Writing a book is a life-long dream for many people – and often seems like an impossible task.
Where do you start? How can you possibly fill three hundred pages or so with words someone else will want to read? How do you even begin to create an entire novel?
There’s no doubt writing a book is a huge endeavour. Let’s look at how to start transforming this ambitious goal into a massive achievement.
In this article, I’ll break down how to write a book into distinct, clear steps, taking you from your first idea up until the point when you’re ready to begin writing.
What to Write a Book About
Deciding what you want your book to be about is the first step.
You’ve a number of decisions to make.
First, do you want your book to be fiction or non-fiction?
The answer may be easy. If you’ve always dreamed of writing a novel, then you may know immediately you want to write fiction. Or, if you’ve always dreamed of writing a biography about someone important to you, then you know straight away you want to write non-fiction.
But not every budding writer knows straight away what kind of book they want to write. If, for example, your dream is to write a book that changes people’s minds about climate change, you may be unsure whether to write fiction or non-fiction.
The best advice I can give is to follow your heart. Whatever type of book you write, you’ll need to read widely around your genre and topic, so it’s critical to write the type of book you love reading.
If you want to write about climate change, but your absolute favourite reading material is detective fiction, then consider whether you can create a climate-change crime story. Don’t force yourself to write a genre you don’t love reading. Given the vast amount of time and work writing a book takes, you need it to be a passion project.
It’s also worthwhile taking your skillset into account – but don’t let that rule your decision-making process. If you’re an environmental scientist, then yes, you may find it easier to sell a non-fiction treatise about the dangers of climate change. But that doesn’t mean that’s all you can write.
If you’re ready and willing to devote time to learning new skills, then there’s no reason why you can’t consider branching out into other areas. I’d just advise strongly against branching out in other areas which you don’t enjoy reading yourself!
Once you’ve decided where your heart lies, you can start making other important decisions.
Let’s treat this as a step-by-step process.
Steps to Writing a Book
Step One: Pick Your Genre
This is a critical step often missed by new writers. Most of us have stories we’re passionate about telling, and many of us read so widely amongst different genres that we’re eager to write a genre-bending story.
However, this can be a risky approach, especially if you’re hoping to publish your book.
Until you’re clear on what genre of story you’re writing, you can’t clarify to yourself what your reader’s expectations are likely to be – and without knowing what the expectations are, you’ll be unlikely to fulfil them. This can lead to a story that – no matter how beautifully written and structured and edited – remains unsatisfying to many readers.
Once you’ve determined your genre, you’ll be in a much better position to find the core of your story, to structure it, and to write a book people want to read.
If you’re writing fiction, you’ll first want to decide whether you’re writing commercial fiction, literary fiction or a book that could potentially be classed as either.
If you dream of winning awards, then Literary Fiction is probably your bag. If you dream of selling millions of copies, you’re probably dreaming of writing commercially. You may also decide you want to write the sort of Book Club fiction which can be classed as both Literary and Commercial Fiction.
The broad type of commercial genres you can choose from include:
- Crime
- Thriller
- Romance
- Science Fiction and Fantasy
- Historical Fiction
- Horror
You may well choose a sub-genre which could include areas such as:
- Cosy crime mysteries
- Psychological thrillers
- Romance westerns
- Dystopian fantasies
- Historical spy stories
- Psychological horror
You’ll also want to decide whether you’re writing for children, young adults or adults.
If you’re writing Literary Fiction, you’ll be less bound by genre conventions than if you’re writing commercial fiction.
It’s not uncommon for Literary and Book Club Fiction to merge more than one genre and play around with conventions: however, be warned: just classing your book as ‘Literary’ does not mean you can ignore the existence of genre altogether. If anything, you should understand the genres you’re working with to an even higher degree if you plan to make deep and artistic statements about the conventions through your book!
If you’re writing Non-Fiction, then again, you want to clarify what genre you’re working with. Types of non-fiction genres include (but are not limited to):
- Memoir
- Biography
- Historical Narratives
- Popular Science
- War Studies
Some successful books don’t fit neatly into any category. A new genre of autofiction, for example, blends the boundaries between fiction and memoir. However, be aware if you choose to write a new, exciting, experimental genre, you may find your book harder to market.
Step Two: Begin Research
Next, it’s worth identifying knowledge gaps which could impede you when planning your story. You want to be familiar enough with the world you’ll be writing about to get started.
If you’re writing a Cold War spy thriller, for example, and you were never a Cold War spy yourself, you’ll likely need to carry out some research in order to design your protagonist’s era-appropriate goal and what conflict they might encounter.
