A Strategic Plan to Adopt
A lot of people have to work while they are waiting to break through as an author in another job. This plan will assist you to achieve your dreams of becoming a published author in less than three months, will a strategic action plan that gears you towards success.
Having a Plan Makes Your Novel Achievable
I made a huge mistake with my first novel. I didn't plan it thoroughly enough. I have however learned, through writing various other books that you have to plan the outline of your book, and then write. When I first began writing, I had the outline of my book in my head, with a general idea of the direction of the story, and I experience a lack of motivation at times, because I had no discipline attached to writing the story. I can share with you a strategic plan, that will help you to be a successful writer. The first story is always the hardest, and from there it gets easier to write.
Write your novel one step at a time
When you come to penning your first fiction work (I am assuming you have a word processor and have a reasonable typing speed) you will need to have a basic summary of your story in mind. You will also need to develop your characters: their appearance, their character traits, their likes and their dislikes, and their relationships to one another. You will also have to have an idea of the context of your story, and the time where it is set. How much do you know about the context, the characters and the idea that you want to write? I did spend about six months in the planning stages of my first novel, developing relationships, and the context, and the characters and their personalities. You don't have to spend six months developing all of the details, but you will need to know them reasonably in depth, and to research your topic thoroughly.
Know your target audience and what they like
Before you embark on writing your first work of fiction, you also have to understand your target audience, because this goes into the development of your promotional and audience relations plan. It is important to get a feel for the type of person who will read your book. My science fiction work, I had science fiction fans, and people who had grown up watching Back to the Future, Star Wars and Star Trek, and reading Lord of the Rings, in mind when I wrote my first novel beginning at the end of the last century.
Understand your Story Arc
Once you have developed the context of your story, researched it thoroughly, outlined the characters and their relationships, and have a summary of the story in your head, follow the Story Arc way of writing, to ensure it will grab and maintain your audience's attention. First you have to set up your story, and follow on with introducing a conflict. You then have to introduce a challenge for the characters, and then follow this up with a climax. Finally, you have to set up a resolution for your story. Once you have this under wraps, you can start to develop a chapter outline.
Penning the Chapter Outline
The chapter outline is a more detailed version of your story summary, and it takes you through the story, chapter by chapter. It will help you to maintain story integrity, and consistency, and make it far easier to edit.
Committing to writing each day will complete your work
When you feel daunted about writing a 50000 to 80000 word novel (or longer) consider that you will be writing it piece by piece. Refuse to be daunted by the prospect of a "large" undertaking. You can do it, and put a sign up on your wall - an affirmative call to action for yourself - to help remind you of your goals. A good affirmative statement is to "Be courageous, every day - write on!" Set yourself a goal of x number of thousand words per day, depending on how many days you are going to commit to write to, divided by the word count you are aiming for. A full novel generally has a minimum word count of 50 000 words by standard. If you are aiming to write several thousand words per day (say write for one hour every day) you will quickly conquer the mountain.
Have your work peer reviewed prior to publishing
If you can't afford an editor, ask your friends to peer review your work. Even better if you have a friend who is a professional journalist or freelance writer, they can help make suggestions regarding your work, and help you to edit it. If you have your friends and acquaintances read your book, ask them what they liked about it, and also ask them if you can publish your comments on your author blog.
Decide on a sound beginner writers' platform
Amazon has an excellent beginner publishing platform - called Amazon Kindle Direct. If you have gotten your book beautifully formatted into a complete document - have a look at the tutorials on Kindle Direct Publishing for information regarding having your work ready to publish. Amazon do review your titles for quality prior to them being published, to ensure that their customers are getting consistent quality. If you have any errors in your book, or the cover needs work, the system has a failsafe, that you are required to review any problems prior to them listing the book live in the Amazon store. Amazon Kindle Direct is also an excellent publishing platform for experienced authors, as they are the third largest search engine in the world, and have websites in many countries around the world where they make your book available for sale.
The Summary for Your Success Story
We have looked at how you can get a novel successfully published. We have examined a strategic plan for getting your novel completed, about how before you begin you need to develop your characters, understand the context and the genre of your book. You have also been introduced to the importance of understanding your target audience. We have also looked at how to construct your story from an outline and how you can set time aside each day, and aim to get several thousand words completed every day. We have also discussed the importance of peer review and editing. Armed with this information, you will be well able to achieve the dream of sharing your story and having your first novel published. You will also be well on your way to achieving the goal of becoming a best-selling author! Congratulations - now get writing.
A lot of people have to work while they are waiting to break through as an author in another job. This plan will assist you to achieve your dreams of becoming a published author in less than three months, will a strategic action plan that gears you towards success.
