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How do you write a book title in mla.
In MLA style , book titles appear in italics, with all major words capitalized. If there is a subtitle, separate it from the main title with a colon and a space (even if no colon appears in the source). For example:
The format is the same in the Works Cited list and in the text itself. However, when you mention the book title in the text, you don’t have to include the subtitle.
The title of a part of a book—such as a chapter, or a short story or poem in a collection—is not italicized, but instead placed in quotation marks.
In MLA style , footnotes or endnotes can be used to provide additional information that would interrupt the flow of your text.
This can be further examples or developments of ideas you only briefly discuss in the text. You can also use notes to provide additional sources or explain your citation practice.
You don’t have to use any notes at all; only use them to provide relevant information that complements your arguments or helps the reader to understand them.
No, you should use parenthetical MLA in-text citations to cite sources. Footnotes or endnotes can be used to add extra information that doesn’t fit into your main text, but they’re not needed for citations.
If you need to cite a lot of sources at the same point in the text, though, placing these citations in a note can be a good way to avoid cluttering your text.
According to MLA format guidelines, the Works Cited page(s) should look like this:
The MLA Works Cited lists every source that you cited in your paper. Each entry contains the author , title , and publication details of the source.
No, in an MLA annotated bibliography , you can write short phrases instead of full sentences to keep your annotations concise. You can still choose to use full sentences instead, though.
Use full sentences in your annotations if your instructor requires you to, and always use full sentences in the main text of your paper .
If you’re working on a group project and therefore need to list multiple authors for your paper , MLA recommends against including a normal header . Instead, create a separate title page .
On the title page, list each author on a separate line, followed by the other usual information from the header: Instructor, course name and number, and submission date. Then write the title halfway down the page, centered, and start the text of the paper itself on the next page.
Usually, no title page is needed in an MLA paper . A header is generally included at the top of the first page instead. The exceptions are when:
In those cases, you should use a title page instead of a header, listing the same information but on a separate page.
When an online source (e.g. web page , blog post) doesn’t list a publication date , you should instead list an access date .
Unlike a publication date, this appears at the end of your MLA Works Cited entry, after the URL, e.g. “A Complete Guide to MLA Style.” Scribbr , www.scribbr.com/category/mla/. Accessed 28 Mar. 2021 .
For offline sources with no publication date shown, don’t use an access date—just leave out the date.
The level of detail you provide in a publication date in your Works Cited list depends on the type of source and the information available. Generally, follow the lead of the source—if it gives the full date, give the full date; if it gives just the year, so should you.
Books usually list the year, whereas web pages tend to give a full date. For journal articles , give the year, month and year, or season and year, depending on what information is available. Check our citation examples if you’re unsure about a particular source type.
In an MLA Works Cited list , the names of months with five or more letters are abbreviated to the first three letters, followed by a period. For example, abbreviate Feb., Mar., Apr., but not June, July.
In the main text, month names should never be abbreviated.
In your MLA Works Cited list , dates are always written in day-month-year order, with the month abbreviated if it’s five or more letters long, e.g. 5 Mar. 2018.
In the main text, you’re free to use either day-month-year or month-day-year order, as long as you use one or the other consistently. Don’t abbreviate months in the main text, and use numerals for dates, e.g. 5 March 2018 or March 5, 2018.
In most standard dictionaries , no author is given for either the overall dictionary or the individual entries, so no author should be listed in your MLA citations.
Instead, start your Works Cited entry and your MLA in-text citation with the title of the entry you’re citing (i.e. the word that’s being defined), in quotation marks.
If you cite a specialist dictionary that does list an author and/or overall editor, these should be listed in the same way as they would for other citations of books or book chapters .
Some source types, such as books and journal articles , may contain footnotes (or endnotes) with additional information. The following rules apply when citing information from a note in an MLA in-text citation :
If you cite multiple Shakespeare plays throughout your paper, the MLA in-text citation begins with an abbreviated version of the title (as shown here ), e.g. ( Oth. 1.2.4). Each play should have its own Works Cited entry (even if they all come from the same collection).
If you cite only one Shakespeare play in your paper, you should include a Works Cited entry for that play, and your in-text citations should start with the author’s name , e.g. (Shakespeare 1.1.4).
No, do not use page numbers in your MLA in-text citations of Shakespeare plays . Instead, specify the act, scene, and line numbers of the quoted material, separated by periods, e.g. (Shakespeare 3.2.20–25).
This makes it easier for the reader to find the relevant passage in any edition of the text.
When an article (e.g. in a newspaper ) appears on non-consecutive pages (e.g. starting on page 1 and continuing on page 6), you should use “pp.” in your Works Cited entry, since it’s on multiple pages, but MLA recommends just listing the first page followed by a plus sign, e.g. pp. 1+.
In an MLA style Works Cited entry for a newspaper , you can cite a local newspaper in the same way as you would a national one, except that you may have to add the name of the city in square brackets to clarify what newspaper you mean, e.g. The Gazette [Montreal].
Do not add the city name in brackets if it’s already part of the newspaper’s name, e.g. Dallas Observer .
MLA doesn’t require you to list an author for a TV show . If your citation doesn’t focus on a particular contributor, just start your Works Cited entry with the title of the episode or series, and use this (shortened if necessary) in your MLA in-text citation .
If you focus on a particular contributor (e.g. the writer or director, a particular actor), you can list them in the author position , along with a label identifying their role.
It’s standard to list the podcast’s host in the author position , accompanied by the label “host,” in an MLA Works Cited entry. It’s sometimes more appropriate to use the label “narrator,” when the podcast just tells a story without any guests.
If your citation of the podcast focuses more on the contribution of someone else (e.g. a guest, the producer), they can be listed in the author position instead, with an appropriate label.
MLA recommends citing the original source wherever possible, rather than the source in which it is quoted or reproduced.
If this isn’t possible, cite the secondary source and use “qtd. in” (quoted in) in your MLA in-text citation . For example: (qtd. in Smith 233)
If a source is reproduced in full within another source (e.g. an image within a PowerPoint or a poem in an article ), give details of the original source first, then include details of the secondary source as a container. For example:
When you want to cite a PowerPoint or lecture notes from a lecture you viewed in person in MLA , check whether they can also be accessed online ; if so, this is the best version to cite, as it allows the reader to access the source.
If the material is not available online, use the details of where and when the presentation took place.
In an MLA song citation , you need to give some sort of container to indicate how you accessed the song. If this is a physical or downloaded album, the Works Cited entry should list the album name, distributor, year, and format.
However, if you listened to the song on a streaming service, you can just list the site as a container, including a URL. In this case, including the album details is optional; you may add this information if it is relevant to your discussion or if it will help the reader access the song.
When citing a song in MLA style , the author is usually the main artist or group that released the song.
However, if your discussion focuses on the contributions of a specific performer, e.g. a guitarist or singer, you may list them as author, even if they are not the main artist. If you’re discussing the lyrics or composition, you may cite the songwriter or composer rather than a performer.
When a source has no title , this part of your MLA reference is replaced with a description of the source, in plain text (no italics or quotation marks, sentence-case capitalization).
Whenever you refer to an image created by someone else in your text, you should include a citation leading the reader to the image you’re discussing.
If you include the image directly in your text as a figure , the details of the source appear in the figure’s caption. If you don’t, just include an MLA in-text citation wherever you mention the image, and an entry in the Works Cited list giving full details.
In MLA Style , you should cite a specific chapter or work within a book in two situations:
If you cite multiple chapters or works from the same book, include a separate Works Cited entry for each chapter.
If a source has no author, start the MLA Works Cited entry with the source title . Use a shortened version of the title in your MLA in-text citation .
If a source has no page numbers, you can use an alternative locator (e.g. a chapter number, or a timestamp for a video or audio source) to identify the relevant passage in your in-text citation. If the source has no numbered divisions, cite only the author’s name (or the title).
If you already named the author or title in your sentence, and there is no locator available, you don’t need a parenthetical citation:
If a source has two authors, name both authors in your MLA in-text citation and Works Cited entry. If there are three or more authors, name only the first author, followed by et al.
Number of authors | In-text citation | Works Cited entry |
---|---|---|
1 author | (Moore 37) | Moore, Jason W. |
2 authors | (Moore and Patel 37) | Moore, Jason W., and Raj Patel. |
3+ authors | (Moore et al. 37) | Moore, Jason W., et al. |
You must include an MLA in-text citation every time you quote or paraphrase from a source (e.g. a book , movie , website , or article ).
MLA Style is the second most used citation style (after APA ). It is mainly used by students and researchers in humanities fields such as literature, languages, and philosophy.
If information about your source is not available, you can either leave it out of the MLA citation or replace it with something else, depending on the type of information.
A standard MLA Works Cited entry is structured as follows:
Only include information that is available for and relevant to your source.
Yes. MLA style uses title case, which means that all principal words (nouns, pronouns , verbs, adjectives , adverbs , and some conjunctions ) are capitalized.
This applies to titles of sources as well as the title of, and subheadings in, your paper. Use MLA capitalization style even when the original source title uses different capitalization .
The title of an article is not italicized in MLA style , but placed in quotation marks. This applies to articles from journals , newspapers , websites , or any other publication. Use italics for the title of the source where the article was published. For example:
Use the same formatting in the Works Cited entry and when referring to the article in the text itself.
In MLA style citations , format a DOI as a link, including “https://doi.org/” at the start and then the unique numerical code of the article.
DOIs are used mainly when citing journal articles in MLA .
The MLA Handbook is currently in its 9th edition , published in 2021.
This quick guide to MLA style explains the latest guidelines for citing sources and formatting papers according to MLA.
The fastest and most accurate way to create MLA citations is by using Scribbr’s MLA Citation Generator .
Search by book title, page URL, or journal DOI to automatically generate flawless citations, or cite manually using the simple citation forms.
MLA recommends using 12-point Times New Roman , since it’s easy to read and installed on every computer. Other standard fonts such as Arial or Georgia are also acceptable. If in doubt, check with your supervisor which font you should be using.
To create a correctly formatted block quote in Microsoft Word, follow these steps:
Do not put quotation marks around the quote, and make sure to include an MLA in-text citation after the period at the end.
To format a block quote in MLA:
Then continue your text on a new line (not indented).
In MLA style , if you quote more than four lines from a source, use MLA block quote formatting .
If you are quoting poetry , use block quote formatting for any quote longer than three lines.
An MLA in-text citation should always include the author’s last name, either in the introductory text or in parentheses after a quote .
If line numbers or page numbers are included in the original source, add these to the citation.
If you are discussing multiple poems by the same author, make sure to also mention the title of the poem (shortened if necessary). The title goes in quotation marks .
In the list of Works Cited , start with the poet’s name and the poem’s title in quotation marks. The rest of the citation depends on where the poem was published.
If you read the poem in a book or anthology, follow the format of an MLA book chapter citation . If you accessed the poem online, follow the format of an MLA website citation .
Only use line numbers in an MLA in-text citation if the lines are numbered in the original source. If so, write “lines” in the first citation of the poem , and only the numbers in subsequent citations.
If there are no line numbers in the source, you can use page numbers instead. If the poem appears on only one page of a book (or on a website ), don’t include a number in the citation.
To quote poetry in MLA style , introduce the quote and use quotation marks as you would for any other source quotation .
If the quote includes line breaks, mark these using a forward slash with a space on either side. Use two slashes to indicate a stanza break.
If the quote is longer than three lines, set them off from the main text as an MLA block quote . Reproduce the line breaks, punctuation, and formatting of the original.
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Blog • Perfecting your Craft
Last updated on May 20, 2024
About tom bromley.
Author, editor, tutor, and bestselling ghostwriter. Tom Bromley is the head of learning at Reedsy, where he has created their acclaimed course, 'How to Write a Novel.'
Head of Content at Reedsy, Martin has spent over eight years helping writers turn their ambitions into reality. As a voice in the indie publishing space, he has written for a number of outlets and spoken at conferences, including the 2024 Writers Summit at the London Book Fair.
The challenge of writing a novel is an exhilarating one. How do you transform a simple idea into a powerful narrative that grips readers from start to finish? Crafting a long-form narrative can be challenging and requires skillfully weaving together various story elements.
In this article, I will break down the major steps of novel writing into manageable pieces, organized into three categories — before, during, and after you write your manuscript.
How to write a novel in 13 steps:
2. develop your main characters, 3. establish a central conflict and stakes, 4. write a logline or synopsis, 5. structure your plot, 6. pick a point of view, 7. choose a setting that benefits your story , 8. establish a writing routine, 9. shut out your inner editor, 10. revise and rewrite your first draft, 11. share it with your first readers, 12. professionally edit your manuscript, 13. publish your novel.
Every story starts with an idea.