If you’re writing in a genre where research is critical – such as Historical Fiction – you may continue researching as you plan and write your early drafts, or you may prefer to spend a substantial amount of time researching before you start planning.
Necessary research should also include reading widely in your genre, and familiarising yourself with the comparative titles and authors you might wish to identify for your book.
If you’ve never studied creative writing, then at this point you might also think about developing your writing craft knowledge and skills.
If you can’t afford to take any taught creative writing courses, don’t panic! Myriad free websites and online writing communities exist where you can begin honing your writing craft skills.
The Fictionary online community is one such site, where you can build friendships with other writers, find beta readers, access free writing craft blogs, attend live webinars and courses for free, find craft book recommendations and even gain free advice from certified story editors.
Start exploring these sites to learn how fiction and narrative non-fiction writing differs from the other types of writing. For example, if you’re accustomed to academic writing, you’ll need to learn how to make your prose more sensory, evocative and active, by learning to show rather than tell and avoid the passive voice.
If you’re writing speculative fiction based upon an imaginary world, you may choose to design your world at this point, or you may choose to build your world as you write your story.
There’s no right way to do this, but it can be helpful to have a place where you keep notes about your story world so that you don’t forget important aspects of it as you write!
If you’re writing non-fiction, then research is likely to take up a large amount of time.
Step Three: Choose Your Protagonist
Once you’ve chosen your genre and familiarised yourself with your story world, I’d recommend spending a decent amount of time deciding who your book will be about.
If you want your book to be about more than one person, think about whether you might want to write about a dual protagonist or a group protagonist, or whether you might decide to have multiple point-of-view characters with only one protagonist. The protagonist will be the character with the most at stake, and who you hope the reader will most identify with.
(And if you don’t understand what I mean by point-of-view characters, go back to Step Two. You’ll find plenty of resources explaining what a point-of-view character is on the Fictionary community!)
There are certain aspects of your protagonist I’d recommend thinking about before you start to write or plan your story. These include:
- What does your protagonist want? What’s their external goal throughout the story?
- What motivates your protagonist? What are their internal needs – both their conscious and unconscious motivations?
- What will your protagonist need to learn, change, heal or grow in order to be able to achieve their goal? That is, what sort of character arc do you envision for your protagonist?
- What was your protagonist’s life like before the story starts?
How detailed you are in your notes at this point is a matter of choice. Some writers like to have their protagonist carefully created before they begin planning, others prefer to write their way into the character.
However, figuring out these key areas before you begin planning or writing can help you to create a much stronger first draft of your story, as it will help prevent you creating a flat, passive protagonist lacking goals and depth.
Step Four: Brainstorm Your Plot
Once you’ve created your protagonist, the next step is to think about what plotlines might best allow for showcasing your protagonist’s development (or lack of development) throughout the story.
You may already have a strong idea of what you want your plot to be, or you might use this time developing all sorts of creative plots for your story. Whatever you decide, areas worth thinking about are:
- What’s at stake in your story? Without strong stakes, your story risks lacking tension, and losing readers’ interest.
- What conflict and obstacles might your protagonist encounter working towards their goal?
- Conflict can exist in the form of other characters – specifically an antagonist, but many other types of characters can create conflict. Think about other character archetypes you could employ to develop your plot – might you have a mentor, an outlaw, a trickster, a lover, etc.?
- Conflict can also come from other sources – from society, nature, technology, the supernatural, or from your protagonist’s inner demons. Think about what types of conflict might best serve your protagonist’s character development and how you might develop these in your plot.
- As you brainstorm plotlines, consider how you might separate out your main plot from your subplots, and how these story-threads might interweave throughout your narrative.
Step Five (Optional): Free-write Your way into New Story Ideas
This is an optional step which I mention here because some fiction writers find this helpful. If you’re struggling to brainstorm your character, world and plot, then sometimes free writing your way into your protagonist’s head or into story scenes can be a great way to get inspiration flowing.
If you think this strategy might help you, there are two craft books I can recommend. Both set out useful methodologies for free-writing your way into a story.
Alan Watt’s The 90 Day Novel sets out ideas for spending the first 30 days of your writing process on character research. Lisa Cron’s Story Genius provides advice on how you can write your way into your protagonist’s backstory and your story’s key themes. Both books have a substantial fan-base of writers who find their advice inspirational and instructive.
Step Six: Plan a Basic Narrative Arc
All narrative books, whether fiction or non-fiction, require a strong architecture to support their narrative.
