If you already know all about nanorimo and are lookingfor a guide to success, then you might be interested in this article.

Let’s start at the beginning – what is nanowrimo?

Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month. These days, the ‘national’ bit is a bit defunct, as it’s really an international endeavour. There is an official organisation that run it and they have a website, which you can easily find by Googling ‘nanowrimo’.

However, there’s nothing to say that you actually have to sign up to the website to take part, you can do so completely in the privacy of your own computer.

The basic principle is that you write the first draft of a novel – all within the month of November. You are not allowed to have written any of it in advance (although it’s is highly recommended to have a plan sketched out – The Novel Factory software is perfect for this) and you have to write 50,000 words. That works out at just under 2000 words per day (they didn’t even have the good grace to pick a month with one extra day – still, I suppose it could have been February).

The advantage of ‘officially’ signing up and submitting your work to the Nanowrimo community, is that you may get more motivation by seeing what other people are doing, and getting instant feedback. Also, I think you get a kind of digital certificate if you complete it – if you’re into that kind of thing.

However, the slight risk is that some places are  funny about work that has been published anywhere else, including on a website – so that’s just something to keep in mind if you’re intending to take the work further.

What nanowrimo is

The point of nanowrimo is to get writing.

The main problem for most people that want to be writers is that they don’t get their bum on the seat and the words coming out. This may be an issue of finding the time (saying you don’t have time is not a reason, it’s an excuse, and if you don’t like me saying that, then you won’t like me saying this either – if ‘no time’ is your excuse, then you’re not a writer, and probably never will be), feeling uncertain or embarrassed, not knowing where to start, or being precious about the work.

Nanowrimo is a great way to get over some of those obstacles. There is no time to overplan, procrastinate or be precious. Just dump any old rubbish on the page. Writing crap is a necessary part of the process on the way to writing something decent, and Nanowrimo shoves you out onto the path.

Knowing that thousands of other people are doing it at the same time is also highly motivational.

What Nanowrimo isn’t

I am always very careful to say that Nanowrimo is about writing a ‘first draft’ not about writing a ‘novel’. That’s because a first draft is so far from a finished novel, they barely look related. There is no way you can get a finished novel out in one month, and a good rule of thumb is that however long the first draft took – refining it into something even barely passable will take about twice as long again. At the very least.

Anecdotally, publishers and literary agents groan when it comes round to Nanowrimo time, because in the following months, they are inundated with rubbish first drafts that are being called submission ready manuscripts (as a side note, this is useful to know for choosing when to submit your novel – i.e. not in December).

Using the nanowrimo concept to suit you

There is no law to say that you can’t apply the principle of having a fairly hefty challenge to suit your needs, if writing a first draft doesn’t happen to be the thing for you.

For example, if you already have a first draft, you could use the month to force yourself to get the second draft completed – although this is a lot harder to judge – 50,000 words is a very clear goal that can be broken down into discrete parts. But having said that, you could break down a second draft into two chapters per week, for example.

Another alternative works for short story writers, which is to write 30 stories in 30 days. You don’t have to write one a day, exactly, but it gives you a very clear guide as to whether you’re ahead or behind and the average rate you have to keep up.

If you're really serious about becoming a writer, then you need to be in a writing group - no question, and no excuses.

Beginning writers are often nervous about joining a writing group, and yes, it can be daunting - but it's well worth the effort, for many reasons.

Firstly, once you've started showing your work to others, it will help build your confidence. The first time is the hardest, but the vast majority of writing groups are supportive, and you will be pleasantly surprised to hear the nice things they will say about your work. And if you take their comments for improvement on board and make a genuine effort to edit well, it will be even more encouraging when they see and point out how the quality of your writing is getting better over time.

As well as saying nice things, if they're worth their salt, they will also find the weak points in your work, and while praise is nice, constructive criticism is what's of real value - as this is going to make you into a better writer. A good critique group will highlight areas for improvement in your work in a sensitive manner.