You might be lucky, like JRR Tolkien, who was marking exam papers when a thought popped into his head: ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.’ You might be like Jennifer Egan, who saw a wallet left in a public bathroom and imagined the repercussions of a character stealing it, which set the Pulitzer prize-winner A Visit From the Goon Squad in process. Or you might follow Khaled Hosseini, whose The Kite Runner was sparked by watching a news report on TV.
Many novelists I know keep a notebook of ideas both large and small 一 sometimes the idea they pick up on they’ll have had much earlier, but whatever reason, now feels the time to write it. Certainly, the more ideas you have, the more options you’ll have to write.
✍️ Need a little inspiration? Check our list of 30+ story ideas for fiction writing , our list of 300+ writing prompts for creative inspiration , or even our plot generator to create story ideas .
How do you know if what you’ve got is the inspiration for a novel, rather than a shorter form of fiction, or a 20,000-word manuscript ? There’s no definitive answer here, but there are two things to look out for
Firstly, a novel allows you the space to show how a character changes over time, whereas a short story is often more about a vignette or an individual moment. Secondly, if an idea is fit for a novel, it’ll nag away at you: a thread asking to be pulled to see where it goes. If you find yourself coming back to an idea, then that’s probably one to explore.
I expand on cultivating and nurturing your ‘idea seeds’ in my free 10-day course on novel writing.
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Another starting point (or essential element) for writing a novel will come in the form of the people who will populate your stories: the protagonists.
My rule of thumb in writing is that a reader will read on for one of two reasons: either they care about the cast of characters , or they want to know what happens next (or, in an ideal world, both). Now different people will tell you that character or plot are the most important element when writing.
In truth, it’s a bit more complicated than that: in a good novel, the main character or protagonist should shape the plot, and the plot should shape the protagonist. So you need both core elements in there, and those two core elements are entwined rather than being separate entities.
Characters matter because when written well, readers become invested in what happens to them. You can develop the most brilliant, twisty narrative, but if the reader doesn’t care how the protagonist ends up, you’re in trouble as a writer.
As I said above, one of the strengths of the novel is that it gives you the space to show how characters change over time. How do characters change?
Firstly, they do so by being put in a position where they have to make decisions, difficult decisions, and difficult decisions with consequences . That’s how we find out who they really are.
Secondly, they need to start from somewhere where they need to change: give them flaws, vulnerabilities, and foibles for them to overcome. This is what makes them human — and the reason why readers respond to and care about them.
🗿 Need more guidance? Look into your character’s past using these character development exercises , or give your character the perfect name using this character name generator .
As said earlier, it’s important to have both a great character and an interesting plot, which you can develop by making your character face some adversities.
That drama in the novel is usually built around some sort of central conflict. This conflict creates a dramatic tension that compels the reader to read on. They want to see the outcome of that conflict resolved: the ultimate resolution of the conflict (hopefully) creates a satisfying ending to the narrative.
A character changes, as I said above, when they are put in a position of making decisions with consequences. Those consequences are important. It isn’t enough for a character to have a goal or a dream or something they need to achieve (to slay the dragon): there also needs to be consequences if they don’t get what they’re after (the dragon burns their house down). Upping the stakes heightens the drama all round.
Now you have enough ingredients to start writing your novel, but before you do that, it can be useful to tighten them all up into a synopsis.
So far, you’ve got your story idea, your central characters, and your sense of conflict and stakes. Now is the time to distill this down into a narrative. Different writers approach this planning stage in different ways, as we’ll come to in a moment, but for anyone starting a novel, having a clear sense of what is at the heart of your story is crucial.
There are a lot of different terms used here 一 pitch, elevator pitch , logline, shoutline, or the hook of your summary 一 but whatever the terminology the idea remains the same. This is to summarize your story in as few words as possible: a couple of dozen words, say, or perhaps a single sentence.
This exercise will force you to think about what your novel is fundamentally about. What is the conflict at the core of the story? What are the challenges facing your main protagonist? What do they have at stake?
📚 Check out these 48 irresistible book hook examples and get inspired to craft your own hook .
If you need some help, as you go through the steps in this guide, you can fill in this template:
My story is a [genre] novel. It’s told from [perspective] and is set in [place and time period] . It follows [protagonist] , who wants [goal] because [motivation] . But [conflict] doesn’t make that easy, putting [stake] at risk.
It's not an easy thing to write this summarising sentence or two. In fact, they might be the most difficult sentences to get down in the whole writing process. But it is really useful in helping you to clarify what your book is about before you begin. When you’re stuck in the middle of the writing, it will be there for you to refer back to. And further down the line, when you’ve finished the novel, it will prove invaluable in pitching to agents , publishers, and readers.
📼 Learn more about the process of writing a logline from professional editor Jeff Lyons.
Another particularly important step to prepare for the writing part, is to outline your plot into different key story points.
There’s no right answer here as to how much planning you should do before you write: it very much depends on the sort of writer you are. Some writers find planning out their novel before start gives them confidence and reassurance knowing where their book is going to go. But others find this level of detail restrictive: they’re driven more by the freedom of discovering where the writing might take them.
This is sometimes described as a debate between ‘planners’ and ‘pantsers’ (those who fly by the seat of their pants). In reality, most writers sit somewhere on a sliding scale between the two extremes. Find your sweet spot and go from there!
If you’re a planning type, there’s plenty of established story structures out there to build your story around. Popular theories include the Save the Cat story model and Christopher Vogler’s Hero’s Journey for characters . Then there are books such as Christopher Booker’s The Seven Basic Plots , which suggests that all stories are one of, well, you can probably work that out.
Whatever the structure, most stories follow the underlying principle of having a beginning, middle and end (and one that usually results in a process of change). So even if you’re ‘pantsing’ rather than planning, it’s helpful to know your direction of travel, though you might not yet know how your story is going to get there.
Finally, remember what I said earlier about plot and character being entwined: your character’s journey shouldn’t be separate to what happens in the story. Indeed, sometimes it can be helpful to work out the character’s journey of change first, and shape the plot around that, rather than the other way round.
Now, let’s consider which perspective you’re going to write your story from.
However much plotting you decide to do before you start writing, there are two further elements to think about before you start putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard). The first one is to think about which perspective you’re going to tell your story from . It is worth thinking about this before you start writing because deciding to change midway through your story is a horribly thankless task (I speak from bitter personal experience!)
Although there might seem a large number of viewpoints you could tell your story from, in reality, most fiction is told from two points of view 一 first person (the ‘I’ form) and third person ‘close’ (he/she/they) . ‘Close’ third person is when the story is witnessed from one character’s view at a time (as opposed to third person ‘omniscient’ where the story can drop into lots of people’s thoughts).
Both of these viewpoints have advantages and disadvantages. First person is usually better for intimacy and getting into character’s thoughts: the flip side is that its voice can feel a bit claustrophobic and restrictive in the storytelling. Third person close offers you more options and more space to tell your story: but can feel less intimate as a result.
There’s no right and wrong here in terms of which is the ‘best’ viewpoint. It depends on the particular demands of the story that you are wanting to write. And it also depends on what you most feel comfortable writing in. It can be a useful exercise to write a short section in both viewpoints to see which feels the best fit for you before starting to write.
Besides choosing a point of view, consider the setting you’re going to place your story in.
The final element to consider before beginning your story is to think about where your story is going to be located . Settings play a surprisingly important part in bringing a story to life. When done well, they add in mood and atmosphere and can act almost like an additional character in your novel.
There are many questions to consider here. And again, it depends a bit on the demands of the story that you are writing.
Is your setting going to a real place, a fictional one, or a real place with fictional elements? Is it going to be set in the present day, the past, or at an unspecified time? Are you going to set your story in somewhere you know, or need to research to capture properly? Finally, is your setting suited to the story you are telling, and serve to accentuate it, rather than just acting as a backdrop?
If you’re writing a novel in genres such as fantasy or science fiction , then you may well need to go into some additional world-building as well before you start writing. Here, you may have to consider everything from the rules and mores of society to the existence of magical powers, fantastic beasts, extraterrestrials, and futuristic technology. All of these can have a bearing on the story, so it is better to have a clear setup in your head before you start to write.
Whether your story is set in central London or the outer rings of the solar system, some elements of the descriptive detail remain the same. Think about the use of all the different senses — the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures of where you’re writing about. Those sorts of small details can help to bring any setting to life, from the familiar to the imaginary.
Alright, enough brainstorming and planning. It’s time to let the words flow on the page.
Having done your prep — or as much prep and planning as you feel you need — it’s time to get down to business and write the thing. Getting a full draft of a novel is no easy task, but you can help yourself by setting out some goals before you start writing.
Firstly, think about how you write best. Are you a morning person or an evening person? Would you write better at home or out and about, in a café or a library, say? Do you need silence to write, or musical encouragement to get the juices flowing? Are you a regular writer, chipping away at the novel day by day, or more of a weekend splurger?
I’d always be wary of anyone who tells you how you should be writing. Find a routine and a setup that works for you . That might not always be the obvious one: the crime writer Jo Nesbø spent a while creating the perfect writing room but discovered he couldn’t write there and ended up in the café around the corner.
You might not keep the same way of writing throughout the novel: routines can help, but they can also become monotonous. You may need to find a way to shake things up to keep going.
Deadlines help here. If you’re writing a 75,000-word novel, then working at a pace of 5,000 words a week will take you 15 weeks (Monday to Friday, that’s 1000 words a day). Half the pace will take twice as long. Set yourself a realistic deadline to finish the book (and key points along the way). Without a deadline, the writing can end up drifting, but it needs to be realistic to avoid giving yourself a hard time.
In my experience, writing speeds vary. I tend to start quite slowly on a book, and speed up towards the end. There are times when the tap is open, and the words are pouring out: make the most of those moments. There are times, too, when each extra sentence feels like torture: don’t beat yourself up here. Be kind to yourself: it’s a big, demanding project you’re undertaking.
Speaking of self-compassion, a word on that harsh editor inside your mind…
The other important piece of advice is to continue writing forward. It is very easy, and very tempting, to go back over what you’ve written and give it a quick edit. Once you start down that slippery slope, you end up rewriting and reworking the same scene and never get any further forwards in the text. I know of writers who spent months perfecting their first chapter before writing on, only to delete that beginning as the demands of the story changed.
The first draft of your novel isn’t about perfection; it’s about getting the words down. One writer I work with calls it the ‘vomit draft’ — getting everything out and onto the page. It’s only once you’ve got a full manuscript down that you can see your ideas in context and have the capacity to edit everything properly. So as much as your inner editor might be calling you, resist! They’ll have their moment in the sun later on. For now, it’s about getting a complete version down, that you can go on to work with and shape.
By now, you’ve reached the end of your first draft (I might be glossing over the hard writing part just a little here: if you want more detail and help on how to get through to the end of your draft, our How to Write A Novel course is warmly recommended ).
Reaching the end of your first draft is an important milestone in the journey of a book. Sadly for those who feel that this is the end of the story, it’s actually more of a stepping stone than the finish line.
In some ways, now the hard work begins. The difference between wannabe writers and those who get published can often be found in the amount of rewriting done. Professional writers will go back and back over what they’ve written, honing what they’ve created until the text is as tight and taut as it is possible to be.
How do you go about achieving this? The first thing to do upon finishing is to put the manuscript in a drawer. I leave it for a month or six weeks before you come back to it. That way, you’ll return the script with a fresh pair of eyes. Read it back through and be honest about what works and what doesn’t. As you read the script, think in particular about pace: are there sections in the novel that are too fast or too slow? Avoid the trap of the saggy middle . Then consider: is your character arc complete and coherent ? Look at the big-picture stuff first before you tackle the smaller details.
On that note, here are a few things you might want to keep an eye out for:
Show, don’t tell. Sometimes, you just need to state something matter-of-factly in your novel, that’s fine. But, as much as you can, try to illustrate a point instead of just stating it . Keep in mind the words of Anton Chekhov: “Don’t tell me the moon is shining. Show me the glint of light on broken glass."
“Said” is your friend. When it comes to dialogue, there can be the temptation to spice things up a bit by using tags like “exclaimed,” “asserted,” or “remarked.” And while there might be a time and place for these, 90% of the time, “said” is the best tag to use. Anything else can feel distracting or forced.
Stay away from purple prose. Purple prose is overly embellished language that doesn’t add much to the story . It convolutes the intended message and can be a real turn-off for readers.
Once you feel it’s good enough for others to examine it, you should ask for feedback.
Writing a novel is a two-way process: there’s you, the writer, and there’s the intended audience, the reader. The only way that you can find out if what you’ve written is successful is to ask people to read and get feedback.
Think about when to ask for feedback and who to ask it from. There are moments in the writing when feedback is useful and others where it gets in the way. To save time, I often ask for feedback in those six weeks when the script is in the drawer (though I don’t look at those comments until I’ve read back myself first). The best people to ask for feedback are fellow writers and people who can beta read your book : they know what you’re going through and will also be most likely to offer you constructive feedback.
