If You Dream of Writing a Novel, Why Not Write Your First Novel?

Because these few did not stop for a long time at the dream station, but rather crossed it independently of the train of creativity, to reach a goal that they have been turning their faces towards.

In order to follow your dream, it is necessary to understand all it takes to achieve that dream. And when your dream is to write a wonderful novel, and to be a successful novelist, you must sit down with yourself and have a frank dialogue with yourself, asking yourself and answering with all transparency:

• Am I talented?
• Do I have a passion for reading, especially reading novels?
• Do I have a fertile imagination?
• Do I have the minimum ability to express and language?

If the answers to these questions are yes, you are eligible to take the test.

The beginning is the most difficult step, and after that you will find the stages chasing each other.. If you ask where do I start? You will find in this article what will benefit you, knowing that the novel is a creative work that you cannot write according to a pre-drawn road map, but you must give it from your spirit and personality. What we offer you here are tips to help you get started.

Decide on the idea you will write your novel about

Before that, you have to define your passion, it is not reasonable to be passionate about reading romance novels, and then decide to write a historical novel, or to be passionate about science fiction novels and then write a realistic novel.

So, before you define the idea of ​​your novel, you must determine the genre of fiction that you will write about, and then define the idea, for example: if you decide to write in the field of science fiction, you can write about a person from an ancient time, buried in the ice of the polar region, but he woke up after The snow melted and its cells returned to life, and many events were built around the idea, or that one of the pharaohs came back to life in some way, to the other ideas that serve this narrative direction.

The idea is the axis of the story, which, with other elements, forms the basis of the narrative construction.

Learn about the building blocks of a narrative

The story is the most important element of the narrative construction, and the other elements come to revolve around it. such as characters, time, place, conflict, plot, ending, and language. Here's what you need about them.

Draw the characters of your novel

Each novel has central characters around which the events revolve, and complementary minor characters, who must be present to complete an event or to clarify an idea.

As for drawing characters, it is not limited to the formative (physical) dimension of them; It is not enough to mention that the protagonist of your novel is tall, broad-shouldered, with blue eyes and a short beard, in addition to other formal descriptions. But it is necessary to draw its social, psychological and cultural dimensions. This makes it easier for you to deal with her during the narration, as her behaviours and reactions will follow the dimensions you drew for her in advance.

• What is the time of the novel?

Time is a spiritual being that is perceived through the sensory being. The progress and development of events means the progression of time. In the novel, in addition to the time of the occurrence of the event, which is inevitable in most novels (except for fantasy novels), there is also the timing of the event (day or night, winter or summer, etc.), which the novelist expresses in an indirect creative way (such as talking about the short shadows of things). To express noontime, and the hero wears his thick jacket to express winter time.. there are other expressions that you have to invent).

Likewise, every event has a specific period of time, which may be long or short, depending on the length or shortness of the narration. It may talk about a few moments with several pages, and it may talk about months with several lines. This is up to you and the event and its effect on the reader.

You must link the events together in time, and the most used technique in this context is flashback technology, which links the narration time to a previous time using a sensory tool for linking, such as seeing someone repeating previous events to the character, or hearing a voice similar to his voice, etc. .

• The place in the novel

The place in the novel is of great value and is closely linked to time. You remember the rain that falls on the grass or the desert, or knocks on the windows of houses, and you remember the morning shining over a room in which some events are taking place.

The place may be closed or open (room - garden), and it may be public or private (restaurant - house), some of which are visible, and some of which cannot be seen, so it must be imagined (the beach, the street, the school - heaven, fire, space stations), and so on. It is a pair of opposites in places that can have an impact on characters and events.

• Imagine the events and put them on paper

The event in the novel is what the characters do within the limits of time and place, and therefore the events of the novel as a whole form the story. It is not required that the events in the novel follow at the same pace, but rather their pace increases at times and calms down at other times in a way that prevents the reader from getting bored.

• Create a conflict

The conflict is the most influential point in the novel, and it is between two forces, they may be two people or two armies, and one of them may be moral such as a person’s struggle with his desires, with his conscience, or with his circumstances.

• Weave the threads

The novel may include multiple conflicts and many events that need to be arranged, to reach the reader in the best way, and here comes your role as a novelist, to work on engineering your novel in a way that does not confuse its flow and reaches the reader smoothly.

Language is the bearer of the novel, so do not make it out of your interest

By language we do not mean here that you have a poetic language and creative analogies. In the novel, you can succeed by using simple sentences in writing, but they are not broken. As for the poetic and graphic images, if they come to you on their own during the flow of the narration, you are welcome, and if you do not attend, do not cost them. What is important is the integrity of the language, the strength of expression, and the smooth transition between sentences. There is nothing wrong with resorting to a language proofreader after you have finished your novel, as this is much better than making your novel with its mistakes, because the first novel will be the one that will introduce you to the audience.

I cannot fail to tell you that the language of the novel will range between two forms: narration and dialogue.

As for the narration, you have the option to present it on the lips of a witness or absent narrator, or on the lips of one of the characters who will take over the narration, which will be in the first person, and thus the point of view of this character will be the guiding factor for the novel. Some novelists resort to the multiplicity of narrators, where they transfer the helm of speech from one narrator to another / either from one character to another or from the narrator character to the witness narrator.

While the dialogue that takes place between the personalities, it is used for various purposes, including introducing the characters, or conveying some events or otherwise, and the dialogue can be between one and oneself in an audible dialogue with the self, or between one and nature, animals or plants. Here, the writer's ingenuity in employing dialogue to serve the idea stands out, so that it is not just a useless talk behind it.

• Create an amazing ending

Ordinary endings do not affect the reader for long, so the farther your conclusion is from the reader's expectations, the longer the novel remains in his mind, so be sure to write a novel that accompanies the reader for a long period.

The endings of novels in general may be closed so that the story reaches its end decided by the novelist, or open in which the writer leaves the room open to the reader’s imagination, but directs him to imagine the end he wants, because open endings are often expected, and if not for that, they would not be called an end.

• Read what I wrote over and over

After completing your draft, re-read it, and each time you find it needs some adjustments, read it until you are satisfied with it, then send it to a critic you trust to provide you with their feedback.

Now re-read it for the last time, keeping the notes in mind, and after this last modification, we can say to you: Congratulations on your first novel, you can begin the journey of searching for a publisher to print it.