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This document provides an overview of the basics of novel writing, including prewriting techniques like brainstorming and free writing, standards for formatting drafts, developing characters and plots, using different points of view, writing scene transitions, and completing a first draft while avoiding common pitfalls. The goal is to guide new writers through the process of crafting a novel from initial ideas to a polished first draft.
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Novel class preview
- 1. The Basics of Novel Writing Guyton-Moore Strategic Services LLC Udemy.com Preview
- 2. Introduction Writing Tools Prewriting Formatting Drafts Writer’s Block Types of Conflict Types of Characters Character Development Plot Development Point of View Objective Verses Subjective Transitions Continuity Word Tense Professional Editing Things Avoid
- 3. Brainstorming What is brainstorming? • Your own ideas • Not a coherent story • Does not need defense or censorship • Only as long or short as you want • Do not feel pressured to list or connect ideas
- 4. Free Writing What is Free Writing • Free Writing very similar to similar to brainstorming. • Takes the form of full coherent sentences • Does not need punctuation or grammar • DO NOT CENSORE YOURSELF!
- 5. Audience Your work should appeal to your chosen audience. So you must decide your book’s: • Intended Age Group • Intended Gender • Intended Education Level • Intended Social Status • Intended Race
- 6. The Industry Standard 1 Standards Align to the left hand side only Use 12pt Times New Roman font. (Courier and Arial may also be accepted) Only black text Lines double spaced with no space between paragraphs. Single space between sentences and after periods. Example Riya sighs and take out a comb from under a book on the desk beside her then walks over Raven. She combs out her hair after she sees Raven is still half asleep. “It’s because I feel as though I’ve seen them before. That is why I know our powers won’t work on them and we won’t be enough ourselves.” Riya responds. “Was it a memory… did you remember something about who you were?” Raven wails and turns around to face Riya. Excerpt from They With Silver Eyes By Paxton Gordon
- 7. The Industry Standard 2 Standards Indent new paragraphs and each new section of dialogue, with the exception of the opening paragraph of a chapter or scene break. Your typesetter will later change this so the first paragraph of a chapter is not indented. You indent every paragraph. The correct way to do this is to use a style in your word processor that automatically indents each paragraph half an inch. Indicate scene breaks by inserting one line with three asterisks centered(*) . Example Smith (Novel) Page 3 Chapter 1 Rise of Lorem Ipsum Et eam oporteat oportere neglegentur, eum et malorum cotidieque voluptatibus, vel ut meis ponderum. Ex mel everti quaeque. Ius laoreet nostrum et, no purto tota vis. * * * ________________________________________________________________ Appellantur dissentiunt est id, vis ut corpora indoctum consectetuer, eu molestiae incorrupte quo. Mei accumsan signiferumque ex, velit neglegentur ex cum. Cu vis inermis vivendum legendos, has option conceptam ex.
- 8. First Draft Things to Avoid Titles References Editing Just Write Now let’s move on it is Important that for your first draft you focused all of your attention on writing. In your first draft what you want is to put down all of your ideas.
- 9. First Draft 2 Quality The quality of the first draft is not something that you should be discouraged by. Authors the world over has accepted the work first draft to be the worst draft. Every author has begun where you are now. Every bestseller starts with their first draft. Writing Under Deadline Treat your writing as a job Keep track of how much you’ve written Allot time to writing Hold yourself accountable for your deadline
- 10. First Draft 3 Set Interim Goals Don’t look at the whole break it up into parts. Try to write 1000 words a day Reward yourself for completing your goals Set a reasonable deadline Balance Balance is the world building, backstory, character development and the plot elements in your story. As a writer you will have to be able to weave these things into a coherent story.
- 11. First Draft 4 Keep in mind that your first draft is not permanent. Think of your work as clay. You can form it into whatever shape you want. Your work is soft and malleable. It is messy and unrefined. But it is the raw material necessary for you to make your sculpture. It is Clay Not a Sculpture
- 13. First Person Advantages of this POV are: You will only have to write from one mind. The distinction of the internal voice To some people this one is the most natural. Since the story is from one perspective you can have an unreliable narrator allow us to see through the skewed mind of the narrator. Disadvantages of this POV are: You are limited to only what the narrator can see or feel. Your narrator must always be in the action or observing. You can see into the minds of others to show internal thoughts or feelings.
- 14. Meanwhile in the City… When transitioning scenes it is important that you establish Time (Date) POV Character(s) in scene Setting Mood or tone of the Setting
- 15. Transitions Not all transition happen in-between chapters. For transitions within chapters you want to implement a visual aid *** or ### centered.