Also, consider working with sensitivity readers if you are writing about a place or culture outside your own. Friends and family can also be useful but are a riskier proposition: they might be really helpful, but equally, they might just tell you it’s great or terrible, neither of which is overly useful.
Feedbacking works best when you can find at least a few people to read, and you can pool their comments. My rule is that if more than one person is saying the same thing, they are probably right. If only one person is saying something, then you have a judgment call to make as to whether to take those comments further (though usually, you’ll know in your gut whether they are right or not.)
Overall, the best feedback you can receive is that of a professional editor…
Once you’ve completed your rewrites and taken in comments from your chosen feedbackers, it’s time to take a deep breath and seek outside opinions. What happens next here depends on which route you want to take to market:
If you want to go down the traditional publishing route , you’ll probably need to get a literary agent, which we’ll discuss in a moment.
If you’re going down the self-publishing route , you’ll need to do what would be done in a traditional publishing house and take your book through the editing process. This normally happens in three stages.
Developmental editing. The first of these is to work with a developmental editor , who will read and critique your work primarily from a structural point of view.
Copy-editing. Secondly, the book must be copy-edited , where an editor works more closely, line-by-line, on the script.
Proofreading. Finally, usually once the script has been typeset, then the material should be professionally proofread, to spot any final mistakes or orrors . Sorry, errors!
Finding such people can sound like a daunting task. But fear not! Here at Reedsy, we have a fantastic fleet of editors of all shapes, sizes, and experiences. So whatever your needs or requirements, we should be able to pair you with an editor to suit.
The best editors in the industry are on Reedsy. Come meet them.
Learn how Reedsy can help you craft a beautiful book.
Now that you’ve ironed out all the wrinkles of your manuscript, it’s time to release it into the wild.
For those thinking about going the traditional publishing route, now’s the time for you to get to work. Most trade publishers will only accept work from a literary agent, so you’ll need to find a suitable literary agent to represent your work .
The querying process is not always straightforward: it involves research, waiting and often a lot of rejections until you find the right person (I was rejected by 24 agents before I found my first agent). Usually, an agent will ask to see a synopsis and the first three chapters (check their websites for submission details). If they like what they read, they’ll ask to see the whole thing.
If you’re self-publishing, you’ll need to think about getting your finished manuscript to market. You’ll need to get it typeset (laid out in book form) and find a cover designer . Do you want to sell printed copies or just ebooks? You’ll need to work out how to work Amazon , and also how you’ll sell your book to generate more sales through marketing .
For those picked up by a traditional publisher, all the editing steps discussed will take place in-house. That might sound like a smoother process, but the flip side can be less control over the process: a publisher may have the final say in the cover or the title, and lead times (when the book is published) are usually much longer. So, it’s worth thinking about which route to market works best for you.
Finally, you’re a published author! Congratulations. Now all you have to do is think about writing the next one…
Sasha Winslow says:
14/05/2019 – 02:56
I started writing in February 2019. It was random, but there was an urge to the story I wanted to write. At first, I was all over the place. I knew the genre I wanted to write was Fantasy ( YA or Adult). That has been my only solid starting point the genre. From February to now, I've changed my story so many times, but I am happy to say by giving my characters names I kept them. I write this all to say is thank you for this comprehensive step by step. Definitely see where my issues are and ways to fix it. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Evelyn P. Norris says:
30/10/2019 – 14:18
My number one tip is to write in order. If you have a good idea for a future scene, write down the idea for the scene, but do NOT write it ahead of time. That's a major cause of writer's block that I discovered. Write sequentially. :) If you can't help yourself, make sure you at least write it in a different document, and just ignore that scene until you actually get to that part of the novel
Allen P. Wilkinson says:
28/01/2020 – 04:51
How can we take your advice seriously when you don’t even know the difference between stationary and stationery? Makes me wonder how competent your copy editors are.
↪️ Martin Cavannagh replied:
29/01/2020 – 15:37
Thanks for spotting the typo!
↪️ Chris Waite replied:
14/02/2020 – 13:17
IF you're referring to their use of 'stationery' under the section '1. Nail down the story idea' (it's the only reference on this page) then the fact that YOU don't know the difference between stationery and stationary and then bother to tell the author of this brilliant blog how useless they must be when it's YOU that is the thicko tells me everything I need to know about you and your use of a middle initial. Bellend springs to mind.
Sapei shimrah says:
18/03/2020 – 13:59
Thanks i will start writing now
Jeremy says:
25/03/2020 – 22:41
I’ve run the gamut between plotter and pantser, but lately I’ve settled on in-depth plotting before my novels. It’s hard for me to do focus wise, but I’m finding I’m spending less time in writer’s block. What trips me up more is finding the right voice for my characters. I’m currently working on a sci-fi YA novel and using the Save the Cat beat sheet for structure for the first time. Thank you for the article!
Nick Girdwood says:
29/04/2020 – 10:32
Can you not write a story without some huge theme?
Comments are currently closed.
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by Joe Bunting | 0 comments
What if you could learn how to write a novel without fail? What if you had a process so foolproof, you knew you would finish no matter what writer's block throws at you? The zombie apocalypse could finally strike and you’d still face the blank page to finish your novel.
Every day I talk to writers who don’t know how to write a novel. They worry they don’t have what it takes, and honestly, they’re right to worry.
Writing a novel, especially for the first time, is hard work, and the desk drawers and hard drives of many a great writer are filled with the skeletons of incomplete and failed books.
The good news is you don't have to be one of those failed writers.
You can be a writer that writes to the end.
You can be the kind of writer who masters how to write a novel.
Looking for something specific? Jump straight to it here:
1. Get a great idea 2. Write your idea as a premise 3. Set a deadline 4. Set smaller deadlines building to the final deadline 5. Create a consequence 6. Strive for “good enough” and embrace imperfection 7. Figure out what kind of story you’re trying to tell 8. Read novels and watch films that are similar to yours 9. Structure, structure, structure! 10. Find the climactic moment in your novel 11. Consider the conventions 12. Set your intention 13. Picture your reader 14. Build your team 15. Plan the publishing process 16. Write (with low expectations) 17. Trust the process and don’t quit 118. Keep going, even when it hurts 19. Finish Draft One . . . then onward to the next 20. Draft 2, 3, 4, 5 Writers’ Best Tips on How to Write a Novel FAQ
My name is Joe Bunting .
I used to worry I would never write a novel. Growing up, I dreamed about becoming a great novelist, writing books like the ones I loved to read. I had even tried writing novels, but I failed again and again.
So I decided to study creative writing in college. I wrote poems and short stories. I read books on writing. I earned an expensive degree.
But still, I didn’t know how to write a novel.
After college I started blogging, which led to a few gigs at a local newspaper and then a national magazine. I got a chance to ghostwrite a nonfiction book (and get paid for it!). I became a full-time, professional writer.
But even after writing a few books, I worried I didn’t have what it takes to write a novel. Novels just seemed different, harder somehow. No writing advice seemed to make it less daunting.
Maybe it was because they were so precious to me, but while writing a nonfiction book no longer intimidated me—writing a novel terrified me.
Write a novel? I didn’t know how to do it.
Until, one year later, I decided it was time. I needed to stop stalling and finally take on the process.
I crafted a plan to finish a novel using everything I’d ever learned about the book writing process. Every trick, hack, and technique I knew.
And the process worked.
I finished my novel in 100 days.
Today, I’m a Wall Street Journal bestselling author of thirteen books, and I'm passionate about teaching writers how to write and finish their books. (FINISH being the key word here.)
I’ve taught this process to hundreds of other writers who have used it to draft and complete their novels.
And today, I'm going to teach my “how to write a novel” process to you, too. In twenty manageable steps !
As I do this, I’ll share the single best novel writing tips from thirty-seven other fiction writers that you can use in your novel writing journey—
All of which is now compiled and constructed into The Write Planner : our tangible planning guide for writers that gives you this entire process in a clear, actionable, and manageable way.
If you’ve ever felt discouraged about not finishing your novel, like I did, or afraid that you don’t have what it takes to build a writing career, I’m here to tell you that you can.
There's a way to make your writing easier.
Smarter, even.
You just need to have the “write” process.
Below, I’m going to share a foolproof process that anyone can use to write a novel, the same process I used to write my novels and books, and that hundreds of other writers have used to finish their novels too.
Maybe you have a novel idea already. Maybe you have twenty ideas.
If you do, that’s awesome. Now, do this for me: Pat yourself on the back, and then forget any feeling of joy or accomplishment you have.
Here’s the thing: an idea alone, even a great idea, is just the first baby step in writing your book. There are nineteen more steps, and almost all of them are more difficult than coming up with your initial idea.
I love what George R.R. Martin said:
“Ideas are useless. Execution is everything.”
You have an idea. Now learn how to execute, starting with step two.
(And if you don’t have a novel idea yet, here’s a list of 100 story ideas that will help, or you can view our genre specific lists here: sci-fi ideas , thriller ideas , mystery ideas , romance ideas , and fantasy ideas . You can also look at the Ten Best Novel Ideas here . Check those out, then choose an idea or make up one of your own, When you're ready, come back for step two.)
Now that you have a novel idea , write it out as a single-sentence premise.
What is a premise, and why do you need one?
A premise distills your novel idea down to a single sentence. This sentence will guide your entire writing and publishing process from beginning to end. It hooks the reader and captures the high stakes (and other major details) that advance and challenge the protagonist and plot.
It can also be a bit like an elevator pitch for your book. If someone asks you what your novel is about, you can share your premise to explain your story—you don't need a lengthy description.
Also, a premise is the most important part of a query letter or book proposal, so a good premise can actually help you get published.
What’s an example of a novel premise ?
Here’s an example from The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum:
A young girl is swept away to a magical land by a tornado and must embark on a quest to see the wizard who can help her return home.
Do you see the hooks? Young girl, magical land, embark on a quest (to see the wizard)—and don't forget her goal to return home.
This premise example very clearly contains the three elements every premise needs in order to stand out:
Ready to write your premise? We have a free worksheet that will guide you through writing a publishable premise: Download the worksheet here.
Before you do anything else, you need to set a deadline for when you’re going to finish the first draft of your novel.
Stephen King said a first draft should be written in no more than a season, so ninety days. National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, exists to encourage people to write a book in just thirty days.
In our 100 Day Book Program, we give people a little longer than that, 100 days, which seems like a good length of time for most people (me included!).
I recommend setting your deadline no longer than four months. If it’s longer than that, you’ll procrastinate. A good length of time to write a book is something that makes you a little nervous, but not outright terrified.
Mark the deadline date in your calendar, kneel on the floor, close your eyes, and make a vow to yourself and your book idea that you will write the first draft novel by then, no matter what.
A novel can’t be written in a day. There’s no way to “cram” for a novel. The key to writing (and finishing) a novel is to make a little progress every day.
If you write a thousand words a day, something most people are capable of doing in an hour or two, for 100 days , by the end you’ll have a 100,000 word novel—which is a pretty long novel!
So set smaller, weekly deadlines that break up your book into pieces. I recommend trying to write 5,000 to 6,000 words per week by each Friday or Sunday, whichever works best for you. Your writing routine can be as flexible as you like, as long as you are hitting those smaller deadlines.
If you can hit all of your weekly deadlines, you know you’ll make your final deadline at the end.
As long as you hold yourself accountable to your smaller, feasible, and prioritized writing benchmarks.
You might think, “Setting a deadline is fine, but how do I actually hit my deadline?” Here’s a secret I learned from my friend Tim Grahl :
You need to create a consequence.
Try by taking these steps:
When I took these steps while writing my seventh book, I finished it in sixty-three days. Sixty-three days!
It was the most focused I’ve ever been in my life.
Writing a book is hard work. Setting reasonable consequences make it harder to NOT finish than to finish.
Watch me walk a Wattpad famous writer through this process:
The next few points are all about how to write a good story.
The reason we set a deadline before we consider how to write a story that stands out is because we could spend our entire lives learning how write a great story, but never actually write the actual story (and it’s in the writing process that you learn how to make your story great).
So learn how to make it great between writing sessions, but only good enough for the draft you’re currently writing. If you focus too much on this, it will ruin everything and you’ll never finish.
Writing a perfect novel, a novel like the one you have in your imagination, is an exercise in futility.
First drafts are inevitably horrible. Second drafts are a little better. Third drafts are better still.
But I'd bet none of these drafts approach the perfection that you built up in your head when you first considered your novel idea.
And yet, even if you know that, you’ll still try to write a perfect novel.
So remind yourself constantly, “This first draft doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be good enough for now.”
And good enough for now, when you’re starting your first draft, just means you have words on a page that faintly resemble a story.
