How to Write a Novel

Chapter Six - 17 Powerful Writing Tips

The following is a list of helpful and practical writing tips that I have discovered over the years:

1. Regarding tense and voice - Try to use the third person and past tense, it's WAY easier!

Regarding present tense: You can run into awkward instances pretty quickly. Usually in life, events happen, then we talk about it. Rarely do we narrate during the event, it would be strange. Imagine saying, "I'm getting punched in the face" while you're getting punched in the face. As a reader you should be like, "Hey, stop telling me your story and defend yourself!" If you notice, most professional authors don't write in present tense and this is the reason why.

Regarding first person: Writing in the first person eliminates pronouns and other names so you end up with a lot of sentences starting with "I". Third person offers many more options such as He, Charlie, Mr. Smith... which is helpful in avoiding dreadful repetition that can annoy readers. Also, if your protagonist is narrating, they can only describe events they experience. Think about it. How could they describe a subplot they are not a part of? So your story is one-sided and you only find out information as the protagonist does, which restricts your creative storytelling. Finally, with first person narratives, your main character cannot die (if you want them to). How can someone be dead and at the same time be describing how the killer got away?

2. Write what you know - Making things up is difficult. If you've run out of things to say, go gain some new experiences, do different things, or meet new people.  

3. Create an outline. I usually storyboard at least three chapters ahead on a legal pad. That way when I sit down, I have an agenda or a general direction for the day. 

4. Don't try to make it perfect on the first go. Just write anything that comes to mind, the real writing begins when you edit. 

5. Make everything relevant to the story. My pet peeve is reading a bunch of blah blah blah that has nothing to do with the story, especially dialogue. You should never use dialogue as filler when you've run out of good ideas. In this case, see steps 2 and 3. 

6. Capture ideas as soon as possible. Always carry your phone or a note pad because you never know when genius strikes. I use the Dragon Dictation app constantly to record my ideas. 

7. Use Crtl H to find any instance of the words "get" or "got" and replace them! 

8. Use Crtl H to find all sentences that start with "Well", and delete 90% of them. 

9. Increase your vocabulary. I don't necessarily mean use bigger or more obscure words, but better words. For example, an assortment is better than a bunch of, and remain is better than stick around.

10. If you are using MS Word, use shortcut keys. My favourites are Crtl F, C, X, V, Z, and S. I also use Crtl end, Crtl home, and Crtl shift end and home.  

11. Learn to use styles in Word, it will save you a lot of time. 

12. Email your story to yourself, save often, save a backup on a USB drive, and even print it out occasionally. 

13. Save as PDF for editing. When you save your document in a different format, or a different font, it changes the look of the document, which tricks your eyes into thinking you're seeing it for the first time. You'll be amazed at how many errors you will notice with this trick! 

14. Read aloud, especially dialogue. Use final draft or some other program to read back your dialogue to see if it sounds right. You can pick up on a lot of flow issues and inconsistencies.  

15. Try starting your writing day by re-reading the last two chapters your wrote. This not only warms you up to the writing process, but it also puts you back in the frame of mind for the story. 

16. When you finish a chapter, you should always put a page break. This will make your life a lot easier when it comes time to do the final formatting.

17. At the start of every chapter, don't put the chapter number, just write "Chapter" and give it an H1 (heading 1 style). This will really help you out when your document nears completion because you can then add and remove (or rearrange chapters) without having to tediously change your entire book starting from chapter 7 to chapter 8, chapter 8 to chapter 9... and so on. Adding the chapter numbers should be the last thing you do. And you can do this really easily by switching to outline mode (under View in Word). If you are not familiar with outline mode, you can select which headings you see. The current setting is All, but if you switch it to show only H1's then all you will see is a long list that says Chapter, Chapter, Chapter... then it makes it really easy for you to put 1,2,3 ...etc, beside each one without having to scroll through 300+ pages.

Good Luck!

http://www.EdwardMullen.com 

http://twitter.com/writermullen

http://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-edward-mullen-podcast/id534847599

http://www.facebook.com/writermullen

http://www.youtube.com/user/writermullen

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0988048736