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I do I start a novel. Now that's a question I'm not often asked. And the reason is there's nobody really thinks about how to start or what the process of writing a novel is. Because most often, when we feel the call to write a novel it's that we have a story to tell. We want to just be writing. We want to be a writer now.

Writers should ask that question, because I would love to answer that for many of you who come to me with 20,000 words written and your whole story told, and that's when I want to ask you, well, how did you start? And more than that, how did you think you were going to continue? Because starting the novel is really a process.

Identifying what it is you're writing. And I want to put it all the way back to the very first decision you make when you decide, I want to write a novel is to interrogate what novel. And by that very specifically, I mean, what genre on what shelf in the bookstore shop I'm going to stock your book on Amazon, in which two categories.

Or ideally one, am I going to list your novel? So the first decision an author makes is getting care on that. And I can't tell you how many writers come to me with a hundred thousand word book, and I've worked on it for five years and I go to them. I'm sorry. I'm not caring what the genre of the book is.

So please get this right at the very beginning. Know what you are writing. That's how you start. And then you start by thinking, well, in this realm, in this romance, in this crime, in this Young Adult and this medical thriller in this forensic crime novel, who are the character. And what are the, what is the world that they live in?

Cause that's very important. Dystopian fiction has different worlds to crime, to thriller, to romance. So what's the world I'm creating. And then who are the characters who are the people who are going to come alive in this book? And then what. Is my hero going to have to go on. And I can frame that very specifically because the basic understanding of a novel journey, is it a, we as reader of following a hero or heroine, or is it on an adventure that is going to challenge them, stretch them, demand everything of them, make them grow, make them Scrabble and, and, and grapple with life and with an issue.

So we starting with genre, we locating it in world. What is this world we want to create in the book, but then most importantly, you are the characters and on the fourth level, who's the hero, the single hero, because as much as we can have an ensemble cost, we as readers want to follow a individual's journey.

And that's how you start a book, how you continue a novel and how are you going to read it to continue reading a novel is you start to ask yourself, what is this adventure? Hero is going on, but in a very basic way, in a very linear way, what are the events and the people and the challenges that they are going to have to encounter that is going to ask them to become more of who they are.

And these events old, we ultimately are going to call your plot, these stack together one after the other, as the page turns more and more and more these things that happen to, or hero with them. In against them are the events that drive and become your plot. Those are the beginning building blocks of novel writing.

And then how you continue a novel is you make the time you make the commitment and the discipline to ensure you're sitting in front of that blank screen. That there is time in your diary to allow these characters and this plot that you already have thought of in your head on a point form on sticky notes, on an Excel spreadsheet, call an outline, whatever word you want to use, but this journey we're going to go on that you create the time and the space for those words to form on a page.

And that's not how you just start, but how you continue writing. And unless you have enough of a journey lined up for them to go on enough obstacles, trials, allies, enemies, foes, and that, unless you have enough of the. We are going to get to 20,000 words and tell your story. So we want that to stretch. We want your book to be long enough to be an 80,000 word journey.

And that's called plotting and that's called knowing characters and that's called understanding the genre. And that's called making the discipline and time to sit and actually write the game.

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​If there is a story inside you and you want to write it then you are in the right place. Sarah Bullen is an international writing coach and author mentor. She has worked with writers for over a decade to help you to write a book.
I have loads of video lessons and written ones.

Find me at
https://www.thewritingroom.co.za/