Writing Wednesday (3) - How to start

Disclaimer: I'm not an author nor am I an editor or any kind of expert. I only can share my aspiring adventures with you, but I do hope, it'll help many other aspiring writers and we can go along the road together. :)


Last week I talked about taking the first step from aspiring and actually start your long long journey on the road towards getting published and today I'll be talking about how to start your first piece of writing. It's a very tedious job. It takes much more time than a layman would think. Planning and planning, doing a lot of research, more planning, it sometimes can take as much time as writing the novel. Nonetheless, it's an essential part of writing, and it can be fun! Not to mention interesting...

#1 Come up with an idea

Everything comes down to a basic, often quite faint, idea. You need something that you can write about, something that you build on. Dwell a bit on it though, try to figure out what would be the action in it and see if it could work, because you might have bajillions of ideas, but not all of them will work.

#2 Research, research, research

The span of the research may vary a lot, depends on the topic, how much would you use of the real information and how much you would like to imagine yourself, procedures you might not know about enough, and so on. However, you do need it to depict a realistic picture to your reader and also hidden historical basics can add a lot of interest and fun to your novel.

#3 Create your characters 

Shape them meticulously as though they were real people. Imagine everything, even things that the reader won't find out about them in the novel, and get to know them. There are myriads of character sheets on the Internet, the best is to use more and then you won't miss anything. Here are a few I use:















Also, you can find stunningly profound sheets here: http://fuckyeahcharacterdevelopment.tumblr.com/post/50825149893/character-sheets-and-character-creation

#4 Plan the plot

There are several different methods to plan the plot. How to choose among them? You'll feel it, trust me on this. So I'm going to present all of them to you, but in fact these are only terms. If you start it - before reading this post -, you'll already know which suits you best. After reading this, you'll even know what it's called. :)


Basically there are plotters and pantsers. Plotters are the ones who painstakingly plan every little detail before they start writing, not just the flow of the story and chapters, but even the chapters broken off into scenes. Whereas pantsers are more spontaneous. Although they also do have the chapter break down (it's necessary for everybody at least up until the half of the novel), they generally don't plan so carefully than the plotters. They often let the story go on its own after a while, they aren't afraid to make bigger changes during writing.



Writing breakdown:




If it's a series...


1.) first book's conflict

2.) second book's conflict

3.) third book's conflict



Inside



1.) It can be divided into books inside the book

2.) Plot points & Acts  
 
   - beginning (setup)
   - middle (confrontation)
   - end (resolution)

   Among the parts there are the plot points that moves on the        story to the next stage.

3.) Chapters
   
    - conflicts
    - scenes
    - dialogues



#5 Start writing



The crucial part. You can finally start writing! :) (Not easier than any of the prior steps.)

Extras:

Write a blurb



Not as easy as it sounds. In fact, it can be pretty nasty to pen a decent synopsis, but if you do it, you'll have a nice little summary that may help remind you were are you heading. It's recommended to read some other books with the same genre as your book's to get a picture what it should look like.



Loglines/Hooklines



A logline is a one or two line summary of a book, play or movie.


A hookline is one or two sentence summary of your novel that will hook someone into wanting to read your book.

They are very similar, often interchangeable.


Don't forget to include:


- the protagonist
- their goal
- the antagonist/antagonistic force

Learn more: here and here



Create a playlist:



I personally have a harder time with writing without music than with it. Music helps me get into my book's mood/atmosphere. I have to turn it down though, since if it's rather loud I can't concentrate on writing.