And the Essentials of Writing Fiction Are...

If you want to learn how to write a novel, you need to know what the essentials of writing fiction are. Otherwise, you'd be writing non-fiction. Or letters home (which may include fiction, who knows?)

I've boiled the whole thing down to ten things you need to think about and work with in order to create a novel your readers will love.

So, let's start at the top.


The First Decision

So what are the essentials of writing fiction?

To start, before you even get to your fiction writing, you do have one major decision to make: what structure do you want to use?

If it feels easier to start small, begin with a short story, or a novella. A short story tends to be set all in one place, often all in one day. They can be from 250 words to 1,000 or more, as long as they are not 100 pages long.

If you find yourself writing fiction that stops after 100 to 200 pages, maybe it's a novella you'll be more comfortable with. Nothing wrong with that, either. Write as long as it takes to tell the story.

Of course, most of this website is dedicated to writing a novel. And if you're like me, there's far too much to tell to stop at 200 pages. So, for me, as I assume for you, a novel is my structure.

One more note on structure: you may find a typical novel doesn't suit your story. You may want to try experimental forms of writing fiction. For instance, maybe your entire novel is written in the form of letters exchanged between two or more people. Maybe in the form of a diary.

If that's what works best for the story you're writing, use it. Remember, fiction writers are born to break rules!


The Big Three

With structure decided, now you have to deal with the three main essentials of writing fiction: plot, setting and character.

Plot of course, is how you get from point A to Point Z (and all those myriad points in between). A good plot will keep your readers coming back for more (you will write another once the first sells, right?), and have them babbling about this great new author they discovered until all their friends are reading your books, too.

Setting - where your story takes place - matters, too. It has to match the mood of your plot, and the characters you've created. A talking shark isn't going to last long sitting in the middle of the Sahara Desert.

You may have multiple settings. And they may be nothing more than the math classroom at the local high school and the rundown shack that serves as home for your heroine. Or they may be an entire world you've created that includes a planet that's 90% water and has air humans can't breath without assistance.

Just be sure your setting works for your story.

And those characters, the people you create (or who, in my case insist on creating themselves at the most inopportune moments of my life) are the third of the big three essentials of writing fiction.

Your characters may be dogs that can silently talk to humans, but you darn well need to make them sympathetic, so your readers can empathize with them. Otherwise, what's the point?

Use only as many characters as you need (and shut the extra ones in your head up when they keep bugging you). If you have a cast of 300, your readers will soon be confused.


Speaking of Characters...

As long as we're talking characters, your characters have to talk, right? So dialogue jumps in as number five of our essentials of writing fiction.

While it'll be hard at first to be sure your main characters talk like individuals, if you listen actively when you're around others, you'll soon get the hang of different ways to say things. (And your characters will correct you when you put words into their mouths they'd never dream of saying!)

You also need to decide what point of view you want to use to tell your story. Or what point of view fits best. You'll get a radically different story by using different points of view. Clearly this is one of the essentials of writing fiction, then!

You may find it easiest to begin with a first person point of view (also known as POV), where everything comes in the form of "I". Everything in first person POV comes from one character's perspective. We can only know what that character knows, and our knowing may be skewed by that character's biases. (What fun that can be!)

Third person POV is probably most commonly used - in other words, "he, she, we". Here, though, you have a couple choices: omniscient, where you can hear the thoughts and see the action from any character's perspective; objective, where only narration, dialogue and description is used to tell the story and we aren't allowed into any character's thoughts; and limited omniscient, where we see the story from one or a few character's viewpoints and can hear only their thoughts.

Second person point of view is uncommon - the "you" form. Because most stories we read are in first or third person, using second person may trip your readers up because it's not in a format they're accustomed to. But if it suits your novel, if no other POV gives you what you need to tell this story, charge full speed ahead with it.

Lastly, related again to characters you need to have conflict, for without conflict, you have a journal, not a novel. It may only be conflict within a character's head, but it must be there to make an effective piece of fiction.


The Final Trio

While not discussed as often, three other essentials of writing fiction ought to be considered before you begin writing.

The first one is transitions. If you're writing a novel, it's unlikely it's about only one day in your character's life. So when it's time to move on to day two, you need to gently let the reader know it's a new day, with new surprises awaiting.

Scene changes must be handled with similar care. If one moment your character is talking to his friend at the corner store and the next he's talking on his cell phone driving 60 down the freeway, you better let us know without confusing us.

Pacing is number two of this final trio of essentials of writing fiction. How you move through your plot - the pace you choose to excite or relax your readers (everyone needs to wind down once in awhile) - can be very important in making your novel work. If it's nearing the climax, you better speed up your pace: make your sentences and paragraphs short to create urgency, make us breathless with anticipation, then let the literary ax fall so we can gasp for air and cheer the hero or heroine for a race well run.

But from beginning to end, your novel is likely to have several different paces. It generally won't be all fast, nor all slow. A good mix is essential.

Last, but definitely not least of the essentials of writing fiction, is style.

If you aren't sure what style is right for your book, or not sure what style you're comfortable writing in, borrow a few books from the library and study how the author conveyed the story. Is it sparse prose with few adjectives like Ernest Hemingway? Or full of flowery descriptions of every stitch of clothing on every character?

Which style (or in-between style) fits your story? Try several out. Let others read a chapter or two and tell you which one wins the day. Then go with that.

In the end, if you master these essentials of writing fiction, you'll have a novel to show for it.

I've got to go tweak my latest novel now. Good luck with yours!