3 Tips For Your First Novel!
How do you choose which is the first novel you write?
- Take it as a practice
If it goes well, great. Nobody says it has to go wrong; but if you accept that there are many more possibilities that it will not turn out well, that it can be improved, than that it is a work of art; you will face the process, and the result, in a totally different way.
Writing a novel is a process in which different functions of the brain intervene to different techniques or tools. It is not having an idea, writing until you finish and that’s it.
A novel needs structure, it needs a good narrator, a good use of narrative techniques: descriptions, dialogues, characterization of characters.
But also a handling, as Nonfiction Ghostwriting experts said, of the structure that is what helps you create tension to hook.
It is true that, as readers, we have all that information inside, organically. But the fact that you have read a thousand times the result of the use of these techniques and resources (in a thousand different novels) does not enable you to repeat it.
What’s more, the simple fact of having everything inside can lead you to want to remove everything. Because you think you can. And that in itself is already a mistake. Because you will always have to select what you wear and what you don’t.
It’s like when you see those who audition for singing competitions and want to demonstrate what they can do with their voice in 10 seconds. And they become unbearable. Not?
You need to practice to check what you know and what you need to improve
In short, a first novel has to be a practice so that you can see how you execute what you think you already know how to do. And how you manage it. Because it is not the same to imagine a story than to write it and it is during the process that you discover your shortcomings or the shortcomings of the story.
And what I was saying, if in the end it is good, great, you publish it, you become a millionaire and everyone is happy. But if it isn’t, nothing happens, it was training. You will learn from this process and the next time you will do better.
The good thing about novels, if you like, is that they don’t have to be lost trains. Maybe you can fix it later, when you have more experience.
Leaving it in a drawer and evaluating it again when you have written more will help you see if it is worth it or not. Generally, these first novels, seen with the passage of time and the added experience … do not pass your own quality control and are still in the drawer. But it could be, why not, that it was a great novel waiting to be polished just a bit.
- Choose well the story you want to tell
You may be like me that you have clear since you can remember that you wanted to dedicate yourself to writing. And it is not that you have a dream novel, but that you have many … But there are also people who start writing because they feel the great need to tell a story, only one in particular.
I think we all have that great story inside, or several. Stories that we care about, that we need to tell well, and that are complex, complicated; that, in short, overwhelm us.
It happens to me. And because of the experience I have in my courses and workshops, it happens to almost all of us. You come up with a great idea that is very difficult to realize in a novel.
Sometimes the problem is that there are too many stories or that, as I said, it is a topic that overflows.
My recommendation, bearing in mind that this novel is a practice, is not to want to write that great story that you have in your head. But another. Easier, simpler, more manageable.
A story that allows you to test the writing process and your skill and that does not overwhelm you in other ways.
It doesn’t have to be a silly or uninteresting story. I am only saying that you choose a project that you feel like, but that does not complicate your life.
The complicated thing is that it is the first time you write a novel, and not the story itself.
In a while you will be able to write it better
You will learn from this process and you will acquire practical technique that will help you to face this GREAT story with many more possibilities to do it well and with more resources to make the most of the story.
If it’s important to you, and it’s difficult to write, save it for later. That is my advice.
- Write a short novel
To the second point: choose a story that is easy to write and that would not be very long.
If you take it as an apprenticeship, once finished you will need someone to read and value it, to advise you on how to improve or what you have to reinforce to write better or build your stories better.
The longer your novel, the more the reading report will cost you.
If the novel is good and you want to self-publish it… the longer it is, the more the correction and layout will cost you.
The words in a novel mark the investment that you will have to make in it to be able to publish it. And I do not recommend in any way, be it your first or tenth novel, to publish anything without having gone through a good proofreader.
Therefore, if you take it as an investment, the first one is not too high.
Now it’s your turn, tell me if you have already written that first novel, if you are about to finish it or if you have not yet taken the step of starting it.