I wanna write a book. I just opened my computer fee days ago and started writing with no clue what I was going to talk about but I made it 4 pages easy. i wanna talk about lots of things. But i never done this before. I never wrote a book. Don’t have any plan or a structure and this bothers me. I’m here to ask for help. What should I do. How to make a plan or any tips that will make my journey easier would help appreciated 🙏
Just keep writing. Describe the scene, describe the characters, see what naturally comes. Eventually a plot, setting and stronger idea in your mind will begin to develop. If you're anything like me you'll lie in bed thinking about your story and day by day you'll draw yourself a mental plan for how to evolve it. Then you can either convert that to a full outline, or just keep writing spontaneously.
Writing your first book is like learning how to ride a bike. You have to try and it will happen. If you want to surf or do a wheelie, you will have to wait until you can ride the bike first.
The reason that I say this is because everyone has their own way of writing. Yes, an outline -- as an example of a tip or advice, could help, but not everyone and not for every project. If you are already thinking about making the journey easier, without even knowing what the book is going to talk about, then you are falling for premature optimisation -- which some people believe to be the root of all Evil.
My suggestion would be to continue writing and see how it goes. Learn from your mistakes, find your style and come back and ask about the specific problems you faced.
Other than that, best of luck and hope you make it a worthwhile experience for yourself!
Read On Writing by Stephen King
I think it's important that you know what you want to write about; in my case, I never had a teenage love, so I wrote about that.
Then I became interested in science fiction; what would happen if the economic system completely collapsed? It's a premise I'm working on now.
Just write. That's what a 1st draft is for: getting the story out.
It can be refined during a 2nd draft.
Just write!!
Thank you 🙏
Escribe y escribe, escribe como la mierda, podrías navegar sin tener ese conflicto y explorar esos temas. Luego, en la reescritura, usar tu cabeza pa idear un buen conflicto que explore a todos esos temas y que los explote.
Esa es mi idea, pero podría ser demasiado larga.
You absolutely CAN do it this way; a little over three years ago, I started from the same position, and I am now working with an editor hired by Podium to polish my first volume for publishing.
BUT, and there is always a but, this depends on the type of story you are writing.
If the focus of the story is the characters and their experience of the world around them, rather than an over-arcing plot that extends beyond the MC(s), then this is fine. You can shape the world and the plot around the choices that the MC(s) make. Any antagonists are the people that the MC will naturally run into who will be opposed to the protagonist's actions.
Example: If the MC wants to lay claim to a large area of land to build their own personal keep, then they will need to A) deal with any one who already has a claim on that land, B) anyone else who wants to lay claim to that land, and C) people who don't care about the land, but don't like seeing an 'upstart' growing in power.
That said, you will have to take a lot of notes as you go. You should have separate documents open for various things.
1) Start your glossary now. Every new name goes in there, whether it is a person, place, or thing (that last one is mostly for fantasy/sci-fi settings). Break it up into categories immediately, that will save you a lot of work later.
2) As you write and as you think about your story, you will eventually develop ideas for the future of your story. You will have a separate 'notes' document for these ideas, and anything else you want to keep track of. Sometimes the idea will simply be a question that you ask yourself that will need to be answered later.
3) World building notes (mostly for fantasy or sci-fi stories, but this could also be notes about the town and county that a modern romance takes place in or such, separate and more detailed than the glossary). The difference between this and #2 is that those notes are for the future of your story, while the world building notes are for established things, even if they are not yet established in the text of your story.
If you want to see what this looks like in the form of a fantasy serial, I invite you to read the currently free version of mine: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/57517/no-need-for-a-core
Alternatively, for a story that has already been through polishing, you can look up "Beware of Chicken", as I am 95%+ certain that CasualFarmer started off as a discovery writer.
One thing that happens, or at least, has happened for me, is that while my ideas for the future of my story started very small in scope, I now have loosely defined story arcs that cover multiple books. Every aspect of these plots ties to what the characters are already invested in doing or learning about in some way. From my current point in the story, the only future plot hook that has to come looking for them is that a friend of one of the characters is going to send a letter saying (roughly) "These people need some help that I don't think I can provide, and you know why I don't trust the local government to handle things well. Could you go visit this village and see if you can help?"
Given that the letter writer is a devotee of a god of luck and chaos that is protective of children, it will not surprise readers very much when a book or so later we find out that this 'side quest' turns out to be connected to something else that is of personal interest to some of the main characters. 😁 But all of that starts in like 2 more books.
All of this world building and plotting has grown out of "I have this scene in my head with two characters, and a concept that possibly links them to a third, if I decide to develop things in that direction. If not, then the story will develop in this other direction." I actually had a better idea of what was going to happen if I chose to not introduce the third character, but introducing them felt like the better choice, and I love the story that bloomed from that that decision so very much. It literally altered the nature of the world I was building, as the other route sort of needed to be a touch darker with more opportunity for corrupt/evil spiritual entities to exist.