Writing is an iterative process. The purpose of your first draft is to have something you can improve in your second draft. Don’t overthink. Just do. (I’ll remind you of this later, in case you forget, and if you’re like me, you probably will.)
Ready to look at what makes a good story? Let’s jump into the next few points—but don’t forget your goal: to get your whole book, the complete story, on the page, no matter how messy your first draft reads.
Now that you have a deadline, you can start to think more deeply about what your protagonist really wants.
A good story focuses primarily on just one core thing that the protagonist wants or needs, and the place where your protagonist’s want or need meets the reader’s expectations dictates your story's genre.
Plot type is a big subject, and for the purposes of this post, we don’t have time to fully explore it (check out my book The Write Structure here ).
But story type is about more than what shelf your book sits on at the bookstore.
The book type gets to the heart, the foundational values, of what your story is about. In my book The Write Structure , I define ten plot types, which correspond to six value scales. I’ll give an abbreviated version below:
Internal plot types work slightly different than external plot types. These are essential for your character's transformation from page one to the end and deal with either a character's shift in their black-and-white view, a character's moral compass, or a character's rise or fall in social status.
For more, check out The Write Structure .
The most common internal plot types are bulleted quickly below.
You can mix and match these genres to some extent. For your book to be commercially successful, you must have an external genre.
For your book to be considered more “character driven”—or a story that connects with the reader on a universal level—you should have an internal genre, too. (I highly recommend having both.)
You can also have a subplot. So that’s three genres that you can potentially incorporate into your novel.
For example, you might have an action plot with a love story subplot and a worldview education internal genre. Or a horror plot with a love story subplot and a morality internal genre. There’s a lot of room to maneuver.
Regardless of what you choose, the balance of the three will give your protagonist plenty of obstacles to face as they strive to achieve their goal from beginning to end. (For best results when you go to publish, though, make sure you have an external genre.)
If you want to have solid preparation to write you book, I highly recommend grabbing a copy of The Write Structure .
What two or three values are foundational to your story? Spend some time brainstorming what your book is really about. Even better, use our Write Structure worksheet to get to the heart of your story type.
“The hard truth is that books are made from books.”
I like to remember this quote from Cormac McCarthy when considering what my next novel is really about.
Now that you’ve thought about your novel's plot, it’s time to see how other great writers have pulled off the impossible and crafted a great story from the glimmer of an idea.
You might think, “My story is completely unique. There are no other stories similar to mine.”
If that’s you, then one small word of warning. If there are no books that are similar to yours, maybe there’s a reason for that.
Personally, I’ve read a lot of great books that were a lot of fun to read and were similar to other books. I’ve also read a lot of bad books that were completely unique.
Even precious, unique snowflakes look more or less like other snowflakes.
If you found your content genre in step three, select three to five novels and films that are in the same genre as yours and study them.
Don’t read/watch for pleasure. Instead, try to figure out the conventions, key scenes, and the way the author/filmmaker moves you through the story.
There's great strength in understanding how your story is the same but different.
Those were the three words my college screenwriting professor, a successful Hollywood TV producer, wrote across the blackboard nearly every class. Your creative process doesn't matter without structure.
You can be a pantser , someone who writes by the seat of their pants.
You can be a plotter , someone who needs to have a detailed outline for each of the plot points in their novel.
You can even be a plantser , somewhere in between the two (like most writers, including me).
It doesn’t matter. You still have to know your story structure .
Here are a few important structural elements you’ll want to figure out for your novel before moving forward:
There are six required moments in every story, scene, and act. They are:
If you're unfamiliar with these terms, I recommend studying each of them, especially dilemma, which we'll talk about more in a moment. Mastering these will be a huge aid to your writing process.
For your first few scenes, try plotting out each of these six moments, focusing especially on the dilemma.
Better yet, download our story structure worksheet to guide you through the story structure process, from crafting your initial idea through to writing the synopsis.
I've included some more detailed thoughts (and must-knows) about structure briefly below:
The classic writing advice describes the three act structure well:
In the first act, put your character up a tree. In the second act, throw rocks at them. In the third act, bring them down.
Do you wonder whether you should use three act structure or five act structure? (Hint: you probably don't want to use the five act structure. Learn more about this type with our full guide on the five act structure here .)
Note that each of these acts should have the six key moments listed above.
I mentioned the importance of a character undergoing a crisis, but it bears repeating since, for me, it completely transformed my writing process.
In every act, your protagonist must face an impossible choice. It is THIS choice that creates drama in your story. THIS is how your plot moves forward. If you don’t have a dilemma, if your character doesn’t choose, your scenes won’t work, nor will your acts or story.
In my writing, when I’m working on a first draft, I don’t focus on figuring out all five key moments every time (since I’ve internalized them by now), but I do try to figure out the crisis before I start writing .
I begin with that end in mind, and figure out how I can put the protagonist into a situation where they must make a difficult choice.
One that will have consequences even if they decide to do nothing.
When you do that, your scene works. When you don’t, it falls flat. The protagonist looks like a weak-willed observer of their own life, and ultimately your story will feel boring. Effective character development requires difficult choices.
Find the dilemma every time.
Write out a brief three-act outline with each of the six key moments for each act. It’s okay to leave those moments blank if you don’t know them right now. Fill in what you do know, and come back to it.
Point of view, or POV, in a story refers to the narrator’s position in the description of events. There are four types of point of view, but there are only two main options used by most writers:
The third option is used much less common, though is still found occasionally, especially in older works:
One final option:
Get The Write Structure here »
Every great novel has a climactic moment that the whole story builds up to—it's the whole reason a reader purchases a book and reads it to the end.
In Moby Dick , it’s the final showdown with the white whale.
In Pride and Prejudice , it’s Lizzie accepting Mr. Darcy’s proposal after discovering the lengths he went to in order to save her family.
In the final Harry Potter novel (spoiler alert!), it’s Harry offering himself up as a sacrifice to Voldemort to destroy the final Horcrux.
To be clear, you don’t have to have your climactic moment all planned out before you start writing your book . (Although knowing this might make writing and finishing your novel easier and more focused.)
But it IS a good idea to know what novels and films similar to yours have done.
For example, if you’re writing a performance story about a violinist, as I am, you need to have some kind of big violin competition at the end of your book.
If you’re writing a police procedural crime novel, you need to have a scene where the detective unmasks the murderer and explains the rationale behind the murder.
Think about the climactic moment your novel builds up before the final showdown at the end. This climactic moment will usually occur in the climax of the second or third act.
If you know this, fill in your outline with the climactic moment, then write out the five key moments of the scene for that moment.
If you don’t know them, just leave them blank. You can always come back to it.
Readers are sophisticated. They’ve been taking in stories for years, since they were children, and they have deep expectations for what should be in your story.
That means if you want readers to like your story, you need to meet and even exceed some of those expectations.
Stories do this constantly. We call them conventions, or tropes, and they’re patterns that storytellers throughout history have found make for a good story.
In the romantic comedy (love) genre, for example, there is almost always the sidekick best friend, some kind of love triangle, and a meet cute moment where the two potential lovers meet.
In the mystery genre, the story always begins with a murder, there are one or more red herrings , and there’s a final unveiling of the murder at the end.
Think through the three to five novels and films you read/watched. What conventions and tropes did they have in common?
You’re almost ready to start writing. Before you do, set your intention.
Researchers have found that when you’re trying to create a new habit, if you imagine where and when you will participate in that habit, you’re far more likely to follow through.
For your writing, imagine where, when, and how much you will write each day. For example, you might imagine that you will write 1,000 words at your favorite coffee shop each afternoon during your lunch break.
As you imagine, picture your location and the writing space clearly in your mind. Watch yourself sitting down to work, typing on your laptop. Imagine your word count tracker going from 999 to 1,002 words.
When it’s time to write , you’ll be ready to go do it.
The definition of a story is a narrative meant to entertain, amuse, or instruct. That implies there is someone being entertained, amused, or instructed!
I think it’s helpful to picture one person in your mind as you write (instead of an entire target audience). Then, as you write, you can better understand what would interest, amuse, or instruct them.
By picturing them, you will end up writing better stories.
Create a reader avatar.
Choose someone you know, or make up someone who would love your story. Describe them in terms of demographics and interests. Consider the question, “Why would this reader love my novel?”
When you write, write for them.
Most people think they can write a novel on their own, that they need to stick themselves in some cabin in upstate New York or an attic apartment in Paris and just focus on writing their novel for a few months or decades.
And that’s why most people fail to finish writing a book .
As I’ve studied the lives of great writers, I’ve found that they all had a team. None of them did it all on their own. They all had people who supported and encouraged them as they wrote.
A team can look like:
Whatever you find, if you want to finish your novel, don’t make the mistake of believing you can do it all on your own (or that you have to do it on your own).
Find a writing group. Take an online writing class . Or hire a developmental editor .
Whatever you do, don’t keep trying to do everything by yourself.
One thing I’ve found is that when successful people take on a task, they think through every part of the process from beginning to end. They create a plan. Their plan might change, but starting with a plan gives them clear focus for what they’re setting out to accomplish.
Most of the steps we’ve been talking about in this post involve planning (writing is coming up next, don’t worry), but in your plan, it’s important to think through things all the way to the end—the publishing and marketing process.
So spend ten or twenty minutes dreaming about how you’ll publish your novel (self-publishing vs. traditional publishing) and how you’ll promote it (to your email list, on social media, via Amazon ads, etc.).
By brainstorming about the publishing and marketing process, you’ll make it much more likely to actually finish your novel because you're eager for (and know what you want to do when you're at) the end.
Have no idea how to get published? Check out our 10-step book publishing and launch guide here .
You’ve created a plan. You know what you’re going to write, when you’re going to write it, and how you’re going to write.
Now it’s time to actually write it.
Sit down at the blank page. Take a deep breath. Write your very first chapter.
Don’t forget, your first draft is supposed to be bad.
Write anyway.
As I’ve trained writers through the novel writing process in our 100 Day Book Program, inevitably around day sixty, they tell me how hard the process is, how tired they are of their story, how they have a new idea for a novel, and they want to work on that instead.
“Don’t quit,” I tell them. Trust the process. You’re so much closer than you think.
Then, miraculously, two or three weeks later, they’re emailing me to say they’re about to finish their books. They’re so grateful they didn’t quit.
This is the process. This is how it always goes.
Just when you think you’re not going to make it, you’re almost there.
Just when you most want to quit, that’s when you’re closest to a breakthrough.
Trust the process. Don’t quit. You’re going to make it.
Just keep showing up and doing the work (and remember, doing the work means writing imperfectly).
Appliances always break when you’re writing a book.
Someone always gets sick making writing nearly impossible (either you or your spouse or all your kids or all of the above).
One writer told us recently a high-speed car chase ended with the car crashing into a building close to her house.
I’m not superstitious, but stuff like this always happens when you’re writing a book.
Expect it. Things will not go according to plan. Major real life problems will occur.
It will be really hard to stay focused for weeks on end.
This is where it’s so important to have a team (step fourteen). When life happens, you’ll need someone to vent to, to encourage you, and to support you.
No matter what, write anyway. This is what separates you from all the aspiring writers out there. You do the work even when it’s hard.
Keep going.
I followed this process, and then one day, I realized I’d written the second to last scene. And then the next day, my novel was finished.
It felt kind of anticlimactic.
I had wanted to write a novel for years, more than a decade. I had done it. And it wasn’t as big of a deal as I thought.
Amazing, without question.
But also just normal.
After all, I had been doing this, writing every day for ninety-nine days. Finishing was just another day.
But the journey itself? 100 days for writing a novel? That was amazing.
That was worth it.
And it will be worth it again and again.
Maybe it will be like that for you. You might finish your book and feel amazing and proud and relieved. You might also feel normal. It’s the difference between being an aspiring writer and being a real writer.
Real writers realize the joy is in the work, not in having a finished book .
When you get to this point, I just want to say, “Congratulations!”
You did it.
You finished a book. I’m so excited for you!
But also, as you will know when you get to this point, this is really just the beginning of your journey.
Your book isn’t nearly ready to publish yet.
So celebrate. Throw a party for yourself. Say thank you to all your team members. You finished. You should be proud!
After this celebratory breather, move on to your last step.
This is a novel writing guide, not a novel revising guide (that is coming soon!). But I’ll give you a few pointers on what to do after you write your novel:
Want to know more about what to do next? Check out our guide on what to do AFTER you finish your book here .
