Novel Writing: 5 Easy Tips

Writing a novel is difficult. No-one can deny that. However, after recently finishing a novel writing course, I think it’s safe to say I picked up some good tips and tricks on making my novel writing adventure a lot easier. Although it would be nice to keep these ideas all to myself, I’m here to teach you about 5 tips that will help you become a novel writer!

1. Practice writing one sentence.

Now, I know you’re looking at that thinking “but I’m much smarter than writing just one sentence” and you’re completely correct. Although writing one sentence is not going to magically turn you into the next J.K. Rowling, this tip has helped me stay creative. Whether it’s googling “sentence starters”, or just staring at a random object and thinking “I’m going to create a sentence about that”, writing one sentence prompts me to write more. That way, a sentence becomes a paragraph and soon enough I have a crazy new idea.

Perhaps start with: “Many years ago…”

This ambiguous sentence starter has endless possibilities. Use your imagination, spark your creativity, and write just one sentence. You never know what will come of it!

2. Read (and steal ideas!)

When writing a novel, reading is just as important as the writing itself! I’m not saying you should copy someone’s story, change the names and claim it as your own BUT I am suggesting that you read and perhaps jot down any ideas you find interesting.

Here’s a list of things to look out for that you could use from other people’s writing:

- names

- particular phrases

- the style of writing

- scene ideas

A little bit of stealing ideas never hurt anybody! After all, George Orwell did “borrow” the ideas from the Russian novel “We” to create “1984”. If he can do it, you can too!

3. Plot Plan

This one is so important. Whether you’ve just had the idea to write a novel, or maybe you’re two chapters in but you’re not sure where to go next, you need to plot plan! At first, I found this really difficult but I decided to break it up to make it easier for myself.

Instead of sitting down and thinking “I need to create an entire plot right now!!”, I decided to plan the first four chapters. I limited myself to 130 words to describe each chapter so that the total of the four chapters would be (roughly) 500 words. At the end of each description I used the phrase: “this will maintain the reader’s interest because…”,which helped me stay focused on the reader's intrigue for each chapter.

If that still seems too much, try to break your novel down into beginning, middle and end. It may seem simple, but it is the most effective way in working out how you want your novel to be structured.

4. Fictionalise a true-life story

Go with the basics; a mug of spilt coffee, a blind date that turned into a distaster... whatever it may be that has happened to you recently, fictionalise it. Turn yourself into a character and turn a one of your daily occurrences into an interesting plot.

This exercise helps you stay creative and helps you focus on your descriptive writing. Writing a novel can sometimes be difficult when you haven’t experienced the things you’re writing about. If you’re writing a war novel the likelihood of you knowing what it’s like to go to war is small. However, you’re going to know what it feels like to be waiting for a train, so write about it!

Take a mundane experience and turn it into a fictional wonder! Soon, you’ll realise it’s easy to be descriptive and your writing will get better.

5. Write a scene in two POV’s

Take one scene from your novel and write it in two character’s point of views. Take your main character and a key character, or a key character and a minor character and write the scene from two perspectives.

Say two characters are having an argument, write it from both sides and try to explore all the emotions of both characters. Although novels are usually written from one point of view, writing in two different perspectives helps you understand your characters and how to write them. Writing in both 1st person as the character and writing in 3rd person about the character is great a practice.

For example, if you write in a 1st person perspective: "I couldn't believe he thought I was wrong. I was so annoyed."

You can then write in third person: “[character name] pursed her lips, rolling her eyes in the process.”

The two sentences convey the same meaning of the character being annoyed, yet one is from a personal perspective and TELLS the emotions, whereas the 3rd person POV allows you to SHOW the emotion. This exercise will help improve your 'show and not tell' skills.

I hope this article helps, and I hope to see all of your published novels soon after this!

Happy writing!