There's no need to take criticism personally or feel that it's in any way putting you down. That is not the point at all. The purpose of criticism is to improve your skills, so a writing group will find areas for improvement in any piece of work - even if it's damn near perfect. Critique areas may be anything from grammar and punctuation to pace, balance, emotional impact, tense, dialogue, description - anything.

Having a fresh set of eyes read something is very useful to highlight areas that don't make sense that you, as the writer, will find it impossible to know, as you have the whole story in your head and know where it's going.

And of course, associating with skilled people who are also passionate about writing will give you the advantage that you can draw on their skills and knowledge.

So, if you've been making excuses for not joining a writing group - man up and get yourself down to one!

Your draft should be in pretty good shape now, and you really are nearing the finish line.

However, eager though you may be to show your masterpiece toagents in order for them to snap it up, you don’t want to rush things and shoot yourself in the foot.

Take another break – at least a week if possible, and then come back for a final fine tuning.

You need to be really ruthless now, seek out clichés, telling instead of showing, lazy description, meandering prose. Cut it out. Cut it down. Look for inconsistencies and iron them out.

Here are a few more areas you can fine tune:

 

Dialogue Mechanics

Dialogue is important. It brings the reader into the moment, it feels alive and happening. When is the first dialogue on your story? If it’s not in the first few pages, you could consider moving it forward.

Many new writers overuse replacements to the word said, resulting in something like this:

“You look depressed.” observed Jennifer.

“I am,” answered Barry.

 “You should just cheer up,” concluded Jennifer.

“Whatever,” grumbled Barry.

These colourful replacements border on the cardinal sin of telling not showing, and are obtrusive, dulling the pace.

Instead of relying on words like this, use description of the action to keep things moving and keep the reader right in the action. Also, don’t forget that ‘said’ tends to be invisible to readers when they’re in the flow (unless there are really a lot in a row), and often you don’t need anything to describe who’s speaking, as it ought to be obvious from context.

“You look depressed,” said Jennifer.

Barry picked at his nails and sighed.  “I am.”

“You should just cheer up,” Jennifer put a bright look on her face.

“Whatever.”

 

Paragraphing

You may think that paragraphing is not really a central part of writing. Words and sentences, that’s real writing – paragraphing is what happens inbetween.

Well, how dense or open your prose is will make a big difference to how pacy it feels and whether your reader feels like they’re wading through or skipping along.

When you scan over your work, is most of the page filled with words? If so, it may benefit from more whitespace, giving your story space to breathe. Shortening paragraphs is an extremely effective way to tweak the pace and atmosphere of your novel.

 

Don’t labour the point

This means don’t repeat yourself, and don’t keep trying to get the same point across in too many different ways. One well thought out way will be stronger on its own than several obvious or weak ways.

For example.

Celine eyed the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon on the shelf and her mouth watered. She loved red wine. It was the colour, like liquid rubies, and the sharp delicious taste. Her desire for it ached. The way it warmed the back of her throat. She loved it so much. Her fingers twitched towards it.

In this example we are told three times that she loves wine, and by the last time you just want to scream ‘Yes, I know!’

It’s much stronger with the second two removed:

Celine eyed the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon on the shelf and her mouth watered. She loved red wine. It was the colour, like liquid rubies, and the sharp delicious taste. The way it warmed the back of her throat. Her fingers twitched towards it.

However, if you want the prose to be really tight, we shouldn’t be telling at all and in fact we can do without any of them, and get the same impression from the description alone:

Celine eyed the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon on the shelf and her mouth watered. It was the colour, like liquid rubies, and the sharp delicious taste. The way it warmed the back of her throat. Her fingers twitched towards it.

You've done it! You've written your novel! Congratulations, you are now a member of a relatively elite club. So now your adoring audiences will be beating down your door to buy your novel and make you rich.

Or... you can go to Step 15. Submitting your novel to an agent.