I’ve also asked the writers I’ve coached for their single tips on how to write a novel. These are from writers in our community who have followed this process and finished novels of their own. Here are their best novel writing tips:
“Get it out of your head and onto the page, because you can’t improve what’s not been written.” Imogen Mann
“What gets scheduled, gets done. Block time in your day to write. Set a time of day, place and duration that you will write 4-7 days/week until it becomes habit. It’s most effective if it’s the same time of day, in the same place. Then set your duration to a number of minutes or a number of words: 60 minutes, 500 words, whatever. Slowly but surely, those words string together into a piece of work!” Stacey Watkins
“Honestly? And nobody paid me for this one—enroll in the 100 Day Book challenge at The Write Practice. I had been writing around in my novel for years and it wasn’t until I took the challenge did I actually write it chapter by chapter from beginning to end in 80,000 words. Of course I now have to revise, revise, revise.” Madeline Slovenz
“I try to write for at least an hour every day. Some days I feel like the creativity flows out of me and others it’s awkward and slow. But yes, my advice is to write for at least one hour every day. It really helps.” Kurt Paulsen
“Be patient, be humble, be forgiving. Patient, because writing a novel well will take longer than you ever imagined. Humble, because being awake to your strengths and your weaknesses is the only way to grow as a writer. And forgiveness, for the days when nothing seems to work. Stay the course, and the reward at the end — whenever that comes — will be priceless. Because it will be all yours.” Erin Halden
“Single best tip I can recommend is the development of a plan. My early writing, historical stories for my world, was done as a pantser. But, when I took the 100 Day Book challenge , one of the steps was to produce an outline. Mine started as the briefest list of chapters. But, as I thought about it, the outline expanded to cover what was happening and who was in it. That lead to a pattern for the chapters, a timeline, and greater detail in the outline. I had always hated outlines, but like Patrick Rothfuss said in one of his interviews, that hatred may have been because of the way it was taught when I was in school (long ago.) I know I will use one for the second book (if I decide to go forward with it.) Just remember the plan is there for your needs. It doesn’t need to be a formal I. A. 1. a. format. It can simply be a set of notecards with general ideas you want to include in your story.” Patrick Macy
“Everybody who writes does so on faith and guts and determination. Just write one line. Just write one scene. Just write one page. And if you write more that day consider yourself fortunate. The more you do, the stronger the writing muscle gets. But don’t do a project; just break things down into small manageable bits.” Joe Hanzlik
“When you’re sending your novel out to beta readers , keep in mind some people‘s feedback may not resonate or be true for your vision of the work. Also, just because you’ve handed off a copy for beta reading doesn’t mean you don’t have control over how people give you feedback. For instance, if you don’t want line editing, ask them not to give paragraph and sentence corrections. Instead, ask for more general feedback on the character arcs, particular scenes in the story, the genre, ideal reader , etc. Be proactive about getting the kind of response you want and need.” B.E. Jackson
“Become your main character. Begin to think and act the way they would.” Valda Dracopoulos
“I write for minimum 3 hours starting 4 a.m. Mind is uncluttered and fresh with ideas. Daily issues and commitment can wait. Make a plan and stick to the basic plan.” R.B. Smith
“Stick to the plan (which includes writing an outline, puttin your butt in the chair and shipping). I’m trying to keep it simple!” Carole Wolf
“Have a spot where you write, get some bum glue, sit and write. I usually have a starting point, a flexible endpoint and the middle works itself out.” Vuyo Ngcakani
“Before I begin, I write down the ten key scenes that must be in the novel. What is the thing that must happen, who is there when it happens, where does it take place. Once I have those key scenes, I begin.” Cathy Ryan
“In my English classes, I was told to ‘show, don’t tell,' which is the most vague rule I’ve ever heard when it comes to writing. Until I saw a post that expanded upon this concept saying to ‘ show emotion, tell feelings …’. Showing emotion will bring the reader closer to the characters, to understand their actions better. But I don’t need to read about how slow she was moving due to tiredness.” Bryan Coulter
“For me, it’s the interaction between all of the characters. It drives almost all of my novels no matter how good or bad the plot may be .” Jonathan Srock
“Rules don’t apply in the first draft; they only apply when you begin to play with it in the second draft.” Victor Paul Scerri
“My best advice to you is: Just Write. No matter if you are not inspired, maybe you are writing how you can’t think of something to write or wrote something that sucks. But just having words written down gets you going and soon you’ll find yourself inspired. You just have to write.” Mony Martinez
“As Joseph Campbell said, “find your bliss.” Tap into a vein of whatever it is that “fills your glass” and take a ride on a stream of happy, joyful verbiage.” Jarrett Wilson
“Show don’t tell is the most cited rule in the history of fiction writing, but if you only show, you won’t get past ch. 1. Learn to master the other forms of narration as well.” Rebecka Jäger
“We’ve all been trained jump when the phone rings, or worse, to continually check in with social media. Good work requires focus, but I’ve had to adopt some hacks to achieve it. 1) Get up an hour before the rest of the household and start writing. Don’t check email, Facebook, Instagram, anything – just start working. 2) Use a timer app, to help keep you honest. I set it for 30 minutes, then it gives me a 5-minute break (when things are really humming, I ignore the breaks altogether). During that time, I don’t allow anything to interrupt me if I can help it. 3) Finally, set a 3-tiered word count goal: Good, Great, Amazing. Good is the number of words you need to generate in order to feel like you’ve accomplished something (1000 words, for example). Great would be a higher number, (say, 2000 words). 3000 words could be Amazing. What I love about this strategy is that it’s forgiving and inspiring at the same time.” Dave Strand
“My advice comes in two parts. First, I think it’s important to breathe life into characters, to give them emotions and personalities and quirks. Make them flawed so that they have plenty of room to grow. Make them feel real to the reader, so when they overcome the obstacles you throw in their way, or they don’t overcome them, the reader feels all the more connected and invested in their journey. Second, I think there’s just something so magical about a scene that transports me, as a reader, to the characters’ world; that allows me to see, feel, smell, and touch what the characters are experiencing. So, the second part of my advice is to describe the character’s experience of their surroundings keeping all of their senses in mind. Don’t stop simply with what they see.” Jennifer Baker
“Start with an outline (it can always be changed), set writing goals and stick to them, write every day, know that your first draft is going to suck and embrace that knowledge, and seek honest feedback. Oh, and celebrate milestones, especially when you type ‘The End’. Take a break from your novel (but don’t stop writing something — short stories, blog posts, articles, etc.) and then dive head-first into draft 2!” Jen Horgan O’Rourke
“I write in fits and spurts of inspiration and insights. Much of my ‘writing’ occurs when I am trying to fall asleep at night or weeding in the garden. I carry my stories and essays in my head, and when I sit down to start writing, I don’t like to ‘turn off the tap.’ My most important principle is that when I write a draft, I put it out of my mind for a few days before coming back to see what it sounds like when I read it aloud.” Gayle Woodson
“My stories almost always start from a single image… someone in a situation, a setting, with or without other people… there is a problem to be solved, a decision to make, some action being taken. Often that first image becomes the central point of the story but sometimes it is simply the kick-off point for something else. Once I’ve ‘seen’ my image clearly I sit down at the computer and start writing. More images appear as I write and the story evolves. Once the rough sketch has developed through a few chapters I may go back and fill in holes and round things out. Sometimes I even sketch a rough map of my setting or the ‘world’ I’m building. With first drafts I never worry about the grammatical and other writing ‘rules.’ Those things get ironed out in the second round.” Karin Weiss
“What it took to get my first novel drafted: the outline of a story idea, sitting in chair, DEADLINES, helpful feedback from the beginning so I could learn along the way.” Joan Cory
“I write a chapter in longhand and then later that day or the next morning type it and revise. The ideas seem to flow from mind to finger to pen to paper.” Al Rutgers
“Getting up early and write for a couple of hours from 6 am is my preferred choice as my mind is uncluttered with daily issues. Stick to the basic plan and learning to ‘show’ and ‘not tell’ has been hard but very beneficial.” Abe Tse
If you're ready to get serious about finishing your novel, I love for you to join us!
And if you want help getting organized and going, I greatly recommend purchasing The Write Planner and/or our 100 Day Book Program .
If you're working on your first-ever novel, congratulations! Here are answers to frequently asked questions new (and even experienced) writers often ask me about what it takes to write a book.
First, novel manuscripts are measured in words, not pages. A standard length for a novel is 85,000 words. The sweet number for literary agents is 90,000 words. Science fiction and fantasy tend to be around the 100,000 word range. And mystery and YA tend to be shorter, likely 65,000 words.
Over 120,000 words is usually too long, especially for traditional publishing. Under 60,000 words is a bit short, and might feel incomplete to the reader.
Of course, these are guidelines, not rules.
They exist for a reason, but that doesn’t mean you have to follow them if you have a good reason. For a more complete guide to best word count for novels, check out my guide here .
Each draft can take about the same amount of time as the first draft, or about 100 days. I recommend writing at least three drafts with a few breaks between drafts, which means you can have a finished, published novel in a little less than a year using this process.
Many people have finished novels faster. My friend and bestseller Carlos Cooper finishes four novels a year, and another bestselling author friend Stacy Claflin is working on her sixty-second book (and she’s not close to being sixty-two years old).
If you'd like, you can write faster.
If you take longer breaks between drafts or write more drafts, it might take longer.
Whatever you decide, I don’t recommend taking much longer than 100 days to finish your first draft. After that, you can lose your momentum and it becomes much harder to finish.
Writing a novel isn’t easy. But it is possible with the write process (sorry, I had to do it). If you follow each step above, you will finish a novel.
Your novel may not be perfect, but it will be what you need on your road to making it great.
Good luck and happy writing!
Discover The Write Plan Planner »
Which steps of this process do you follow? Which steps are new or challenging for you? Let us know in the comments !
Writing your novel idea in the form of a single-sentence premise is the first step to finishing your novel . So let’s do that today!
Download our premise worksheet. Follow it to construct your single sentence premise.
Then post your premise in the Pro Practice Workshop (and if you’re not a member yet, you can join here ). If you post, please be sure to leave feedback on premises by at least three other writers.
Maybe you'll start finding your writing team right here!
Happy writing!
Joe Bunting is an author and the leader of The Write Practice community. He is also the author of the new book Crowdsourcing Paris , a real life adventure story set in France. It was a #1 New Release on Amazon. Follow him on Instagram (@jhbunting).
Want best-seller coaching? Book Joe here.
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You’ve always wanted to write a novel. But something’s stopped you.
Maybe you’ve tried before, only to get a few, or several, pages in and lose steam because:
You may be surprised that even after writing 200 books (two-thirds of those novels) over the last 45+ years, including several New York Times bestsellers (most notably the Left Behind Series), I face those same problems every time .
So how do I overcome them and succeed?
I use a repeatable novel-writing plan — one that helps me smash through those obstacles. And that’s what I reveal to you in this definitive guide.
Imagine finishing your first draft. Better yet, imagine a finished manuscript . Or, best of all, your name on the cover of a newly published book — does that excite you?
Imagine letters from readers telling you your novel changed their lives, gave them a new perspective, renewed hope.
If other writers enjoy such things, why can’t you?
Of course this goes without saying, but first you must finish a novel manuscript.
This guide shows you how to write a novel (based on the process I use to write mine). I hope you enjoy it and can apply it to your own writing!
Is your novel concept special?
Come up with a story laden with conflict — the engine that will drive your plot .
I based my first novel, Margo , on this idea: A judge tries a man for a murder the judge committed .
Take whatever time you need to prioritize your story ideas and choose the one you would most want to read — the one about which you’re most passionate and which would keep you eagerly returning to the keyboard every day.
It must capture YOU so completely you can’t get it out of your head. Only that kind of an idea will inspire you to write the novel you’ve always dreamed of.
If you’re an Outliner, you prefer to map out everything before you start writing your novel. You want to know your characters and what happens to them from beginning to end.
If you’re a Pantser, meaning you write by the seat of your pants, you begin with the germ of an idea and write as a process of discovery.
As Stephen King says, “Put interesting characters in difficult situations and write to find out what happens.”
One or the other of these approaches will simply feel most natural to you.
But, in truth, many of us are hybrids, some combination of the two — needing the security of an outline and the freedom to let the story take us where it will.
So do what makes the most sense to you and don’t fret if that means incorporating both Outlining and Pantsing.
(I cover strategies for both types and talk about how to structure a novel here .)
Regardless, you need some form of structure to keep from burning out after so many pages.
I’m a Pantser with a hint of Outlining thrown in, but I never start writing a novel without an idea where I’m going — or think I’m going.
Your most important character will be your protagonist, also known as your lead or your hero/heroine.
This main character must experience a life arc — in other words, be a different, better or worse, stronger or weaker person by the end. (I use “he” inclusively to mean hero or heroine)
For most novels, that means he must bear potentially heroic qualities that emerge in the climax.
For readers to be able to relate to him, he should also exhibit human flaws.
So resist the temptation to create a perfect lead. Who can relate to perfection?
You’ll also have an antagonist (also known as the villain ) who should be every bit as formidable and compelling as your hero. Make sure the bad guy isn’t bad just because he’s the bad guy. 😊
He must be able to justify — if only in his own mind — why he does what he does to make him a worthy foe, realistic and memorable.