Having a Plan Makes Your Novel Achievable
I made a huge mistake with my first novel. I didn't plan it thoroughly enough. I have however learned, through writing various other books that you have to plan the outline of your book, and then write. When I first began writing, I had the outline of my book in my head, with a general idea of the direction of the story, and I experience a lack of motivation at times, because I had no discipline attached to writing the story. I can share with you a strategic plan, that will help you to be a successful writer. The first story is always the hardest, and from there it gets easier to write.
Write your novel one step at a time
When you come to penning your first fiction work (I am assuming you have a word processor and have a reasonable typing speed) you will need to have a basic summary of your story in mind. You will also need to develop your characters: their appearance, their character traits, their likes and their dislikes, and their relationships to one another. You will also have to have an idea of the context of your story, and the time where it is set. How much do you know about the context, the characters and the idea that you want to write? I did spend about six months in the planning stages of my first novel, developing relationships, and the context, and the characters and their personalities. You don't have to spend six months developing all of the details, but you will need to know them reasonably in depth, and to research your topic thoroughly.
Know your target audience and what they like
Before you embark on writing your first work of fiction, you also have to understand your target audience, because this goes into the development of your promotional and audience relations plan. It is important to get a feel for the type of person who will read your book. My science fiction work, I had science fiction fans, and people who had grown up watching Back to the Future, Star Wars and Star Trek, and reading Lord of the Rings, in mind when I wrote my first novel beginning at the end of the last century.
Understand your Story Arc
Once you have developed the context of your story, researched it thoroughly, outlined the characters and their relationships, and have a summary of the story in your head, follow the Story Arc way of writing, to ensure it will grab and maintain your audience's attention. First you have to set up your story, and follow on with introducing a conflict. You then have to introduce a challenge for the characters, and then follow this up with a climax. Finally, you have to set up a resolution for your story. Once you have this under wraps, you can start to develop a chapter outline.
Penning the Chapter Outline
The chapter outline is a more detailed version of your story summary, and it takes you through the story, chapter by chapter. It will help you to maintain story integrity, and consistency, and make it far easier to edit.
Committing to writing each day will complete your work
When you feel daunted about writing a 50000 to 80000 word novel (or longer) consider that you will be writing it piece by piece. Refuse to be daunted by the prospect of a "large" undertaking. You can do it, and put a sign up on your wall - an affirmative call to action for yourself - to help remind you of your goals. A good affirmative statement is to "Be courageous, every day - write on!" Set yourself a goal of x number of thousand words per day, depending on how many days you are going to commit to write to, divided by the word count you are aiming for. A full novel generally has a minimum word count of 50 000 words by standard. If you are aiming to write several thousand words per day (say write for one hour every day) you will quickly conquer the mountain.
Have your work peer reviewed prior to publishing
If you can't afford an editor, ask your friends to peer review your work. Even better if you have a friend who is a professional journalist or freelance writer, they can help make suggestions regarding your work, and help you to edit it. If you have your friends and acquaintances read your book, ask them what they liked about it, and also ask them if you can publish your comments on your author blog.
Decide on a sound beginner writers' platform
Amazon has an excellent beginner publishing platform - called Amazon Kindle Direct. If you have gotten your book beautifully formatted into a complete document - have a look at the tutorials on Kindle Direct Publishing for information regarding having your work ready to publish. Amazon do review your titles for quality prior to them being published, to ensure that their customers are getting consistent quality. If you have any errors in your book, or the cover needs work, the system has a failsafe, that you are required to review any problems prior to them listing the book live in the Amazon store. Amazon Kindle Direct is also an excellent publishing platform for experienced authors, as they are the third largest search engine in the world, and have websites in many countries around the world where they make your book available for sale.
The Summary for Your Success Story
We have looked at how you can get a novel successfully published. We have examined a strategic plan for getting your novel completed, about how before you begin you need to develop your characters, understand the context and the genre of your book. You have also been introduced to the importance of understanding your target audience. We have also looked at how to construct your story from an outline and how you can set time aside each day, and aim to get several thousand words completed every day. We have also discussed the importance of peer review and editing. Armed with this information, you will be well able to achieve the dream of sharing your story and having your first novel published. You will also be well on your way to achieving the goal of becoming a best-selling author! Congratulations - now get writing.
For more information, and inspiration for how you can achieve
your dreams, as well as have previews of my fiction work and the
Upcoming Game for Firestorm, go to http://www.sokuchastones.com
you can also contact me if you have any questions, via my website.
Please add your comments. I also like to help out other writers by
giving reviews. For information contact me on my website.
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