Congratulations! You’ve finished your first draft! You deserve a big cigar, glass of champagne or whatever it is you celebrate these things with. Feel free to take a few days or a week off, you’ve earned it.

But then, back to work! You may think that now you’ve thrashed out a first draft, the hard part is over, and you’re reaching the finish line. Afraid not. There’s a whole lot more slog to go. But don’t be disheartened! You’re still further then 80% of people who say they’re going to write a book. Don’t give up!

Most of the large scale structure of your book should be relatively fixed by now – if you planned well, it will mean less serious redrafting is needed (for example cutting out entire chapters of characters), so you can focus on fine tuning.

We’ve already looked at some of the mistakes that will instantly mark you out as an amateur, now let’s take a look at a few aspects of writing that you can perfect to take your writing from mediocre to excellent.

Note - if you're looking for a guide to the various different drafts of a novel, you might be interested in this article.

Have you over explained your characters?

The core of this is the good old ‘show, don’t tell’. Make sure you’re not explaining the character’s personality to your readers, as they’re likely to find it dull and distancing.

Compare:

‘Jane was a slob. She hadn’t tidied up in months.’

‘Jane kicked the mouldy plate off the bed and rummaged around for the least stiff pair of jeans from the piles strewn on the floor.’

In the first example, the author makes a statement about a character, and then backs it up with a little evidence, but they’re still just giving their word. In the second example, the author is keeping out of it, just describing the action and letting the reader draw their own conclusions about the cleanliness habits of Jane.

Also, new writers often feel they need to give the entire life story of a character early on, but this isn’t a good idea. It stalls the action, and anyway, it’s more natural to get to know people in a slower, more gradual way. When you meet someone new, you don’t immediately learn everything about them, that happens over time.

By just giving consistent broad brushstrokes, you allow your reader to use their imagination and fill in the gaps, in many cases creating a character with more layers than even you thought of.

Another useful technique for building character is to use what your character notices to give information about them. When they enter a room, do they notice all the pretty girls; the stains on the carpet; or do they note all the exits and times to reach them? What they notice tells us a great deal about their outlook and priorities.

Is the Point of View clear?

A nice way of thinking about point of view is ‘whose skin are you in?’ 

This doesn’t mean that you need to write your story from the 1^st person (using ‘I’ instead of ‘he’ or ‘she’), or even that you have to use the same character’s point of view through the whole book (although the latter may not be a bad idea if it’s your first book – learn to walk before you run).

However, it is critical that the reader knows whose point of view they are following in any given scene, and this shouldn’t change within a scene.

This is because changing point of view character within a scene is very disorientating for the reader and it breaks their suspension of disbelief, as they have to mentally adjust.

Writing from a particular character’s point of view is more than just where they are standing; it’s also about what they notice. As mentioned above in the section on characters, different characters will have completely different experiences from exactly the same environment. 

For example, you’d be unlikely to have a teenager commenting on the ancient gothic architecture (unless that’s a strong part of their character), and an old lady might notice a gang of louts hanging on a corner, but have no idea what the gang bands on their arms represented.

Also, remember that you may be able to mind-read the Point of View character even if you’re writing from the third person, but you absolutely cannot read the minds of anyone else (unless your PoV character happens to be psychic), so you’ll have to get across their opinions through what they say, how they say it, actions and body language.

How proportionate is your plot?

How does your prose balance? How much is action, dialogue or description?

In general, no sentence should be included if it isn’t critical to the plot, but this doesn’t mean there’s no time to stop and smell the roses. As long as the roses have some relevance to atmosphere, and they are described in a way that reflects the mood of the scene.

If you’re going to spend a lot of lines describing something, make sure it’s relevant. For example, don’t spend two pages describing the interior of one building and two lines on another, unless the first building is central to the plot. Because you can be sure your readers are going to think it is.

