How To Find The Novel That Only You Can Compose
- Posted by Essays Blog in Essays Blog |
- December 22nd, 2008 |
- Comments
Most people believe writing a novel is just writing. I have lost count of the number of people who have “I deprivation to compose a novel” and believe that they will just sit, put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, and the entire abstraction will just develop before them. I’ve read a few novels, they believe, why can’t I compose one?
If only it were that easy!
The process of writing any account is exactly that, a process. And whether you are tackling a novel, a abbreviated account, an essay or a non-fiction book, you need to begin by planning your account.
This is the most ignored arrange in the writing process, and yet it is by far the most important. JK Rowling exhausted five years planning the Harry Potter novels. And that certainly paid off, didn’t it?
The key to writing any account advantageously, is to find the account that only you can compose. This account carries your own emotional actuality, and as you progress finished the account writing process, your character will accept you on the journey of emotional growth just as they will your readers once it’s published.
The Deeper Character Journey
The deeper character journey is the most important aspect of any account. It is what your readers will remember and it is what makes the process of writing a account so worthwhile for the writer. Every time you accept your character on a journey, you go on that journey yourself.
So how do we find that deeper character journey? Where do we begin?
We begin with this simple exercise:
Without cerebration overmuch about it, finish this condemn:
• I am interested in writing a account where the main character discovers the importance of ………………
Compose for 5 minutes, preferably in long hand, allowing whatsoever comes capable just flow onto the page.
When you have finished you will find that you have written a lot of different values into your answer. Values are coupling qualities of human experience, either positive or negative. Accept a few moments to divide these values into their positive and negative groups. You’ll find that a few similar ones in each group will excel, so isolate these and so decide on the most important ones from each group.
Once you have done this you can now compose your deeper character journey in one simple condemn.
• I am interested in writing a account about a character who goes from being….. to being…..
What is your character’s imperfection?
Every character has a imperfection &ndash something they need to learn to have a better life. Your character’s imperfection should now be pretty clear to you, as it is strongly connected to what they need to learn the importance of from the above exercise. With your character’s imperfection in place, you can now begin to put them and their imperfection low pressure and short your account is off and running.
Predicament
Stephen King says he starts a account with a character in a predicament and watches them to accompany how they get out of it. So at the start of your account your main character must be in any kinda predicament or cragfast in any artifact. The predicament your main character is in should be a symptom of their imperfection. They are aware of their predicament, but they are not aware of their imperfection.
For example, a character who needs to learn the importance of patience, is cragfast subsurface on a broken down train. He becomes more and more exasperated and angry as the minutes mark by as he needs to be at an important meeting. As he’s subsurface his mobile phone has no sign, and he also can’t just jump off the train, as the doors are electronically sealed, and besides he’s subsurface so he can’t just swan off up the tracks in the dark.
So we know our character’s predicament will expose his imperfection, which is impatience. The question for you to answer is, what does he do? How does he respond? What choice does he make? And he will make that choice based on his personal values.
Values in Conflict
Conflict lies at the heart of all powerful stories. It is a advantageously aged adage in account writing that nothing moves forward in a account except finished conflict.
But a good account also isn’t just a film of random conflicts, things that happen with no apparent pattern or meaning. It is a broadcast of events, putting your character(s) low more and more pressure, forcing them to respond. This so shows us their accurate character.
Values lie our choices, our decisions, and in storytelling they drive the account finished the characters being forced to make difficult decisions where their values are challenged. A duration is a belief group based on what is important to the individual. A duration represents something in your character’s life that they are choice to fight for. So if you have a married Black who is attracted to another man, her choice of whether to go with the other man or act with her husband will be based on the values of romance versus fidelity or loyalty.
Once you have nailed the values implicit your character’s choices, you will have connected strongly with your character’s deeper journey. This in activity connects you to your readers, who will recognise similar conflicts in their own lives.
And you also have the essence of the account that only you can compose.