Oh, and as a final note, if your story has the potential to be a lengthy fantasy or sci-fi, I would consider publishing it as a serial. This gives you opportunities for reader feedback that can improve your writing faster, along with more motivation to write the next chapter as there are presumably followers waiting for the next one. If you decide to go that route, let me know. There is some serial specific advice I can give, and I may give your story a promotion in a future chapter of mine.
I always vet stories before promoting them now, so I am unwilling to make a promise before reading over the early chapters. I did not used to be as stringent about this, and I found myself feeling obligated to promote stories I didn't really want to promote. Funny enough, most of those have died, and I felt so much relief when I could delete those promotions.
Well, it's never easy your first time. But there's some tricks you can use. You are gonna start with the general, and then get into the little things. First try to summarize your story in a single sentence. Let's see an example: A song of ice and fire: "it's an adult fantasy story set in a magical medieval world, where the main story revolves about the end of the world and how unlikely heroes rose to stop it." Sure, there's a billion more things, but that keep the story going. Second, write the story on a whole paragraph, there you can know who the main characters are, what are the main acts of the story, and the big details of the worldbuilding. Once you got that, write the story in 5 or 10 pages, there you can start adding more ideas on top and define the main structure. And then the beginners trick is this: don't try to drag that single big story from beginning to end, instead, create smaller stories within the main one. The main story still serves as a conector, but each chapter could be it's own story onto itself, and even within a chapter there's smaller stories, most of which will end up unresolved, but will add weight to the world. In time you'll refine the tone and the details, but the main theme and story arch will remain fixed. 👌
Great advice, thank you 🙏🙏
Keep dumping info. I will write everything I want in the book, then restructure it once a plan starts coming to mind. Random things I thought I would have to cut out suddenly make sense in two characters conversations. Keep your mind open about where the story could be set. The year. A thousand years ago? Different universe? In a hundred years? Today? The entire book could end up being a dream. The important thing for me is to dump all the info. Then rearrange it as it takes form.
For a lot of writers, story comes naturally and they write as they go. But most if have to plan it, especially when we are new. If you outline your main story, write a synopsis, create chapter by chapter outline, it will be easier to write without affecting your rhythm.
Start thinking about what made you want to write in the first place. What is that one scene that you obsessed about? What is the feeling you want to bring to your reader?
What genre are you intending? Romance? Fantasy? Sci-fi?
For me, I started a notes app in my phone to jot down ideas. I knew I wanted multi-pov, a tiny bit of romance, and a huge epic fantasy with a large cast of characters. I knew I wanted my reader to get their heart broken a dozen times over and really feel the emotion and intensity of each character's struggles. I knew I wanted 2 magic systems. I knew I wanted a regular person's perspective. I knew I wanted a character that suffered from flashbacks.
From there, I just obsessively thought about my world and how to bring the story together. There were lots of shower ideas and late night ponderings for about half a year before I seriously started to write.
Take what you adore from your most favorite media and get inspired. What is it about those stories that you love so much?
Start jotting down ideas and concepts. They don't have to be fully formed ideas. One of the first notes I wrote was like "girl pov, city boy, chosen one, multi povs, magic stuff". Clunky, but it was written down to make space in my mind for new ideas. Don't try to keep everything in your mind because you will forget that cool idea you had at 3am.
If u want to learn where i did, you can go to Reedsy Source: Reedsy https://share.google/btz66zK6M5fhF5PVl
It wasn't the only place, but i can't remember the others they were also free courses too.
Hope this helps somehow.
I recommend a workshop for starters. Here are a few options:
Just send it. There's no pressure just say what you want. Don't worry about content or anything until a second draft
Write about your own life. Free write, take notes, about interesting people, important events, incidents and accidents. Then you’ll probably be able to find inspiration from that.
Write every day - for at least 5 minutes - hopefully ya write longer. A novel is hard - but if ya write every day - those pages gather up at the end of a year - 2 years - whatever. Like mountain climbers, keep yer eyes on the ground, don't look up. Good luck.
Fiction or non fiction
Its non fiction
Start with a primary goal or a solution. Each chapters should be steps towards sobmving the problem. Strt with examples and explain the examples
Thank you 🙏 its about human journey from the childhood to the present from my perspective and how human life and concepts are changing along the path. I’m starting with my memories from childhood, how they affect me and describe every moment of my life that changed something in my. I wanna something like “first man” of Camus. Traveling to the past in memories
Sounds interesting all the best
Whoops, I wish I had read this before writing my reply. 😆
Oh well, maybe my advise will help someone else.
writing is harder than painting. but it's easier to see that nobody wants paintings by painters who can't paint