I'm almost through the third draft of my novel, Scared. This is far more difficult a project than I thought. Writing non-fiction comes fairly easy for me. Of course it's hard work, but nothing compared to the complexity of a novel. Although this has been the most difficult thing I've ever done as far as writing is concerned, it has also been the most rewarding. I found an article on "How to Write a Novel" that is very helpful and interesting. Keep writing, there's a wealth of treasure inside you that's barely begun to be tapped!
"Writing a novel is easy. Writing a good novel is hard. That's just life. If it were easy, we'd all be writing best-selling, prize-winning fiction.
Frankly, there are a thousand different people out there who can tell you how to write a novel. There are a thousand different methods. The best one for you is the one that works for you.
In this article, I'd like to share with you what works for me. I've published six novels and won about a dozen awards for my writing. I teach the craft of writing fiction at writing conferences all the time. One of my most popular lectures is this one: How to write a novel using what I call the "Snowflake Method."
This page is the most popular one on my web site, and gets hundreds of page views per day, so you can guess that a lot of people find it useful. But you may not, and that's fine by me. Look it over, decide what might work for you, and ignore the rest! If it makes you puke, I won't be insulted. Different writers are different. If my methods get you rolling, I'll be happy. I'll make the best case I can for my way of organizing things, but you are the final judge of what works best for you. Have fun . . . write your novel!
Good fiction doesn't just happen, it is designed. You can do the design work before or after you write your novel. I've done it both ways and I strongly believe that doing it first is quicker and leads to a better result. Design is hard work, so it's important to find a guiding principle early on. This article will give you a powerful metaphor to guide your design.
Our fundamental question is this: How do you design a novel?
For a number of years, I was a software architect designing large software projects. I write novels the same way I write software, using the "snowflake metaphor". OK, what's the snowflake metaphor? Before you go further, take a look at this cool web site." Read the entire article here.
