Hey there! I’m writing like it’s a blogpost. It’s Neveah here, the 13 year-old author of Love Machine. I write mainly under the genre of romance XD
Today, I’ll be introducing many aspects of good writing and hopefully you’ll appreciate my work. I’ll be focusing on fiction writing.
Firstly, in my opinion, a good novel is something you can’t put down. It’s meant to be captivating. How do we make our writings captivating? Let me run through the process of writing a novel. Firstly, we need to have a novel outline. A novel outline is a planner which plans the novel’s storyline. It is essential as a pre-writing exercise. You include the characterisation of both your antagonist and protagonist. You include the lesson you want the readers to learn or the message you want to convey to them. After all the pre writing exercises, you start on your manuscript. You can use all sorts of tools like google documents, microsoft word etc. You can even write on paper physically! There are six core questions you need to ask yourself when doing framework. What’s the genre? What are the obligatory scenes under that genre? What’s the POV? What are the objects of desire? What’s the theme or controlling idea? What’s the beginning, middle and end?
So you start your novel. And then you realise that you are stuck because you don’t know how to begin the novel. The first sentence of your novel is very important. It literally determines if the reader is going to read on. There are various ways you can start—Speech, sound effect etc. Be direct. And first and foremost, do not ever start with weather settings— that is amateurish writing. Leave the backstory for later and don’t straight away explain everything to the reader.
So you started writing your manuscript, but then sometimes you may get distracted or discouraged. That’s why you need to set up a writing schedule! I also recommend you have a writer’s notebook. A writer’s notebook is a designated place for us authors to jot down all our creative ideas for our stories. And what’s more, we use the writer’s notebook to ‘free write’. I do that once a week and sometimes I publish my work on Penana when I thought my ‘free write’ was good. So what’s a free write? It’s when you get a writing prompt, and then without any planning, you start of with the first sentence given to you and you just write. You can get writing prompts easily around the internet. I recommend using Pinterest. Easy? If it’s the first time you are starting a writer’s notebook, I advise you do not buy a notebook which costs an arm and a leg. Perhaps get a notebook lying around your house or maybe a cheaper one for you to play around with it before you start on another one.
One thing to take note when you are done writing your novel is to make sure that your ending is satisfying and you have futilely the promise you gave the readers from the start. Do not ever end with a dream because firstly, that’s a sign of amateurish writing, and secondly, the readers are going to feel cheated.
Done with the manuscript now. There are two choices—you hire a professional editor or you edit it yourself. Make sure all the spelling errors are gone and then repeat. Next up, once your manuscript has been edited, formatted, and ready, you need to decide on traditional publishing and self-publishing. I’m not diving deeper for this because it’s really up to your own opinion. However, I would recommend traditional publishing.
Next, I’m moving to to further writing tips. Small errors to you are actually big errors to the readers. For example, please don’t use ‘said’. Don’t write who said the dialogue unless the readers won’t know it. Now, I’m going to list words you should cut out from your novel: Suddenly, Then, Very, Really, Started, Just, Somewhat, Slightly, Somehow, Definitely, Seemed. These are weak words which should not be in your novel.
I’m now going to introduce you to the five major elements in a novel. Do make sure that your novels have all of these elements—Character, Disaster, Situation, Objection, Opponent.
With that in mind, what’s a plot? You often hear the word ‘plot’, right? A plot is NOT about contented characters, character’s thought process, an author trying to send a message. Instead, a plot is about a character’s life which has been destroyed, characters who act and react, characters who interact with each other, characters whose actions and words are shown.
Next, I’m going to talk about seven essential elements you need in your novel. Read closely! Firstly, there’s a need for a trust in the teller. Secondly, familiarity. The more familiar the story is, the more powerful it is. Thirdly, drama. Without drama, the story is just going to be plain and boring. Fourth, agency. What I mean by agency is that the story is most persuasive when readers work out the meaning for themselves. So us authors should learn not to reveal everything. Fifth, simplicity. A simple story is a strong story, so we should take out everything that slides my serve the narrative. Sixth, immersion. The more readers are immersed into the book, the better your book is. Sixth, relatability. The more readers identify with the story, the more persuaded they are that your story is good!
Well, how do you create tension in your story? Firstly, don’t let your character have what they want. Secondly, ask how your character’s situation work. Thirdly, build flaws into the story world. Fourthly, create conflict between characters. Last but not least, increase the consequences of failure of your hero.
To add on, characterisation of your main characters are very important. Both the antagonist and protagonist need flaws an good things about themselves. You need to know each character’s goal and motivation. Their strengths, as well as, habits and appearances. Their personalities.
Next up, let’s talk about what makes a good scene. A scene is something which is very useful in novels. Good scenes include a sense of time and space, a meaningful conflict, plenty of actions and dialogues, a goal where the hero or villain wants something, and an ending which makes you want to turn the page.
I’m also going to cover about ‘show not tell.’ Sometimes, you need to tell and sometimes you need to show. Know what to show and when to tell.
BONUS
If you actually read to the end, thanks! And as a complementary reward, I’m going to add on about tips for writing romance. You must be wondering—as a 13 year-old, how did I manage to write romance? Laugh out loud. I read many romance novels and actually enjoy reading and writing them. So some tips from me. Firstly, you do not just write romance. You add in humour into it. Do not overdo the romance field or your romance novel is going to be crap. Next up, if you’re going to write kissing scenes, do not repeat the same words for every scenes. Adjectives to use are ‘passionate’, ‘affection’ and ‘infatuation’.
Thanks for reading and I hope you find that this is helpful!
Find me on Pinterest @Neveahor13
YouTube @Neveah Hor
Wattpad @Neveahor
goodreads @Neveah Hor
Amazon @Neveah Hor
I hope you liked this article.
Be sure to check out my novel on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B084ZWBQ3N/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=693Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5zBdapWG7H
Thanks for your time. Be sure to hit the like button and happy writing!
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