If you enjoy planning books, then this step will be of great importance to you. If you prefer to write your way into a book, then I’d still recommend spending at least some time considering the potential narrative arc of your story. This can help prevent you from writing a few hundred pages of rambling prose doesn’t end up taking your story where you want it to go.
To learn how to use story structure to design strong narratives, a great place to start is the Fictionary’s Story Foundations course which you can take online for free via the Fictionary online community.
You’ll learn about the foundations of story structure in far more depth in a course than I can cover here in this article, but I’ll set out the basic principles briefly here.
To ensure your narrative is cohesive and, your story should be centred around:
- Your protagonist: a character the reader cares about and identifies with.
- Your protagonist must have a story goal. This is what drives your protagonist into action and will force them to grow as the story unfolds.
- Their story goal must have stakes. There must be meaningful consequences at play if your protagonist fails to achieve their story goal.
Certain key scenes are found at specific points throughout effective stories which help support the narrative arc.
These key scenes are:
- The Inciting Incident (within the first 15 percent of the narrative): This is where the Protagonist meets their story goal.
- Plot Point One (20-30 percent of the narrative): This is the point of no return, where the Protagonist accepts their story goal.
- Story Middle (45-55 percent): The stakes of failure rise; the protagonist experiences a shift in perspective, meaning from this point forward they will chase their story goal in a more proactive way.
- Plot Point Two (70-80 percent): The protagonist reaches a low point and must dig deep within themselves to overcome their inner demons and move forward.
- Climax: (roughly 85-95 percent): The protagonist achieves or fails to achieve their story goal.
Ensuring that your narrative contains these key scenes at the correct marks will help you write a strong story. This structure applies to narrative non-fiction books as well as fiction books.
Step Seven: Begin Writing!
And most importantly… don’t give up!
Writing a book takes dedication, bravery, perseverance and love.
It’s likely to be one of the most challenging tasks you ever take on. But with the right attitude, it can also be one of the most rewarding.
If you write a book in order to learn more about yourself and the world, rather than to achieve fame and glory, you’ll be well-set to enjoy the process.
Tips on Writing a Book for Beginners
Tip 1: Make Friends
There’s a long journey to be made from the day you first decide to write a book until the moment you write ‘The End’ on your manuscript draft. And an even longer journey to follow once you start self-editing and submitting your book!
Journeys are often more pleasant with friends. Back in the not-too-distant past, writing a book was seen as a lonely occupation, with a writer marooned at the desert island of their desk. But no more is that the case.
Free online writing communities abound, where writers can befriend fellow writers, gain critique partners, swap learning experiences, and gain readers for the book.
Whether you’re a natural introvert or extrovert, you’re likely to gain from making friends who can support you in your journey.
If you’re not making the most of all the amazing free writing resources out there on the worldwide web, you’re doing yourself a huge disservice: the competitive bar for traditional publication is so high these days, don’t undercut yourself by failing to learn everything you can about writing craft.
However, since you’re reading this very blog online right now, I imagine you already understand the benefits writing communities provide!
Tip 2: Attend Free Webinars
With writing, as with any craft, what most impedes beginners from greatness is not yet knowing what it is that they don’t yet know.
A great way to gain an understanding of what you do and don’t yet know is to attend free webinars on as wide a variety of writing topic that you can manage.
Free webinars will give you an idea as to where your time and effort could be best spent developing craft skills and knowledge. Many free webinars are available to members of the Fictionary online community – membership of which is also free.
Tip 3: Invest in Your Craft
You don’t necessarily need to invest money in expensive courses, but what you really should expect to invest is time.
Very few people become gifted writers overnight. The vast majority of us need to learn, practice and spend as much time as possible writing, reading, self-editing and rewriting our own work.
If you dream of becoming a successful writer, I encourage you value your own ambition highly enough to ensure you dedicate time and effort to your writing practice.
If you can afford to invest in writing courses, this can be a great use of time and money – if you find the right course.
A great place to start is Fictionary’s Story Foundations Course, available in our online community.
How to Start Writing a Novel Conclusion
Now you’ve read all the way through this article, you’ve already dedicated time and effort to learning what’s required to write a book. I very much hope you continue with your journey and proceed with the steps I’ve set out.
Writing a book is a highly personal endeavour, one which has the power to enrich your life and your understanding of people and the world around you.
Creativity is one of the biggest sources of joy in life. If you’re feeling inspired at this point, then please – take the first step and decide what your book is going to book about.
I can’t wait to see you in print one day.