You may also need important orbital cast members.
For each character, ask:
Use distinct names (even distinct initials) for every character — and make them look and sound different from each other too, so your reader won’t confuse them.
Limit how many you introduce early. If your reader needs a program to keep them straight, you may not have him for long.
Naturally, your lead character will face an outward problem — a quest, a challenge, a journey, a cause… But he also must face inner turmoil to make him really relatable to the reader and come alive on the page.
Heroic, inventive, morally upright, and physically strong? Of course. But your protagonist must also face fear, insecurity, self-doubt.
The more challenges he faces, the more potential he has to grow and develop.
Much as in real life, the tougher the challenges, the greater the potential transformation.
For more on developing your characters, check out my blog posts Your Ultimate Guide to Character Development: 9 Steps to Creating Memorable Heroes , How to Create a Powerful Character Arc , and Character Motivation: How to Craft Realistic Characters .
True Pantsers — yes, even some bestselling novelists — don’t plot. Here’s the downside:
Like me, you might love being a Pantser and writing as a process of discovery, BUT — even we non-Outliners need some modicum of structure.
Discovering what bestselling novelist Dean Koontz calls the Classic Story Structure (in his How to Write Best-Selling Fiction ) changed my writing forever . My book sales took off when I started following his advice:
Want to download this 12-step guide to refer to whenever you wish? Click here.
Writing coaches call by different names their own suggested story structures , but the basic sequence is largely common. They all include some variation of:
Regardless how you plot your novel, your primary goal must be to grab readers by the throat from the get-go and never let go.
For more on developing your plot, visit my blog post The Writer’s Guide to Creating the Plot of a Story .
More in-depth plotting resources:
Though fiction, by definition, is made up, to succeed it must be believable. Even fantasies need to make sense.
You must research to avoid errors that render your story unbelievable.
Once a reader has bought into your premise, what follows must be logical. Effective research allows you to add the specificity necessary to make this work .
When my character uses a weapon, I learn everything I can about it. I’ll hear about it from readers if I refer to a pistol as a revolver or if my protagonist shoots 12 bullets from a gun that holds only 8 rounds.
Accurate details add flavor and authenticity.
Get details wrong and your reader loses confidence — and interest — in your story.
Research essentials:
Resist the urge to shortchange the research process.
Readers notice geographical, cultural, and technological blunders and trust me, they’ll let you know.
Even sci-fi or fantasy readers demand believability within the parameters of the world you’ve established .
One caveat: Don’t overload your story with all the esoteric facts you’ve learned, just to show off your research. Add specifics the way you would add seasoning to food. It enhances the experience, but it’s not the main course.
The perspective from which you write your novel can be complicated because it encompasses so much.
Your Point of View (POV) is more than simply deciding what voice to use: First Person ( I, me ), Second Person ( you, your ), or Third Person ( he, she, or it ).
It also involves deciding who will be your POV character, serving as your story’s camera.
The cardinal rule is one perspective character per scene , but I prefer only one per chapter, and ideally one per novel.
Readers experience everything in your story from this character’s perspective.
No hopping into the heads of other characters. What your POV character sees, hears, touches, smells, tastes, and thinks is all you can convey.
Some writers think that limits them to First Person, but it doesn’t. Most novels are written in Third Person Limited.
That means limited to one perspective character at a time, and that character ought to be the one with the most at stake in each scene.
Writing your novel in First Person makes it easiest to limit yourself to that one perspective character, but Third-Person Limited is the most common.
I’m often asked how other characters can be revealed or developed without switching to them as the perspective character.
Read current popular fiction to see how the bestsellers do it.
(One example: the main character hears what another character says, reads his tone and his expression and his body language, and comes to a conclusion. Then he finds out that person told someone else something entirely different, proving he was lying to one of them.)
For a more in-depth explanation of Voice and Point of View, read my post A Writer’s Guide to Point of View .
You must grab your reader by the throat on page one.
That doesn’t necessarily mean bullets flying or a high speed chase, though that might work for a thriller. It means avoiding too much scene setting and description and, rather, getting to the good stuff — the guts of the story .
Les Edgerton, a gritty writer who writes big boy novels (don’t say I didn’t warn you) says beginning writers worry too much about explaining all the backstory to the reader first.
He’s saying, in essence, get on with it and trust your reader to deduce what’s going on.
The goal of every sentence, in fact of every word , is to compel the reader to read the next.
Don’t moviegoers often say they liked the book better?
The reason is obvious: Even with all its high-tech computer-generated imagery , Hollywood cannot compete with the theater of the reader’s mind.
The images our mind’s eye evokes are far more imaginative and dramatic than anything Hollywood can produce.
Your job as a writer is not to make readers imagine things as you see them, but to trigger the theaters of their minds.
Give them just enough to engage their mental projectors. That’s where the magic happens.
For more, visit my post on What Is Imagery? and Show, Don’t Tell: What You Need to Know .
You’ve grabbed your reader with a riveting opener and plunged your hero into terrible trouble.
Now, everything he does to get out of that terrible trouble must make it progressively worse.
Do not give him a break.
Too many amateurs render their hero’s life too easy.
They give a private eye a nice car, a great weapon, a beautiful girlfriend, an upscale apartment, a fancy office, and a rich client. Rather, pull out from under him anything that makes his life easy.
Have his car break down, his weapon get stolen, his girlfriend leave, his landlord evict him, his office burn, and his client go broke. Now thrust him into a dangerous case.
Conflict is the engine of fiction .
(For more on conflict, read my post Internal and External Conflict: Tips for Creating Unforgettable Characters )
His trouble should escalate logically with his every successive attempt to fix it.
You can hint that he’s growing, developing, changing, getting stronger, and adding more to his skillset through his trials, but his trouble should become increasingly terrible until you…
Writing coaches have various labels for this crucial plot point.
Novelist Angela Hunt refers to this as The Bleakest Moment. It’s where even you wonder how you’re going to write your way out of this.
The once-reprobate lover who has become a changed man and a loving fiance suddenly falls off the wagon the night before the wedding.
Caught red-handed doing drugs and drinking with another woman, he sees his true love storm off, vowing to never speak to him again.
Imagine the nadir, the low point, the bleakest moment for your lead character. Your ability to mine this can make or break you as a novelist.
This is not easy, believe me. You’ll be tempted to give your protagonist a break, invent an escape, or inject a miracle. Don’t you dare!
The Bleakest Moment forces your hero to take action, to use every new muscle and technique gained from facing a book full of obstacles to prove that things only appeared beyond repair.
The more hopeless the situation, the more powerful your climax and ending will be.
The ultimate resolution, the peak emotional point of your story, comes when your hero faces his toughest test yet. The stakes must be dire and failure catastrophic.
The conflict that has been building throughout now crescendos to a final, ultimate confrontation, and all the major book-length setups are paid off.
Star Wars: A New Hope climaxes with the rebels forced to destroy the Death Star.
In the original version of the movie, that scene felt flat. So the filmmakers added that the Death Star was on the verge of destroying the rebel base.
That skyrocketed the tension and sent the stakes over the top.
Give readers the payoff they’ve been set up for. Reward their sticking with you and let them experience the fireworks.
But remember, the climax is not the end. The real conclusion ties up loose ends and puts everything into perspective.
A great ending :
Because climaxes are so dramatic, endings often just peter out. Don’t let that happen.
Your ending might not be as dramatic or action-filled as the climax, but it must be every bit as provocative and riveting.
Don’t rush it. Rewrite it until it shines. I’ve long been on record that all writing is rewriting, and this is never more true than at the end of your novel.
When do you know it’s been rewritten enough? When you’ve gone from making it better to merely making it different.
Write a fully satisfying ending that drops the curtain with a resounding thud. Your readers will thank you for it.
A lifetime. It will pull from you everything you know and everything you are.
It takes as long as necessary.
I know those answers sound flippant, but remember, speed is not the point.
Quality is the point.
Spend as much time as it takes for you to be happy with every word before you start pitching your manuscript to the market.
How long writing a novel will take you depends on your goals and your schedule.
A manuscript of a 100,000 words, including revision, should be doable — even for a beginner — in six to nine months.
Develop and practice the right habits , set a regular writing schedule, and stick to it.
If you’re anything like me, it will prove the hardest thing you have ever done. If it was easy, everyone would do it.
Every published novelist (yes, even any big name you can think of) was once right where you are — unpublished and unknown. They ultimately succeeded because they didn’t quit.
Resolve to not quit, and you will write a novel. I can’t guarantee it will become a bestseller, but I can guarantee it won’t if you don’t finish it.
You’ll know your story has legs if it stays in your mind, growing and developing every time you think of it.
The right concept simply feels right. You’ll know it when you land on it. Most importantly, your idea must compel you to write it.
Tell your story idea to someone whose opinion you trust.
You should be able to tell by their expression and their tone of voice whether they really like it or are just being polite.
If you want to write a novel, don’t allow the magnitude of the writing process to overwhelm you.
Attack it the way you would eat an elephant — one bite at a time. 😊
Don’t let fear stop you. Use it as motivation to do your best work.
Avoid wondering What if…?
Take the leap.
Stay focused on why you started this journey in the first place.
Follow the steps I’ve given you, and you may find that this time next year, you’re holding in your hands a manuscript that could become a published novel with your name on the cover.
Before you go, be sure to grab my FREE guide:
How to Write a Book: Everything You Need to Know in 20 Steps
Just tell me where to send it:
"Author." MLA Handbook. 8th ed. , MLA, 2016, pp. 21-25.
"Title." MLA Handbook. 8th ed. , MLA, 2016, pp. 25-29.
Authors | Rule | Examples |
---|---|---|
No Author | If no author given, skip the author and start with the title of source. | |
1 Author | Last Name, First Name. | Smith, John. |
2 Authors | Last Name, First Name, and First Name Last Name. | Smith, John, and Mary Fields. |
3+ Authors | Last Name, First Name of First Author, et al. | Smith, John, et al. |
Association or Company | Use the name of the association or company as the author. If a work is written and published by an organization, list the organization as publisher only. Initial articles (a, an, the) should be omitted. | American Cancer Society. |
Editor or other role | If the role of that person or group is something other than creating the work’s main content (as the author), follow the name with a label that describes the role. Only do this in the author field if it is important to highlight this person; otherwise use the Other Contributors field. | Nunberg, Geoffrey, editor. |
Source | Rule: Italics or "quotation marks" | Example |
---|---|---|
Entire Book | self-contained works | |
Collection of Essays | self-contained works | . |
Essay, story, or poem | Contained in a larger work (book, website, etc.) use "quotation marks" | "The Cultural Consequences of Printing." |
Play | plays even if they are in a larger work. | . |
Article from Journal, Magazine, or Newspaper | Contained in a larger work (book, website, etc.) use "quotation marks" | "Literary History and Sociology." |
Entire Journal, Magazine, or Newspaper | self-contained works | . |
Entire Website | self-contained works | . |
Website Article | Contained in a larger work (book, website, etc.) use "quotation marks" | "Free Will." |
Song | Contained in a larger work (book, website, etc.) use "quotation marks" | "Pretty Hurts." |
Getting praise from American auteur filmmaker and cinephile Quentin Tarantino is like winning the jackpot. When he likes what you’re doing with a story, he doesn’t shy away from praising it. (If you’re truly blessed, he might even “borrow” it for his next project.) The most recent target of his praise is the three films that make up the Toy Story trilogy: Toy Story , Toy Story 2 , and Toy Story 3 .
Originally released by Pixar in 1995, Toy Story changed the landscape of animation, proving that animated films could be four quadrant hits if the stories were universal. The first film was a success, leading to a quick sequel . The third film was released 11 years after the second, bringing the story of the beloved toys, who belonged to a now-grown-up Andy, to a close.
Sure, more films in the franchise were released after Toy Story 3 , but according to Tarantino, the Andy storyline was the perfect trilogy.
But what makes the “perfect trilogy”? Tarantino lays out a few rules for writers interested in writing sequels.
After Bill Maher brought up the strengths of the first two Godfather films and his thoughts on the polarizing third one, noting that there was a dip in quality for stepping outside the established story arc, Tarantino mentioned that the first three Toy Story films were among the best movies he’s ever seen.
"There was a thing where you probably don't like it, but I'm a big, big fan. I don't watch all the animated movies and stuff, but I am a big fan of the Toy Story trilogy," Tarantino admitted. "In the case of Toy Story , the third one is just magnificent. It's one of the best movies I've ever seen. If you've seen the other two, it's just devastating."
Tarantino continued: "The first movie is terrific, but the second movie is so great and takes the whole idea to such a bigger canvas that it obliterates the first one. Then the third one does the same to the second one."