Likewise, if your character is doing something, such as cooking, or fixing a saddle, don’t describe it in too much detail unless it’s important to the plot or builds atmosphere. Just because you find a hobby interesting, doesn’t mean your readers will.

On the other hand, if there’s an action scene which is central to the plot, shows key aspects of a main character and throbs with atmosphere – then break it down into moment by moment detail.

Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules to follow about how much description to have and how much detail to include in a particular spot – it’s all about balance.

With the second draft in the bag you can see the finish line. It's time for Step 14: Refining the Final Draft of your novel.

For more guidance on novel writing, click here.

Now, it’s been a long journey already but we’re finally ready to start a first draft. If you’ve completed all your planning well, this first draft should take a fraction of the time it would without the planning, and will also be as tight as a third draft of an unplanned manuscript.

By following the blocking from the previous step and referring to your character viewpoints, location and plot notes, you should fly through the first draft.

Here are the four worst new novelist mistakes, try to avoid them in your first draft!

1. Too many adverbs

Overuse (many creative writing tutors say any use at all is overuse) of adverbs will scream amateur louder than anything else.

In case you don't know, adverbs and words which modify (if you don't know what modify means you should probably consider switching to photography) a noun. They often end in 'ly'.

Examples:

 ·        He said, knowingly.

·         She dropped the knife, meaningfully.

The problem with adverbs is that they are often redundant, re-stating something that is obvious from the dialogue or verb. And if it's not obvious in the dialogue or verb - why isn't it?

Adverbs are often a marker of lazy description, and showing, not telling (see next mistake).

They’re also a key indicator for weak verbs. You can think of the ly as a crutch.

For example:

 He walked weakly to the door.

Might be replaced by:

He stumbled to the door.

2. Telling not showing

If you haven't heard this yet, brace yourself. It's the mantra of creative writing teachers everywhere. 

It's very common for new writers to try to explain things to their readers, as a kind of omnipotent narrator, rather than allowing the reader to experience everything themselves through the protagonist's senses.

For example, if you tell me that:

Martin Cousins was a very dangerous man.

I'll be yawning before you get to the next sentence. So what? And anyway, so you say.

However, if you say that:

Martin's knife sliced through the soft flesh of his latest victim.

Then the point is made vividly and we might even have a shiver of fear. Also, we're not being preached at; we're observing the cold, hard facts with our own eyes.

3. Overly formal dialogue

The main problem with natural dialogue in fiction is that it's nothing like natural dialogue in real life. If an author did put genuinely genuine sounding dialogue into their work, readers would be bored silly, because normal speech is full of half-finished sentences, interruption, meandering and assumed knowledge.

So fictional dialogue needs to be much more succinct, with clear direction and eloquence, but to still give the impression of being natural.

Some tips to making speech sound less formal is to use fillers (well, umm, I guess), pauses, interruptions and contractions (do not = don't, I will = I'll).

4. As you know, Bob

This is the common phenomena of writers using a character to explain a plot point to another character who already knows it.

To take an unlikely example, let's say knowing the ingredients of a Screwdriver is critical to the story. 

The amateur writer might decide to have two barmen, one of whom says something along the lines of:

'Well, as you know Nick, a screwdriver is a mix of vodka and orange juice.'

If Nick already knows it, why is his colleague telling him something so obvious? 

That's what the readers will be saying anyway. It comes across as wooden, and it's lazy. And it's just a sneaky way of telling (see above).

Characters should never say anything that the person they're talking to knows already. This isn't to say a character can never explain a plot point, just make sure they are telling it to someone who genuinely wants and needs to know.

First draft complete! Now you can go onto step 13. The Second Draft.

Serious about becoming a novelist? Save yourself waste time and energy by getting the right tools for the job.

Before actually getting down to your first draft, it can be very valuable to prepare a rough outline.

This blocks out the scene from beginning to end, including where any important plot points come up, and roughly what people say, where they’re standing (or sitting or lying), gestures and important points regarding the location.

