Writing a Novel: Techniques and Tips

When you're writing a novel, you may feel isolated, frustrated or plain overwhelmed. Such a long project, especially when you add in the time it takes to get it published!

How do you get all the way to the end (however many times it takes in rewriting as well), without going insane?

By using a few techniques to smooth your way and keep things moving as you go along.

Getting Organized

I know authors who write books without ever jotting a single note or plot point down first. I've done that once myself (but I think I was in a very strange state of mind at the time!).

More often, however, most authors find it useful to at least make a bare-bones sketch of where they're going before writing a novel. You may find you don't get to the destination you originally envisioned, but at least you'll have a map in case you get lost.

So try this, next time you're not sure how to get from "Once upon a time" to "The End":

Create a table of plot lines. Most novels have more than one plot, so this can help you figure out all the points of each plot. If you use a spreadsheet program to do this, it will make moving various points around and organizing timelines easier. (You can also do it in a more old fashioned way with index cards.)

Your main plot line should be most prominent (or it isn't your main one and you better figure out which one is), showing up more frequently than any other. Now, look at where and when the various plots intersect, and lay out the lesser plot lines next to the main plot points nearest which they occur.

If this sounds too complex, simplify it by making a plot calendar instead, or as I said above, use index cards that you can lay out on a table in proper order. I have to use a calendar to keep track of when everything happens in my novels. But I've also used something similar to a spreadsheet to find the most logical and compelling spot for each scene.

From Where I'm Sitting

Next, take a really hard look at whose point of view you're using overall in writing a novel, and how many different people's points of view you dip into. If you're not sure why a scene doesn't work, look at it from an entirely new perspective: a different character's point of view.

Rewrite the offending scene from that new character's eyes and see if it doesn't help.

For instance, in one of my novels, I have a wedding scene. In it, the groom is very reluctant to be getting married at all because he know it will ultimately endanger his spouse-to-be. But outside influence is forcing
the marriage.

I originally wrote this scene through his eyes. It was good, but it occurred to me to wonder how the prospective bride was feeling, too.

Since she'd been told what trouble her future husband could bring, she knew the danger, too. Imagine going into a marriage knowing it could kill you! Not only that, at the wedding itself, there's her bridegroom barely looking at her, acting as if he didn't want to go through with it.

An entirely different "left at the altar" sort of potential, isn't it? So I rewrote it through her eyes, and it became three times as compelling as before.

So, next time you're having trouble with a scene - or an entire book (yeah, I've done that, too) - try changing perspectives and you'll be writing a novel with a whole new attitude.

He's Such a Character

Sometimes, when I'm writing a novel, I have certain characters I just can't envision. When I complained of this recently, my daughter, who also writes novels, told me what she does when she can't get a feeling for how a character really acts.

Usually, she knows at least one trait to go on. Let's say your prospective character is a swindler. So she looks up swindler in the dictionary, to be sure she knows ALL the definitions of the word.

Then she looks it up in a thesaurus. And I'm talking about the hold-it-in-your-hands kind, that has dozens of synonyms for most words. You can start with your word processing program's built-in thesaurus, but you'll get a lot more inspiration from an old-fashioned Roget's Thesaurus.

Read the words that are related to swindler. Look up ones that intrigue you and read those synonyms too. See if you can find the origin of the words you like most; what country they came from, what usage they used to have, and what the roots of them meant.

You'll be surprised and pleased with some of the results, and the "bombardment" of your writing senses will eventually lead to a character with character. Now that's a technique for writing a novel I can get into!

Be Grateful

The last technique for writing a novel that I want to share on this page is one I've begun using in the last couple of years. And one that's made a huge difference in all my efforts, from writing fiction to writing non-fiction.

It's tied to the Law of Attraction, which, if you've watched the movie "The Secret", you know about. (If you haven't, you can watch it free online by clicking this link: The Secret .)

Basically, this law says you attract to your life anything you think about. I think a lot about my novels and the characters in them. (I can't help myself - those characters are always talking to me!) So I attract ideas for my novels because I think of them.

But that wasn't always enough. I couldn't seem to figure out what to do with some of those ideas. And I couldn't seem to attract enough of the right sorts of thoughts when I was stressed and overworked.

Another part of the movie "The Secret" talks about gratitude. It explains it like this: If you're grateful for what is good and going well in your life, if you think and feel how grateful you are about those things, you'll attract more of them into your life.

Aha! If I'm grateful for all the crazy novel characters chattering away in my head and take the time to really feel that gratitude, I'll attract more of
those ideas.

Better yet, if I remember to be grateful when the perfect plot twist shows up in my head (usually while I'm up peeing at 3:00 am), I'll attract more of those and be able to finish writing a novel in no time.

Maybe this sounds silly to you, but it's working quite well for me. I put the point I'm stuck on into my mind, thank my mind for coming up with so many good story twists, then let it simmer until the answer comes to me. Then feel grateful that it did.

This really works. But you do need a bit of faith in the process, and more faith in yourself. Try it. Then you'll be writing your novel's "The End" in
no time.


For more fiction writing techniques, read these pages:

Writing Fiction
Creative Fiction Writing
Write a Bestseller