In this guide you will find 11 keys to mastering your fiction writing dreams. How do you start? Think in the name of what and why you want to write a book. What do you want to share with the readers, what would you tell, how do you want to motivate them? However, the appropriate answer might be simple like “I want to write a book to become famous.”
If you are an author of dedicated or business literature, find a topic that excites you, that you understand well, or you can call some experts to help you.
In the book you can collect wisdom of many people or advices that were given to you by your parents and helped you to achieve success in life. You can write about your life experience and your professional grow or describe the biography of famous personalities.
Alternatively, you have always wanted to tell people about the imaginary worlds and their characters, to open a fantasy world of the past, present or future? These are great topics for a book. It will find its reader for sure. Whether it’s prose, poetry or non-fiction, the advice is always only one: you need to start!
Make a plan or a draft of your story
If you want to create a work of art, a book plan or storyline will help you to go forward easily in writing and create a complete text as a result.
The plan may look different: it might be chapters following each other, that look like the usual content of the book or a map of thoughts or just a sequence of events. If you are not ready to make a plan, write down all the ideas that swarm in your head on separate cards, and then try to collect them into a single picture.
In addition, some short references outlining the key features and characteristics of the main characters of the book might be very useful too. This card files will make the characters more alive and show them more clearly.
How to start writing a book
Start no matter what. Little time? Don’t have a quiet place to be alone? Thoughts are confused, and you do not understand what will the first chapter be? Leave these excuses and sit down at any table, call it a working space and start writing.
Many authors write non-linearly: they start from the middle, from the end, skip from a thought to a thought. This technique allows you to maintain the degree of interest and efficiency. Write what you feel now, and then you will arrange the chapters in the right order, frame them with an introduction and conclusion.
First write, then edit
“Write drunk, edit sober,” Ernest Hemingway advised. Whether or not to involve alcohol in the process of writing is a personal decision, but the truth is that you must write first, surrendering your impulse completely and immersing in a state of flow, and after a while, you need to return to the written text and edit it. Trying to polish the text in the process of writing, you get out of the state of flow, lose your thought and some non-standard turns. However, it is much more effective to write 10 thousand characters of “unpolished” text than 3-4 thousand of ready to printing.
The Hurricane Method by Lindsay Lake