It should not be written in a prose form, and don’t worry about how rough and riddled with repetitive phrases or clichés it is, we’ll tidy all that up in our drafts.

At this point, keep referring to your notes on characters, locations and plot points to make sure everything is woven in, however bluntly.

Read about out lining a novel or  blocking in more detail here.

Or read about the principles behind our novel writing software (which incorporates a step by step guide to writing a novel).

Goodness, I'm exhausted just writing about it - you've done so well to get this far. Now it's time to get really stuck in. That's right. It's time for step 12 - to write your first draft.

 

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 Five

Character Viewpoints

This is a really fun step, in which you get inside the skin of your characters, discover if there are any impossibilities in your plot and give the story a level of depth that you just couldn't get by coming at it from your omnipotent author viewpoint.

What you're going to do, is write a synopsis of the story from the point of view of each of the major characters - taking about a page for each. You should let you imagination loose at this point, so don't worry too much if you run over, just don't burn out before you've done them all!

If your story is primarily told from the point of view of the lead character, you will have to be really strict about their synopsis - if you're getting to the point where you have five pages and you're still in the early stages - it's getting out of hand.

Do your best to try to really get into each individual character; speaking as they would speak, noticing what they would notice and even using metaphors that they would. Does your character use a lot of long words or a lot of slang? Do they immediately scope out the decor of a room, the people in it, or the escape routes? Do they use a lot of sporting metaphors or sea ones, or sensory ones?

Personally, I like to imagine the character sitting on a stool in the middle of a room, being asked to explain what happened - but you don't have to do it that way.

Before you write each character story synopsis, make sure you check over the notes you already have to remind yourself of what you've already learned about your character. This will help you keep it consistent and also inspire the synopsis.

The character story synopsis should not tell the entire history of the character, starting when they were a child (unless that's relevant), but should start at the first relevant point to the story. This may, however, be before the story begins for the lead.

Think about what the character is doing in-between encounters with other characters and appearances in the story. You don't have to know every single detail, but they should never vanish from existence.

By doing this sort of synopsis, not only will you get to know your characters better, but you will make them seem much more real, as it forces you to think about what they're doing when they're not in your main narrative. This starts to give them their own lives, and can affect how they behave when they are in the main narrative.

For example, if you haven't thought about what a character has been doing immediately before your lead encounters them, they may tend to be in a neutral mood, and just hanging around doing nothing, or doing something vague. Once you've walked through the story in their shoes though, you might know that they've just had an argument with their sister, or just received a long awaited letter, or simply just stubbed their toe. How will this affect how they receive your lead?

In this way you can add more interesting complications and conflict, adding depth and realism.

So go ahead and get started on your character story synopses.

Click here for the next step in the Novel Formula - extending your synopsis.

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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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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A good first line does not a good novel make, but a bad opening could kill a great novel before it's had a chance.

So what makes a good first line?

There are a few key points:

Change - if this is a day like any other, why are you writing about it? All stories are about change, so if you want to get your reader hooked right away, get straight into it!

Question - you need your reader wanting more. If you can make your first line raise questions that they cannot live without knowing the answer to, you can be pretty sure they'll keep reading. Of course, what constitutes a gripping question will vary depending on your readership. A computer geek is unlikely to care if the question is the heroine wondering how she'll ever find love - equally, a romance buff cares little why the Republic of Somewhere Alien is about to implode.

Surprise - for extra flavour and style, if you can surprise your reader in so few words, with something unexpected or out of the ordinary, they will want to read on to explain the mystery.

Some examples of awesome opening lines:

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
George Orwell, 1984

Mira was hiding in the ladies' room.
Fay Weldon, The Women's Room


My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973.
Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones


We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
 

Think about which of the key points above each of these meet. It's a great exercise to randomly pick books off your shelf and read their first lines.

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If you want the obvious, then you can say that point of view is the perspective from which you view the story. But what does this actually mean.

Well, there are two common writing styles - first person and third person.