In Toy Story , the world is established while Andy's favorite toy, Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks), deals with his jealousy of feeling replaced by a brand new space ranger action figure, Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Tim Allen).
The second film deals with another big change as the toys experience a coming-of-age journey, moving into an adolescent phase where their lives are no longer about playing favorites and making friends. At the end of the grand adventure the toys embark on in the film, Buzz asks if Woody is worried about what will happen once Andy outgrows them all. Woody isn’t concerned about the future, saying, "It'll be fun while it lasts. Besides, when it all ends, I'll have ol' Buzz Lightyear to keep me company."
When the third film arrives, Andy has outgrown his beloved toys. He plans to take only Woody with him to college and put the rest in storage. A mix-up leads the toys to a daycare where they contemplate their futures, ultimately feeling abandoned. But the status quo of their new workplace, overseen by Lotso (voiced by Ned Beatty) and his goons, pushes the toys to plan a prison escape, leading them to a seemingly inescapable inferno. However, this being a family-friendly movie, the ending is bittersweet but the best-case scenario for Andy, the toys, and their new family.
Not only do the adventures and stakes get bigger for the toys, but the emotional through-line continues the screenwriters’ vision established in the first film. This is something the best trilogies do, but Tarantino argues that many trilogies struggle to achieve.
Read More: Quentin Tarantino on Hollywood's Desire for Spec Scripts
While writing your first screenplay is tough, writing a trilogy can be even tougher. Not only must the themes carry through the rest of the franchise, but the stakes also have to feel bigger.
Part of the reason Toy Story works as a trilogy is that we see Andy grow up through his relationship with his toys, which can be seen as an allegory for the stages of life. We understand the effects that his actions—or lack thereof—have on these sentient objects that love him unconditionally. When we get to the final moments of Toy Story 3 , that goodbye is, in the words of Tarantino, “magnificent” and “devastating” because there is no better punctuation mark to this story about childhood.
Another trilogy that hits the mark perfectly is Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy, also known as the Man with No Name trilogy— A Fistful of Dollars , For a Few Dollars More , and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly . Like Toy Story , each film improves while keeping the story arc relatively the same. In this case, the three films tell the straightforward story of a lone gunman navigating a conflict between rival families.
While many trilogies often see significant improvement from the first to the second film, they often fail to maintain or exceed that improvement with the third. So, how do you keep the momentum you’ve created in the second film going in the next one?
'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' (1966)
The smartest way to write a trilogy is by focusing on the central idea that grounds its world. There are a few ways to achieve this.
Genre is everything and can help you set the tone that will carry through the themes, tone, and pacing. Once you know the genre inside and out, you can start to play into or subvert its conventions.
Trilogies are more common in sci-fi, fantasy, and dystopian fiction, but they can appear in any genre, including Westerns or animated films. The genre you choose allows you to play toward the tropes and then subvert them to evolve the story beyond the first film.
If you are writing in a new genre for the first time, ScreenCraft’s genre notes can help you hone what the industry expects from genre pieces. Whether you are intentionally leaning in or subverting, industry professionals can help you craft a strong draft that establishes the foundations of your trilogy.
Read More: 101 Genre-Blend Story Prompts
The two main forces that drive a story are characters and plot. Both are important, but which one is driving your story forward across three films?
In the character-based model, the defining feature is, well… the character! There are two ways to approach this model: focusing on the character’s or characters’ growth throughout the story (like Woody and the toys in Toy Story ), or on static characters who represent themes through their existence (like Max in the Mad Max films).
The plot-based model, on the other hand, emphasizes the progression of the story. The mission, quest, or overarching theme pushes the narrative forward, with the characters playing a secondary role. The Lord of the Rings is the best example of a plot-driven trilogy. While it does not ignore the characters and their hero’s journey, the quest is what drives the motives and story forward.
With any screenplay you’re writing, structuring your trilogy will help you plan how to deliver the story. The best way to approach your sequel is by outlining the overarching structure that connects the stories.
The Hunger Games (which is technically a trilogy, with the last part broken into two movies for logistical reasons) follows a three-act structure, with each film serving as the inciting incident (the Capitol is furious with the winners of the Games), the midpoint (the spark that ignites the revolution), and the climax/resolution (ending the totalitarian dictatorship the country lives under).
You can also make each story in the trilogy its own standalone story that shares connective tissue with the others. Back to the Future is a trilogy that shares the connective tissue of characters and time travel but places the central character at different points in time to play out entirely new stories.
'Back to the Future' (1985)
While screenwriters are not setting out to write trilogies all the time, it could be a rare opportunity that comes up that you should take advantage of. Understanding the formula, what worked, and the overall narrative goals of the first and second films will help you craft a third exceptional film—whether you're writing an original trilogy, adapting a three-book series, or joining a franchise later in its life. A film so well-crafted could even earn praise from Tarantino, which is the ultimate win for any cinephile or screenwriter.
Read More: How To Write a Successful Sequel Like ‘Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F'
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Nailing proper use of POV (point of view) is a challenge for many fiction writers. It seems easy, right? Whoever has the point of view in a scene is telling and showing the events unfolding. You can only be in one head per scene, the current “rule” goes. Back in the day (some decades ago), head hopping wasn’t tagged as a violation. But it is today.
However, it’s not that easy. Pitfalls abound when it comes to POV, but with help, writers can spot them.
One writing instructor handed out empty toilet paper rolls to his students in class and instructed them to look through the cardboard tube. He told them, “That’s your character’s POV—anything you can see through that tube.” A clever way to get across the concept of POV.
But there is so much more to POV than what a character sees. Regardless of whether you are writing in first-person or third-person POV, deep or shallow or omniscient, the entire scene—including the narrative—falls under the purview of POV.
That means the character’s voice, knowledge, background, and personality inform every word in a scene. Essentially, it’s all in her head, spoken or not. And this fact is what often trips up writers. While keeping faithful to POV in action and direct thoughts, they fail to pay attention to the rest. And maybe some readers won’t notice the slipups. But others will. And more importantly, the integrity of a scene breaks down when POV violations seep in.
One of the most central tenets of limited POV is that it limits us to one character at a time, and that means you can’t write in the head of more than one character a time. Obvious, right? But it’s surprisingly easy to get tripped up in practice. Jumping from one character to another within a scene is called “head hopping.”
Head hopping is bad because it diffuses the most powerful thing about limited POV and the reason most authors switched over to using it in the first place: staying in one person’s head within a scene allows us to get far deeper into all the emotional and mental under-layers of a story and experience it all the way down, from the inside, the same way we experience real life.
Take a look at this passage and see if you can spot the POV violations:
Jackie tensed, staring at the frosted windowpane. Her heart raced as the footsteps outside stopped, where the man in the darkness stood thinking, weighing his next move.
The glass shattered.
She screamed. The temperature in the room dropped as cold air blew in and the stranger came in with it .
Peter straightened and brushed the glass from his coat and jeans with his free hand. With the other, he trained his gun on Jackie. This wouldn’t be hard—all he had to do was take one hostage, and he could get home.
She stared into the barrel of the Springfield XD-S pistol. There were five, maybe six, feet between them. A bullet traveled at the speed of 2,500 feet per second. She could not possibly move fast enough to get away.
Here are the POV problems:
Let’s consider a better rewrite that corrects these POV issues:
Jackie tensed, staring at the frosted windowpane. Her heart raced as the footsteps outside stopped. Someone was out there. Something waiting in the dark . . .
This was so much like last time.
She screamed. The temperature in the room dropped as cold air blew in, and the stranger came in with it.
She stared into the barrel of the handgun. There were five, maybe six, feet between them. She could not possibly move fast enough to get away.
Tall, dressed in black, his eyes piercing, the man brushed the glass from his coat and jeans with his free hand. With the other, he trained his gun on Jackie.
Tears pricked her eyes. Would she ever be fast enough? Or was life going to end right here—too slow, too stupid to escape the doom she could always see coming?
Do you see how those POV errors were corrected?
Keep in mind that limited POV means you can use perceived details to reveal your characters and their stories in intimate ways. If Jackie knows Peter, his name can be used—but her reaction to him will also be very different, and you can delve as deep as you want into the dynamics of their relationship and how she feels about seeing him here.
If for some reason she knows a lot about guns, the gun details can stay in—and her calculation of a bullet’s speed would tell us a lot about her analytic personality. But this would necessitate setting up her expertise in this field earlier in the novel.
In the first example, the most egregious bit of head hopping is the line that tells us what Peter is thinking and what he’s intending to do. There we’ve gone whole hog from one character’s head into another’s and then back again. This not only makes us dizzy, it also drains some of the tension from the scene and prevents us from closely identifying with one character.
When you self-edit, ask yourself whether your character knows the things you’re conveying. Check to make sure that if you’re in Jackie’s head, and you’re not relaying Peter’s thoughts—or information that only an omniscient narrator is privy to.
And take advantage of the head you’re in. Let personality come through. Let your character’s perception and history and hopes and fears color the way events are experienced. That’s the reason for the lines added in the After paragraph. They fill in Jackie’s feelings, her fears, and her past. The way she’s experiencing this moment in the larger story of her life.
It makes no sense to show your POV character on the phone with someone she knows but you don’t name that person. Often beginning writers will play out a phone scene as if watching it from across the room instead of being experienced by the POV character herself. There will be pauses in which the person on the other end of the line is speaking and the POV character is listening, but what is said is not shown. Your character knows what is being said and who is speaking. So you have to show that.
One thing I see a lot in manuscripts I edit and critique is the POV character using someone’s name when they don’t know it. Perhaps the reader has been introduced to this character earlier, via another POV. But if George has never seen or met Ralph, you can’t use Ralph’s name in the scene, in George’s POV, until George learns it. Now, he might guess the guy coming at him is Ralph because of information he has. But he can’t be sure.
The key to POV is to keep in mind that every single line of a scene is essentially the POV character’s thoughts.
Be sure you stay in your character’s head and voice when you’re writing, because when you don’t, you’ve slipped into a POV violation, and that can be a slippery slope.
Featured Photo by Donald Teel on Unsplash
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Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Everyday AI > Write your next book with AI help
Have a book idea that you’ve been putting off writing? Whether you’re looking to start your first book or need a helping hand with your tenth, learn how to use AI as your book-writing helper to get your words out to the world.
For many writers, there are those days we’re on fire and transferring the voice and words in our heads to real, written text is as easy as pie. On other days, it can be hard to muster a string of words. If you run into writer’s block while writing your book, turn to an AI companion like Copilot for help getting unstuck.
Elevate your writing and collaborate with others - anywhere, anytime
If you’re struggling to find a fitting name for your book, use AI to help brainstorm fitting title ideas based on what your project is about. Feed the AI a synopsis (general summary) by dropping it in your chat and ask, “What would be a fitting title for my book based on my synopsis?” Or, if you already have an existing book title, but you’re not too fond of it or think it could be enhanced, ask AI what it thinks of a title. Provide as much context into your book as feasible so AI generates title ideas that frame your book the way you want.
Need ideas or more direction to complete a scene or chapter in your book? Let AI suggest a way forward. For example, if you’re writing a turning point in your book, get AI suggestions for dialogue and potential plot twists . Try sharing the setting, main conflict, and emotions you want to portray in your book and ask AI something like, “Can you suggest dialogue, emotional responses, or plot twists that would enhance this scene?”
Whether you’re writing nonfiction or a fantasy series, research gives your book a strong foundation and authenticity. Solid research creates verisimilitude (making your texts more believable, notably fiction), well-rounded characters, and a more compelling and coherent storyline. Use AI for research help with these book elements:
AI can be a great resource for writing three-dimensional characters with depth. Start by describing the current characters you have in mind. List their personality traits, backgrounds, and story roles (protagonist, antagonist , supporting character) in your AI prompt. Then, ask for suggestions on how you can deepen your characters’ development, such as portraying their inner motivations, values, and relationships with other characters. Try doing AI character research with questions like, “Based on this character’s profile, how do you think they would react under high-pressure situations?”
If your book takes place in a certain time period, you’ll want a strong research foundation rooted in fact. Turn to AI to gather information on historical events, societal norms, fashion, technology, and language from a particular era. Let’s say you’re working on a book that takes place during the Regency era. You can prompt AI with questions like, “What were common social customs and class structures during the Regency period in London?” or “Tell me about popular architecture and fashion styles during the Regency era in London, and provide resources to continue my research.”
Some worlds we want to recreate require a strong foundation in science to make them believable. If you’re working on a science fiction novel, start by telling AI the scientific elements involved in your world-building, whether your novel takes place on a made-up exoplanet or a dystopian society that extends far into the future. For example, if you’re writing the former, you could ask, “What scientific challenges would a human colony face on an exoplanet that resembles Earth, but has twice the gravity?”