- 16. Thank You! If you’re interested in taking the full course go to https://www.udemy.com/novelwritingbasics/learn/v4/overview only available on udemy.com. To find out about us go to http://gmsspublishing.com or follow us on Facebook contact us at mooreisbetterllc@gmail.com We are also taking submissions at this time $10 off when you put in the code: GMSSWRITINGPREVIEW Guyton-Moore Strategic Services LLC Publishing Division 2016
Editor's Notes
- (Pre-Slide Intro) Hello and welcome to Guyton-Moore Strategic Services The Basics of Novel Writing Course. I will be your Instructor Clarence Moore. I am the Publishing Director and an Author for Guyton-Moore Strategic Services. We all have a story to tell. No matter how small or how big. Maybe you’ve just started thinking about it or have been toying with the idea for years. Where do you start? What format do you follow? What are some tools you can use? Why should pay for your course? Well let me answer that last question with a question. Do you want to be successful? To write a novel you must set goals. Success takes work and setting reasonable goals makes success obtainable. Whether you want to write a book on the health benefits of chocolate covered bacon or, A memoir of how you got that scar on your arm or, maybe a science fiction thriller, regardless of your genre or niche you will need the know how to plan for success. So let me ask you again do you have a goal? Do you plan for success? Let us be apart of that plan. With us we will make sure you are armed with the tools you'll need for your plans to lead you to success. We look forward to aiding you in your Success story. Hello again and welcome to Guyton-Moore Strategic Service’s Novel Writing course. As I said before my name is Clarence Moore Publishing Director.
- In this course we will be looking extensively into the following subjects. (Read subjects) Each one play’s an invaluable role in producing the best possible quality of work. Now before we delve right in I want you know that by choosing us you have taken a great step in becoming a better writer and author.
- Brainstorming is the first step to the prewriting strategy. In this step you will write your ideas down in any fashion you choose. Your plot, your character’s names, places, your theme anything that comes to mind. Please understand that in this step you are not trying to write a coherent story. Also understand that this if for you. So there is no need to censors yourself or limit your ideas. You don’t need to defend a plot or character or why you want it to take place in Paris. You should not feel pressured to list, order or connect ideas. That comes in later steps.
- Free writing in a way is like brainstorming but takes on the shape of full sentences. It is in this technique that you write out your ideas as they come to you in full sentences. It is also in this stage that you write for you, meaning punctuation and grammar are unnecessary. Remember that in this stage the main point is to let your ideas flow and to write them down on paper in a manner that you can understand. Do not censor yourself if you think it write it down.
- When you are writing any form of literature it is important that you know who you are writing for. This will affect how you should write. How mature your language should be and the type of words you choose. So before you get ready to write think about who you are writing to. Do you want to write a romance for example? Well who then would be your audience? In the US romance is a genre with a in a reader population that is overwhelmingly female, age between 30 to 54. Also the majority of romance novels are bought mostly in southern states. Lastly the average income of the romance book buyer is $55,000. This means that in order for you to have the highest possibility of selling you would need to appeal to women between those ages. If you’re writing a children’s book however the will have to change your writing style. Your choice of words should be simpler. Because the audience you’re trying to reach out to his much younger. So whenever you are trying to decide your audience it is important that you know the: Age Group, Gender, Education, Social Status and Race you want to appeal to so that your book has the greatest chance to become a bestseller.
- The Industry standard is what is generally what is accepted by publishers, Editors and Typesetters. Of course if you have a publisher use the format they give you. If not follow the industry standard format. For the next few slides we will be going this format. As you can see on the right we have the industry standers. (Read Standards). On the Right we have an example of what this format looks like.
- Now we will continue the Industry Standards (Read Standards). It is important that when it comes to indentation you do so the right way. The wrong way will be to press tab or insert several spaces before several each paragraph. Please only indent the way prescribed.