In a first person story your point of view is easy. You view the whole story through the eyes of one character. This means that you show everything as it is experienced by your main character. Your main character is the narrator:

I woke up late. I went to the balloon shop. The man in the shop looked at me funny.

In the third person you tell the story at a level removed. You tell the story as an omnipresent narrator that shows the reader the actions of various characters:

John woke up late. He went to the balloon shop. The shop's proprietor gave John a funny look.

The easiest way to write in the third person is to use what is known as 'Third Person Limited'. This is similar to using first person in that the narrator only follows one character.

For the more complicated plot, there is 'Third Person Omniscient'. In this case the story is told from multiple, often conflicting, viewpoints.

When writing in the third person it's easy to get carried away and tell things that the current point of view character couldn't know. The narrator can theoretically tell the reader about anyone and anything. However, in practice this can cause all kinds of confusion for the reader.

As a reader, you want to get into the head of one character at a time, you want to view the world as they view it and sympathise with their point of view. The reader wants to feel their pain and joy. Using multiple viewpoints within a novel is common because there is time enough to get to know more than one person.

However, a general rule of thumb, it's a good idea to stick with one character for the duration of a scene. Switching viewpoints within a scene is a known as head-hopping and can be rather disorientating because the reader doesn't know who they are supposed to be identifying with.

So, that's first and third person - what happened to the second person?

Well, that's you.

Not much fiction gets written in the second person because it can feel quite intrusive and strange:

Like that time when you woke up late. You went to the balloon shop. The man in the shop gave you a funny look.

It's tolerable in a short section, but can you imagine a whole novel informing you of the things you'd supposedly done? There's always the temptation to think: No I didn't. I wouldn't do that.

Well, don't look at me; I didn't do it and it must have been one of us.

Read more creative writing articles here.

1. Too many adverbs

Overuse of adverbs will scream amateur louder than anything else. Many creative writing tutors say any use at all is overuse.

In case you don't know, adverbs are words that modify a verb to describe the way the action is done. If you don't know what modify means, you should probably consider switching to photography.  Adverbs  often end in 'ly'.

Examples:

He said, knowingly.
She dropped the knife, meaningfully.

The problem with adverbs is that they are often redundant, re-stating something that is obvious from the dialogue or verb. And if it's not obvious in the dialogue or verb - why isn't it?
Adverbs are also a key indicator for weak verbs. You can think of the ly as a crutch.

For example:

He walked weakly to the door

Might be replaced by:

He stumbled to the door

Adverbs are often a marker of lazy description, and showing, not telling
(see next mistake).

Further reading:

http://www.users.qwest.net/~yarnspnr/writing/adverbs/adverbs.htm

2. Telling not showing

If you haven't heard this yet, brace yourself. You'll be sick of it within months. It's very common for new writers to try to explain things to their readers, as a kind of omnipotent narrator, rather than allowing the reader to experience everything themselves through the protagonist's senses.
For example, if you tell me that:

Martin Cousins was furious and so he went into the shed to calm down.

I'll be yawning before you get to the next sentence. So what? And anyway, so you say.
However, if you say that:

Martin slammed the back door and stormed down to the shed. He punched the wooden door aside and kicked it shut behind him. He waited in the darkness,  forcing himself to take a few slow, deep breaths as the dust settled. 

Here the point is made vividly and at no point did you need to be told Martin was angry. You can feel it. We can observe the cold, hard facts with our own eyes.
Further reading:

http://www.writing-world.com/basics/dawn02.shtml

3. Overly formal dialogue

The main problem with natural dialogue in fiction is that it's nothing like natural dialogue in real life. If an author did put genuinely genuine sounding dialogue into their work, readers would be bored silly, because normal speech is full of half finished sentences, interruption, meandering and assumed knowledge.

So fictional dialogue needs to be much more succinct, with clear direction and eloquence, but to still give the impression of being natural.

