What I’ve learned so far from writing my novel

Hey Guys! Sorry I have not posted in ages, It’s been hectic with college and assignments.  I’m  on Christmas Holidays for a month so hopefully I can write some more posts!  This post today is about what I’ve discovered from writing my novel. This is just my own advice, if I could go back and talk to my younger self, these are the points  I would get.

Planning it. 

When I first got the story idea for my novel at 13, I just wanted to write it straight away.  There was no way I was waiting, it was bursting inside my head and I had to write it down. So, I went onto Wattpad and wrote the first chapter. Seems fine right? First chapter down. Expect, I knew nothing about my protagonist. All I knew was her name. I didn’t explore her personality, I didn’t write anything about the world she was living in. I didn’t even know where the story was going yet I had managed to write the first chapter? The story did not go anywhere, I constantly avoided writing an outline. I hated outlines.

However, I started writing it properly last year. To make a good story, I knew I had to do all the things I didn’t want to do. I began to outline my story, I thought about my characters, wrote their names out fully, their appearances. What really helped me was creating a pintrest board for each character. It helped me distinguished what each was like etc.  So, if you’ve started writing what you think could be a great story, Please, Please plan it out. It will take awhile and outlines will definitely change as your story evolves but it will help in the long run!!

Try your own writing style.

Every aspiring writing has a author they love and aspire to be like. That is great but you have to remember that you are not that writer. You need to figure out your own writing style. You might write better in 1st person narrative or 3rd person narrative. You might write a lot of free indirect discourse or you might not. For me, I always wanted to write like J.K Rowling or Jenny, the way they captured the worlds they created always made me jealous.

I mean sure its fine to test out your favourite authors writing techniques but don’t get frustrated if they don’t work for you. For example, when I’m writing I listen to a lot of instrumental music, I don’t write chapter by chapter. I write random scenes between characters first. For my current novel (That I am nowhere near finishing) I wrote a lot of key scenes first. I picked what chapters they will be going in and what order. Now I’ll write my chapters around these scenes. It will take you awhile to figure it out but you’ll get there!

Focus on the story as a whole.

So, I am hoping to write a trilogy series with this story. I often find myself straying onto Book two with ideas for that before I’ve even finished book one!. When I mean focus on story, I mean let those ideas flow. Don’t worry about trailing off onto the other books you might be thinking about. If you’ve got an idea for those write it down. Sometimes it helps to plan out the sequel as it lets you think about what events in book one led to those in book two.  I defiantly have benefited from planning book two!

Finally, Don’t stress about not getting it right!

I always get annoyed when I feel like my writing isn’t flowing. Sometimes when I write a chapter, I feel like a four old has written it after I read it for editing. Don’t worry. You wont always get to write brilliantly 24/7. You will have off days.

You will always get days where you have a scene in your head and no matter how hard you try, you can’t seem to write it the way you’ve played it out in your head. This constantly happens me, there is nothing worse. I think to help this, you should go listen to some music, take a walk, just clear your head forget about the scene. It will come to you, when you come back look at it from another angle. If you still cannot get it, write down the plot and move on. You can always come back to it!

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That is it for today my Loves! Thank you for reading, drop a comment and let me know some of your advice. What do you do while writing?

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Have a great day! x

-Lauren