- Things to Avoid Titles; What should you name your work. It’s important right is one of those things that gives your work its stable. There’s nothing better than telling people that I’m writing a book and it’s called “How to Jump Merrily Through The Rain”. However when writing your first draft titles are not important in fact you should focus your attention on writing rather than coming up with a fancy title. And if this is your first work and you are planning on going the route of the publisher you should know that some publishers do not allow for the author to choose the name of their first book. That goes to the marketing department. Don’t let that detour you though they do take your suggestions into account. We will discuss that later and are publishing course. The next thing to avoid are References. Please avoid trying to find references. Although this will be important in later drafts finding references is not important for your first. The first draft should be focused on writing not looking for references. The last thing to avoid in first draft is Editing. Not that editing your work is bad and in fact it may seem strange that you’re not going to edit your work as you go but hear me out. The first draft is about writing your story from beginning to end not to take the time editing that comes in later drafts. So resist the urge and continue writing on. Just Write: while you are writing your first draft you will be focusing your attention on writing and writing alone. What you want is to get your manuscript from beginning to end so that it is easier to see changes that need to be made later on. Your first draft will be written in your voice whether you are writing a narrative or an informational piece. It is in this step that you will be putting down all of your information because the most important thing is that you write.
- Quality The first draft quality is never good so do not be discouraged by what you see. You have written a diamond in the rough. All it will need is a little polishing, some shaving off of unnecessary plots, some tightening of ideas in your gem will shine brightly. What is important about your first draft is that you lay down the groundwork to make your book tower over the competition. And it may help to remember that every author big and small have begun where you are. A blank page and a mind full of ideas. Writing under a deadline whether you have a publisher or not it is important that you treat your writing as if it were a job. Set a deadline and hold yourself accountable. Allot time to your writing and in that time devote yourself to it. Keep track of how much you write so that you will meet your deadline. If you have a publisher than they will give you a deadline but, if you don’t be sure to hold yourself accountable or have a friend or family member do that.
- Set interim goals A full-length novel can be anywhere between 75,000 to 150,000 words some even longer. This can be 200 pages or more. If you think about it this way it can seem intimidating to have to write so much. So break up your thinking decide to write maybe five pages a day (1500 words). These will be your interim goals. Say that in a month you’re going to write four times a week with 1500 words each session. It seems a lot more doable that way. Maybe 1500 words is too much well set your goals according to your ability. Reward yourself for completing your goals set a reasonable deadline and take a weekend off. It’ll give you time to think and you can come back to the table feeling renewed and accomplished. You don’t want to burn yourself out. Balance Balance is a big subject. When I say balance I mean world building, backstory, character development and the plot elements in your story. As a writer you will have to be able to weave these elements together into a coherent story. Some people may not have a problem with balancing out these elements. Others are not so lucky to have this ability. Whenever it comes to writing there will be times in which you will have to shift gears. If you can’t find a good balance In a scene or section and you find yourself constantly going back and forth trying to fit in action and information it may be best for you to jot down a note and move on. In the note you should explain to yourself what you want to be in that section to remind yourself later. Remember that your first draft is about writing your story from beginning to end and getting to the end. It is easier to come back and fill in those gaps because you will already know what you have written later down the road.
- In this graph we have our regular plot graph with our Subplot graft shown in blue. As you can see a subplot in much the same fashion as a plot. In the subplot you will have the exposition rising action a climax of falling action and the resolution even if that resolution is that the continuation of the plot. These are also called story arcs. Note that the story arcs are supposed to run parallel to the novel and is meant to add complexity and depth to the story thereby increasing tension. These subplots or story arcs can be used to show various aspects of the characters in the book, connecting readers with them thus adding interest in the story.
- In the subjective case, the singular form of the first person is “I,” and the plural form is “we.” “I” and “we” are in the subjective case because either one can be used as the subject of a sentence. You constantly use these two pronouns when you refer to yourself and when you refer to yourself with others. The first person was once the most popular method but much less now. This point of view is good for a strong protagonist driven story. Which you limit yourself to what is around your protagonist.
- Scene transitions need to identify place, time, and viewpoint character, especially if there’s been a change in any of the three. If the new scene has a change in mood or tone, that should also be established right away. If the viewpoint character has changed, identify the new viewpoint character right off by naming him. Time and place can be established in any number of ways. By naming the place describing the place describing the event mentioning the time, day or date showing a character doing something we already knew he’d be doing at a set time or in a particular place
- Scene changes within chapters Not all scene changes occur between chapters. Sometimes you need a scene change within a chapter. For a visual aid, add ###, centered on a line, to indicate a scene transition in a manuscript. (Such symbols are often changed to extra line spaces in printed books.) Use the techniques mentioned above to identify the scene change. If it’s only point of view that’s changing, be sure to identify the new viewpoint character immediately. (A change in point of view qualifies as a change in scene because the reader is in the head of a different character—different thoughts and emotions. There’s probably a different tone to this section as well, as you’d expect with a different character’s personality.) Unless you’re a famous author who makes a bundle of money for your publisher, do not change point of view in the middle of a scene. Never change POV within a paragraph.
- I