One tip to make speech sound less formal is to use fillers (well, umm, I guess), pauses, interruptions and contractions (do not = don't, I will = I'll).

Further reading:

http://www.sfwriter.com/ow08.htm

4. As you know, Bob

This is the common phenomena of writers using a character to explain a plot point to another character who already knows it.

To take an unlikely example - let's say knowing the ingredients of the common Screwdriver cocktail is critical to the story. The amateur writer might decide to have two barmen, one of whom says something along the lines of:

'Well, as you know Nick, a screwdriver is a mix of vodka and orange juice.'

Clearly,  Nick already knows it. Why is his colleague telling him something so obvious? This just doesn't ring true, and your characters are suddenly mannequins dancing to your plot rather than real people the reader cares about. It's just a sneaky way of telling (see above).

Characters should never say anything that the person they're talking to obviously knows already. This isn't to say a character can never explain a plot point, just make sure they are telling it to someone who genuinely wants and needs to know.

Further reading:

http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2010/09/seven-keys-to-writing-good-dialogue.html

5. Lack of Conflict

Put simply, if there's no conflict, there's no story, and by conflict, we don't mean violence. Take these two alternatives:

Boy meets girl, they fall in love and live happily ever after.
Boys meets girl, girl despises boy, girl gets a terminal illness, boy searches the world for a cure to save girl and win her love.

If you could ask a single question about either of these premises, what would it be?

Would it be 'In number one, what precise way did they live happily ever after?' or would it be 'In number two, does the boy find a cure of not?'

Knock me down with a feather if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing it's going to be the second, which means you're engaged and intrigued. That's because there's conflict.


Further reading:

http://menwithpens.ca/fiction-writing-conflicts-and-characters/
http://www.fictionfactor.com/articles/conflict.html

6. Ego-writing

Lots of people decide to write based on actual experiences because  they realise that real life is stranger and infinitely more fascinating and complex than anything a single human mind could dream up. This is all well and good.

What is not well and good, is thinking that your life is interesting enough to be committed to paper and inflicted upon innocent readers. Unless your life has involved bringing down a massive corporation, starting a revolution, overcoming a debilitating disability to spectacular effect or saving a boatload of people - it's unlikely to be interesting enough to be worthy of novelisation.

The same kind of principle applies to peppering your work with your opinion.

As the great William Strunk, Jr. says:
'To air one's views gratuitously, is to imply that the demand for them is brisk.'

7. Procrastination

This is a big one. In fact, if you're reading this, there's a good chance you're procrastinating now.
Procrastination is a huge enemy to success, as you can hardly get to the exciting stage of having your novel rejected if you haven't even written it yet.

Ultimately, the only answer to procrastination is will power and inner strength - however, there are plenty of tips and tricks to help overcome it.

Two favourite 'reasons' and answers:

'I'm not inspired' - If you want to be a writer, it's your job to be inspired. If you have to sit around staring at the wall, waiting for the muse to belly dance in front of your nose, you'll starve long before your first draft is even begun.

'I don't know how to get started' - Make and follow a plan (such as the Snowflake method) which has small, achievable goals.

Further reading (not without irony):

http://the90daynovel.com/writing-your-first-novel-end-procrastination-now
http://www.creative-writing-now.com/writers-block.html

8. Meandering Plot

Stories need to go somewhere. Unless you're CS Lewis, you're unlikely to be able to get away with having your character randomly wandering around an abstract world, encountering characters that apparently have no relation to each other.

Your protagonist needs to have a goal, and while that can change over time, there needs to be some consistency. Your reader wants to root for your characters and feel clever if they guess what's coming. If you randomly change direction and the first five chapters describe a man trying to clear his wife's name when she's accused of murder, but then by chapter seven he's trekking through the rainforest and the story ends with him bringing down a terrorist plot, your readers are going to feel cheated. And headachy.

If you're having trouble getting started or want a digital tutor to guide you through your first novel - check click here.