should cycle your paragraphs between Action and Reaction. The Reaction paragraph does not have to include every part (gut, instinctive, rational) every time, in fact, it would get a bit weird if it did. But it should include at least one, and they should stay in the correct order.

An Example

We'll start with an example where it's done wrong, with all the elements mixed up and in the wrong order:


Lorelei hugged her legs remained fixed in place, control stolen from her body. So this was it. She was going end up just like all the others, she thought as she watched the figure at the other end of the beach walking towards her, slowly closing the distance. She felt gripped with a mixture of fear and desolation.

You may think that reads okay, or you may not. But either way, let's compare it to what happens if we rewrite it to follow the Action >> Reaction Cycle:

There was a figure at the other end of the beach, walking towards her.

Fear gripped Lorelei, stealing control of her body, so all she could do was remain fixed in place, still hugging her legs, watching helplessly as the figure closed the distance between them.  So this was it. She was going to end up just like the others.


In this example the first paragraph is only a single line, but it is an, external, indisputable fact. There's a figure, he's at the other end of the beach, he's walking towards her.


Next we have the Reaction, first the gut (fear gripping her), then the instinct (all she could do was remain fixed in place, watching helplessly, etc), and finally her rational thoughts about the matter (deciding she's about to meet her doom).

Hopefully you'll agree that the second version is much stronger, and  plunges into the story so it feels more real, much more so than the first one.

So if you've got a scene that you feel is somehow lacking immediacy or there's just something not quite right that you can't put your finger on, try hacking it up and rewriting while religiously following the Action >> Reaction Cycle, and you should find some impressive results.

The Novel Factory - Novel writing software

If you've found this article useful, then you might be interested in reading our Novel Writing Roadmap. And if you like that - then you might be tempted to download a free trial of The Novel Factory, which is a software programme we've developed to help writers learn their craft, especially aimed at new writers completing their first novel, but also useful for established novelists in organising their notes, locations, characters and scenes.

If you agree, don't agree or have any other comments on this article, I'd love to hear them. And I'd particularly love to see before and after examples of this technique in action.

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.

The character tab in The Novel Factory software

Good characters are the holy grail of compelling novel writing. Some action packed novels may be able to get away with cut out characters, but having smart, funny characters that the reader can empathise with and identify with, will lift the novel to the next level.

Our novel writing software takes you through a step by step process of developing a many layered character, and we'll run through the basics here.

Character Development Step One - the basic introduction

We start with what you could call the gameshow introduction. A simple, single sentence which can be used to describe the character, usually not using there name. For example:

A perfectionist accountant from London, with a love of roller blading.

Then we break down each section of the introductory sentence, to delve into each part in more depth and found out: in what way this perfectionism manifests, what sort of accountant they are, whether they like their job, and how high up they are, whereabouts in London they live, have they always lived there, do they like living there, how much to they love rollerblading, do they do it every day, where do they do it, how long have the been doing it. This will give you a nice starting point.

Basic character interface in the Novel Factory

Character Development Step Two - the statistics

If you're going to visualise your character, you need to know exactly what they look like - and having all of this noted down somewhere is a good idea to avoid rookie mistakes like changing the protagonists eye colour halfway through a paragraph. Note down age, hair type, eye colour, distinguishing features, height, weight etc. You should also think about and make a note of, their motivation and a summary of their role in the story. Now is a great time to try to hunt for some pictures to represent your character as well. Photos can provide a lot of inspiration.

Questionnaire supplied in the Novel Factory

Character Development Step Three - the questionnaire

Not all authors like the questionnaire, but I think that's because it's sometimes been presented as the be all and end all ofworking out a character. I certainly don't think that, which is why it's step three, but I do think it's useful, and using a questionnaire can help prompt inspiration about things you might not logically get to. Our writing software includes a detailed questionnaire that covers everything from what's in their fridge to how they treat people better than them

Character Development Step Four - History

You probably won't want to do full histories for every single character in your story, but I find it extremely useful to write the histories of all my main characters, all the way from being a baby. It means you have to think about their upbringing and parents and it helps you really get a rounded view of a person.

To take advantage of our novel writing software to guide you through this process and keep all your notes safe and organised, download a free trial of the Novel Factory.

The opening of a novel is probably the hardest part - I know it certainly is for me.

Why? Well, read on...

Too much pressure!

The opening lines and chapters of your book have the most pressure heaped on them to be outstanding. This is because if they're not, nobody is ever going to see the rest. Literary agents rarely want more than the first few chapters, and anecdotal evidence says they often won't read past the first few sentences if they're not immediately gripped. So the beginning of the novel absolutely has to be mind-blowing, or you've wasted the last six months, year, decade.

Not warmed up yet

A lot of people take a bit of time to warm up, to get into the flow of things so their prose comes naturally, and skips along at a good pace. Often, the first few pages of writing are clunky, or even rambling. Once the writer finds their mojo though, the words fly from their fingers and onto the page, snappy dialogue, gripping action, all the good stuff.

Wanting to set the scene with too much backstory

A lot of new writers feel that they need to firmly set the scene at the beginning of a book, to let their readers know what's going on and make sure they're aware of the important plot points, where the story is going and why the lead character is acting how they are. Unfortunately, this usually has the effect of making the introduction feel like tedious exposition, where readers would rather get straight into the action.

So what can you do about it?

Start before the start

By this, I mean once you've decided where your story is going to begin, actually start writing from a scene or two earlier than that. These scenes will be cut in the end, but you will write them with full commitment as if they were staying.

By doing this, you can help avoid two of the problems described above.

Firstly, it will give you a chance to warm up and get into the flow of things.

Secondly, you will do all the exposition and backstory that your readers don't need (because they will pick everything up from context anyway, as long as your story telling is good enough).

What about reducing pressure?

Ah, yes. We haven't come up with a solution to that one yet - if anybody has any ideas - please let us know!

Many new writers are confused about how to format their manuscript. Many of these issues arise from mixing the conventions for non-fiction, such as essays, with that of fiction.

So here are a few novel writing guidelines:

Indent each new paragraph

Each new paragraph should be indented by about a half a centimetre, with the exception of the very first paragraph of each chapter, which should be flush with the margin.

Don’t use excessive new chapters

We’ve seen manuscript where almost every new paragraph is named as a new chapter, meaning that you’re on chapter four within 2000 words. This is not appropriate use of chapters, which will be around 2000 words each as a very loose rule of thumb.

Don’t leave line breaks between paragraphs

Essays and other fact based writing dictates that you should leave a gap between each paragraph, This is not the case with fiction writing.

Use font size about 12

If you are expecting anybody else to read your work, it’s only polite to offer it in an accessible size – don’t forget that not everybody has perfect eyesight. But in addition to this, the way we read (not by smoothly scanning but in jumps and pauses that take in groups of words at a time) means that excessively long sentences – that would be created by very small text – are harder to read.

Use a serif font

A serif font is one that has the little tails at the edges of the letters (such as Times New Roman). A Sans Serif font is one that does – and therefore looks more abrupt. Serif fonts are easier to read when printed, so you should use one. The most common ones are Times New Roman and Courier New.

Final notes:

If you’re not sure about formatting of your document, there’s a very quick and easy way to check – take a paperback of the shelf and see how they do it! Check in a few to confirm, and hey presto – now you know the convention.

If you'd like more help writing your novel, find out what makes The Novel Factory so effective.