What we do when we are not gardening > Creative Writing

My Novel

(1/9) > >>

NightHawk:

--- Quote from: ideasguy on August 20, 2012, 10:33:19 PM ---A novel - that's exciting!. Is this your first book?

--- End quote ---
My first one George.

I'm still in the early stages of coming up with a good storyline.  It will be a work of fiction, possibly containing paranormal, drama and romance, as these are popular genres with a lot of readers.

One idea is using the New Forest as a starting point, which already has a connection with real-life witches, so this could be a basis of fact to work on for additional research.  Getting started on a novel is more difficult than you realise, as my initial research has revealed.  You need to have strong characters, some good and some not so good, so you can introduce conflicts into the plot; interesting locations and good dialogue between your characters.

I only need to write between 50,000 to 110,000 words, with most print publishers preferring a word count of around 70,000 for the first novel.  No mean task, and not something you can finish overnight  :D

I've barely scratched the surface of what's really involved in constructing a novel (it could take a topic on its own), so these are just a few of the things to take into consideration.

I don't want to give too much away about my novel at this stage, but one thing I will say is that I will be writing it under a pseudonym  ;)  There are several reasons for doing this.  For example, research has shown that female readers are more comfortable with a female author when it involves romantic novels.  If you're writing a thriller or action novel, the gender is not so critical.  Kathy knows of several authors who have different pseudonyms depending on what genre novel they have written.
My pseudonym will be a closely guarded secret  ;)

I've got my novel-writing software in place - WriteItNow, which keeps all your information properly organised in one place.  You can then concentrate on your novel hassle-free  :)

So, on these days of extreme temperatures or cold winter nights when gardening is not possible, you'll know what I'll be doing.

Palustris:
Best of luck. I gave up trying to get my stuff published. they did not even read it before sending it back.

NightHawk:
I'm prepared for that Eric.  In fact, the advice that most creative writing web sites give is not to get disheartened with manuscript rejections.

With perseverence, you may eventually find the right publisher.

If you have an Editor, then they can sometimes minimise your rejections by suggesting ways to slightly rewrite your manuscript to be more appealing.

I suppose that's all part of the fun of writing.  Every writer would love to be successful and get published, but many don't.

Anyway, I'm a long way off that stage at the moment so I'm staying positive  :D

Palustris:
Well I hope you don't get stuck, like what I am. I have had a story going round my head for ages, so I thought I had better get it written. I have managed the beginning and I know the ending and the way it gets there, but can I write it to my satisfaction? Can I heck.

NightHawk:
Well Eric, this is the place to tell us about it.

Maybe you'll get some inspiration from other people's ideas to kick-start your thoughts, or maybe something will just come to you by talking about it.

Best way is to start a new topic here for your 'book' and see what happens  ;)

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page