Once you’ve got your manuscript down, use AI to help edit, catch mistakes, and give in-depth feedback on the quality of your book. Run your manuscript through AI to identify grammatical errors or awkward phrasing by feeding parts of it into a prompt for AI book editing analysis. You might say, “Review my manuscript for grammatical and syntax errors, awkward phrasing, and redundancies.” Get in-depth feedback on parts of your manuscript and ask questions like, “Does this scene or chapter end too abruptly? How can I fix it?” or “Can you suggest ways to make this dialogue flow more naturally?”
Ready to get to work with AI book-writing help? Head on over to Copilot or read more tips on ways to use AI in everyday life .
It’s the Office you know, plus the tools to help you work better together, so you can get more done—anytime, anywhere.
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An annual speed-writing contest lets in the robot overlords, and I, for one, welcome them.
With a name that sounds like something a parent would slowly mouth to their infant, NaNoWriMo is an annual “challenge” in which many thousands of seemingly well-adjusted people decide to write a novel in a month. “Do I need something special to write a novel?” the nonprofit that puts on this exquisite torture reasonably asks on its website. “Nope!”
National Novel Writing Month began in 1999 with 21 participants, and now nearly half a million take part every November. The event is also the name of the organization that gamifies the exercise, hosting participants on its online platform. To “ win ” NaNoWriMo, you need to produce a minimum of 50,000 words in a month (about the length of The Great Gatsby )—or 1,667 words a day, a number, NaNoWriMo tells us , that “scientists have determined to be the perfect amount to boost your creativity.”
NaNoWriMo first emerged in the San Francisco Bay Area, and it has Silicon Valley’s fingerprints all over it; if you’ve ever thought that producing fiction could be optimized, this is like the Soylent of novel writing. The organization boasts that its platform “tracks words for writers like Fitbit tracks steps.” But as long as it involved humans actually sitting down and sweating out sentences, it all seemed pretty harmless to someone like me, a curmudgeon who thinks writing is just hard work and not for everyone. But on Monday, NaNoWriMo expressed its thoughts on the use of AI, and it turns out that being a human is no longer even a requirement.
And now I think I know where NaNoWriMo is headed, and I approve: Just let the robots do it.
Read: My books were used to train Meta’s generative AI. Good.
In a statement that seemed like it may have been written by AI, the organization refused to “explicitly support” or “explicitly condemn” the use of technological assistance. And in case you thought to object, NaNoWriMo argued that disavowing AI would have exacerbated “classist and ableist issues.” The classism argument had to do with the fact that “a level of privilege” might endow some writers with “the financial ability to engage a human for feedback and review.” The ableism charge was even more absurd. AI should be allowed to help you write your novel because “not all brains have same [ sic ] abilities and not all writers function at the same level of education or proficiency in the language in which they are writing.”
Well, yes. That’s why writing takes work. If I entered a contest to see if I could fix a broken washing machine, my lack of education and proficiency as a plumber would make that difficult and most likely impossible. Allow me to access YouTube videos of plumbing tutorials or use a robot plumber (if we ever get those), and the task will be much, much easier. Fixing your washing machine and writing a novel are, of course, two different kinds of accomplishments; doing your own plumbing will save you a few hundred dollars and might provide a sense of satisfaction, while the novel will just make you feel good about yourself. Plumbers have a useful skill that demands expertise acquired through training and much trial and error, whereas, according to NaNoWriMo, its participants “enter the month as elementary school teachers, mechanics, or stay-at-home parents. They leave novelists.” This is why I’ve never liked NaNoWriMo.
A lot of people online were angry about the organization’s decision, and a few authors stepped down from its writers’ board. AI is not popular among creative people, even part-time creative people, given that large language models have cannibalized the work of published authors and threaten to further erode the value of creativity. Many of the critics mentioned AI’s penchant for “stealing” writing. A number of disabled writers in particular took offense at the idea that they should need AI. Laura Elliot, an author whose debut novel will be out next spring, wrote on X that “disabled writers do not need the immoral theft machine to write because we lack the ability to be creative without plagiarism—encouraging AI is a slap in the face to all writers and this excuse is appallingly ableist.”
I’m sympathetic to these writers who feel betrayed by a writing project that was apparently a helpful motivator for them. But if varying levels of “education and proficiency” divide those who can succeed at the challenge from those who can’t, maybe everyone should just take another month. Personally speaking, writing is difficult even when it’s rewarding, even after I’ve spent a decades-long career doing it. You gain confidence over time, but it’s always a struggle to make what ends up on the page correspond with what was in your mind. That struggle—the million individual choices that writing demands—is what gives it its particular human flavor. (And maybe it’s sacrilege to say this, but consider, too, that not everyone was born to be an author or needs to try to become one.)
Read: Murdered by my replica?
Which is why I, for one, think that NaNoWriMo’s statement is great news. The world needs fewer novels, certainly fewer novels that have been written in a month. And artificial intelligence is itchy for distractions; we need to give the robots something to do before they start messing with nuclear codes or Social Security numbers. Just give NaNoWriMo to them. They can probably produce 50,000 words in a few seconds. Better yet, they can also read the novels that other AIs produce, saving everyone from a lot of bad writing. Reading metric tons of material in order to reconstitute it as original work is, after all, what they do best. When the AIs have spent years developing their abilities—writing and shelving novel after novel—then maybe they will have something to contribute to our human efforts.
Until then, if you want to write, just write, though don’t assume it will be good. And don’t assume it will be quick. When all we have is our human brains, we need to deliberate on every word. Maybe that’s why NaNoWriMo has had such appeal, precisely in a time of prediction software: People want the challenge of doing something that requires patience and persistence and imagination, and that spits out unpredictable results. Take that away, and you might as well just be fiddling with your Fitbit.
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COMMENTS
For example, you would write the name of William Faulkner's novel Absalom, Absalom! with both the comma and the exclamation point in italics. 4. Highlight the book name. Hover your cursor at the beginning of the book name and left click your mouse. Hold the key down and drag your cursor over the title of the book.
4. In-Text Citations. When referencing a book title in the body of your essay, it should be italicized. If you are referring to a specific chapter or section, place the title of the chapter in quotation marks. This ensures clarity and helps the reader distinguish between the book title and other elements of your text.
Use capital letters to write the title of the novel. For example, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Use italics and capital letters to write the name of the author and his/her other works mentioned in a book title—for example, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813). You should use quotation marks when writing headings of short ...
Heart of Darkness ). Place the name of a single chapter in quote marks, instead ("The Great Towns" from Condition of the Working Class in England by Friedrich Engels). APA. Italicize the book title. Capitalize the first letter, the first letter of a subtitle, and proper nouns.
The answer is: in this case, yes. In other cases, sometimes. It's really not as confusing as it seems. When you are talking about a book series but don't want or need to include the complete series titles for the purposes of your work, you only have to put words in italics that also appear in the book titles. So, because Harry Potter is ...
Exceptions to the Rule. The rule for writing book titles in italics applies specifically to running text. If the book title is standing on its own, as in a heading, there's no need to italicize it. Additionally, if the book is part of a larger series and you're mentioning both the title of the series and that of the individual book, you can ...
Book titles: Author names: Write the title in italicsDo not use quotation marks (unless you're speaking about the book's chapter, not the entire piece)Capitalize the first and last words, proper names, and all words of four or more letters (from, among, except, etc.)Capitalize words that appear after punctuation marks (colons, semicolons, em dashes, etc.), even if it's an article or a ...
How to Write the Title of a Book in an Essay. First, remember the general rules of citing book names in academic works. Here's how to cite books in essays: Use capitalization. Every word of a book's name goes in the title case, except prepositions, articles, and coordinating conjunctions. Use italics for longer and independent works.
Capitalize the first word of titles of books in papers, the first word after a colon, and all major words. Avoid capitalizing minor words (e.g., articles, prepositions, conjunctions) unless they are the first word of the name or longer than four letters. Always place the book title after the author's name.
Use quotation marks around the title if it is part of a larger work (e.g. a chapter of a book, an article in a journal, or a page on a website). All major words in a title are capitalized. The same format is used in the Works Cited list and in the text itself. When you use the Scribbr MLA Citation Generator, the correct formatting and ...
1. Italicize book titles in the text of your paper. Designate a book title as separate from the rest of your text by placing the complete title (and subtitle, if it has one) in italics. In contrast, shorter articles, essays, or chapters within the book are enclosed in quotation marks. [1]
The most important thing is to pick a style and stick to it. 2. "quotation marks" for shorter works such as poems and articles. There are also several different methods of capitalizing titles. These methods do not always agree. This page does not cover all the different views, just one method that we like to use.
In fact, most style guides, including MLA and Chicago style, require book titles to be italicized, not underlined. If the book title has a subtitle, the subtitle should be italicized as well and separated by a colon to be formatted correctly for MLA style, as in: Natural History of the Intellect: the last lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
If a source has no author, start the MLA Works Cited entry with the source title.Use a shortened version of the title in your MLA in-text citation.. If a source has no page numbers, you can use an alternative locator (e.g. a chapter number, or a timestamp for a video or audio source) to identify the relevant passage in your in-text citation. If the source has no numbered divisions, cite only ...
1. Choose a world you want to spend a lot of time in. Your novel will require your readers to immerse themselves in a specific world for the hours that they spend reading. More importantly, it will require you, the author, to immerse yourself for weeks, months, and even years in this world.
In this article, I will break down the major steps of novel writing into manageable pieces, organized into three categories — before, during, and after you write your manuscript. How to write a novel in 13 steps: 1. Pick a story idea with novel potential. 2.
Mark the deadline date in your calendar, kneel on the floor, close your eyes, and make a vow to yourself and your book idea that you will write the first draft novel by then, no matter what. 4. Set Smaller Deadlines Building to the Final Deadline. A novel can't be written in a day. There's no way to "cram" for a novel.
Written by MasterClass. Last updated: Mar 2, 2022 • 5 min read. A step-by-step guide can help new authors overcome the intimidating parts of writing a book, allowing them to stay focused and maximize their creativity.
See why leading organizations rely on MasterClass for learning & development. For centuries, the use of pseudonyms has been implemented in writing by various notable authors wanting to conceal their true identities. Writers use pseudonyms for a variety of reasons, and many successful, classic writers are more widely known by their pen names ...
Setting. A novel's setting is where and when it takes place. Here are a few examples of novel settings: Tokyo, 1973. Mars, 2144. Middle Earth, T.A. 3018. Novel settings can be real or fictional places. They can also be set in the past, the present day, or the future.
With practical exercises in every lesson, this course will guide you through the planning stages of your novel and teach you essential elements of novel writing, including: Creating characters and choosing your point of view. Bringing your setting to life. Building enough of a structure to draft your manuscript.
How to Write a Novel in 12 Steps. Nail down a winning story idea. Determine whether you're an Outliner or a Pantser. Create an unforgettable main character. Expand your idea into a plot. Research, research, research. Choose your Voice and Point of View. Start in medias res (in the midst of things). Engage the theater of the reader's mind.
Formatting the Author. If no author given, skip the author and start with the title of source. Last Name, First Name. Smith, John. Last Name, First Name, and First Name Last Name. Smith, John, and Mary Fields. Use the name of the association or company as the author. If a work is written and published by an organization, list the organization ...
Write your next book with AI help. If you have a book idea in mind, get AI help with the writing process. Compose a book with AI help, from researching book ideas to AI book editing. Learn more. Everything you need to achieve more in less time. Get powerful productivity and security apps with Microsoft 365.
The nonprofit behind National Novel Writing Month, an annual tradition in which writers try to crank out the first 50,000 words of a novel in November, is facing backlash from authors after it ...
How To Write a Trilogy. The smartest way to write a trilogy is by focusing on the central idea that grounds its world. There are a few ways to achieve this. Know the Genre. Genre is everything and can help you set the tone that will carry through the themes, tone, and pacing. Once you know the genre inside and out, you can start to play into or ...
One thing I see a lot in manuscripts I edit and critique is the POV character using someone's name when they don't know it. Perhaps the reader has been introduced to this character earlier, via another POV. But if George has never seen or met Ralph, you can't use Ralph's name in the scene, in George's POV, until George learns it.
Research. Whether you're writing nonfiction or a fantasy series, research gives your book a strong foundation and authenticity. Solid research creates verisimilitude (making your texts more believable, notably fiction), well-rounded characters, and a more compelling and coherent storyline.
Two pieces of paper were waiting for me in my mailbox. The first was a note from an editor friend who had just finished reading an advance copy of my debut novel, The Empress of Cooke County. I opened the heavy envelope and read, I loved it and am so sad I couldn't stay forever in the world you created!My husband asked what was making me laugh out loud so much, and asked to read it as soon ...
National Novel Writing Month began in 1999 with 21 participants, and now nearly half a million take part every November. The event is also the name of the organization that gamifies the exercise ...