Nilakshi Garg's Blog - Posts Tagged "fiction-writing"
How To Sharpen Your Craft?
It's not easy. We all know that. But for the new authors, it's extremely confusing without a proper guide.
You can sharpen your craft without getting confused, though. If you follow the steps chronologically, it would do you extremely good.
However, these steps are not necessary applied on every author out there. You might be a totally different author with a totally variant genre.
All I am speaking is about self-help and romance genre. These are the two most popular genres of today's time, especially during pandemic. But, you can get done with it at ease.
1) Build a story in your head.
Do not over think. Let the imagination flow. Do not think what others might think of you or what the world would have to say to you.
Forget the judgements and start forming a story-- a word, per se.
2) Build characters and animate them
Your story world's characters can be anything.
That is the magic of fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, utopian/dystopian world books. It can also apply to self-help.
Though, you got to animate the character with capabilities. They need to move, listen, hear, talk, or anything else so that easily the readers can connect to them. You fill them up with fears, love, like, dislike, hatred, or any emotion you want to portray to the world using that character.
Think of these characters as your tools to tackle the real life. These characters, once are ready with the characteristics, can then play around with each other.
3) Practice scenes
It is okay. You won't get the scene right at once. You would have to practice a lot in writing and reading. Otherwise, it can go with the flow too if you are already quite familiar with the character's real life muses in your life.
See and observe how each character is responding to other. It shows their mannerisms, attitude, beliefs, good/bad personality, humour, and much more.
4) Break down chapters into episodes or scenes
Being an author is a magic. There is no rule you have to follow for a chapter or a scene.
You can end up writing a chapter where only one scene is described with a lot of emotions, thoughts, and voice-overs. (but it can still be avoided in most cases to write a simple scene in more than 5-7 pages, until and unless it is love making we are talking about. People love that.)
Or else,
You can write as good as about 4-10 scenes in a chapter. But that's up to you. If you already have prepared a narration in your mind, you can then begin to write it down on the word doc or the paper.
For me, it works well when I start writing and discover what do my characters need at the moment.
5) Track your progress but do not really talk about it with strangers until and unless you trust them
Yes, once in a while you have to take a break from the social world. You have to avoid the questions of those around you asking when you will be done with the story. As a writer, your mental space should be free from any bias, pressure (maybe a lil to get you going), and any pre-judgments.
For this, you got to take a break or step away from the social world, if you already have a certain fan base.
However, you can always cheat and take a sneap peak about what the readers are guessing about the character development. Sometimes, these guestimates actually give you a better idea and to surprise the readers with the same.
So, make your every day goal. Start with small and achievable goals. Get done with your first draft within a fixed period or around it.
--
Now comes with the editing and proofreading part.
Usually, editing takes same or even double time then which you spent on writing the first draft.
So, make sure you have that much time in your hand for first few editing or the entire editing cycle.
Then, the next part is proofreading.
Through proofreading, you take out the character flows, hard sentences, weird facts or scenes, add some other emotional or high or low scenes.
Proofreading is just that you want to make the story more approachable and yet having the capability to surprise the reader like nothing they had expected before.
Even if surprise element is missing, the proofreading gives you a unique voice to put out in the world. So, never miss this step.
What Is Up Next?
We can talk more about getting the novel done. There are multiple facets that go into editing and proofreading processes.
In the next blog, I would also talk about editing in detail. Then you would know when to stop editing and when to realize that your novel is finally ready to be launched in the public.
Till then, keep believing yourself, otherwise, no one else would. #selflove
You can sharpen your craft without getting confused, though. If you follow the steps chronologically, it would do you extremely good.
However, these steps are not necessary applied on every author out there. You might be a totally different author with a totally variant genre.
All I am speaking is about self-help and romance genre. These are the two most popular genres of today's time, especially during pandemic. But, you can get done with it at ease.
1) Build a story in your head.
Do not over think. Let the imagination flow. Do not think what others might think of you or what the world would have to say to you.
Forget the judgements and start forming a story-- a word, per se.
2) Build characters and animate them
Your story world's characters can be anything.
That is the magic of fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, utopian/dystopian world books. It can also apply to self-help.
Though, you got to animate the character with capabilities. They need to move, listen, hear, talk, or anything else so that easily the readers can connect to them. You fill them up with fears, love, like, dislike, hatred, or any emotion you want to portray to the world using that character.
Think of these characters as your tools to tackle the real life. These characters, once are ready with the characteristics, can then play around with each other.
3) Practice scenes
It is okay. You won't get the scene right at once. You would have to practice a lot in writing and reading. Otherwise, it can go with the flow too if you are already quite familiar with the character's real life muses in your life.
See and observe how each character is responding to other. It shows their mannerisms, attitude, beliefs, good/bad personality, humour, and much more.
4) Break down chapters into episodes or scenes
Being an author is a magic. There is no rule you have to follow for a chapter or a scene.
You can end up writing a chapter where only one scene is described with a lot of emotions, thoughts, and voice-overs. (but it can still be avoided in most cases to write a simple scene in more than 5-7 pages, until and unless it is love making we are talking about. People love that.)
Or else,
You can write as good as about 4-10 scenes in a chapter. But that's up to you. If you already have prepared a narration in your mind, you can then begin to write it down on the word doc or the paper.
For me, it works well when I start writing and discover what do my characters need at the moment.
5) Track your progress but do not really talk about it with strangers until and unless you trust them
Yes, once in a while you have to take a break from the social world. You have to avoid the questions of those around you asking when you will be done with the story. As a writer, your mental space should be free from any bias, pressure (maybe a lil to get you going), and any pre-judgments.
For this, you got to take a break or step away from the social world, if you already have a certain fan base.
However, you can always cheat and take a sneap peak about what the readers are guessing about the character development. Sometimes, these guestimates actually give you a better idea and to surprise the readers with the same.
So, make your every day goal. Start with small and achievable goals. Get done with your first draft within a fixed period or around it.
--
Now comes with the editing and proofreading part.
Usually, editing takes same or even double time then which you spent on writing the first draft.
So, make sure you have that much time in your hand for first few editing or the entire editing cycle.
Then, the next part is proofreading.
Through proofreading, you take out the character flows, hard sentences, weird facts or scenes, add some other emotional or high or low scenes.
Proofreading is just that you want to make the story more approachable and yet having the capability to surprise the reader like nothing they had expected before.
Even if surprise element is missing, the proofreading gives you a unique voice to put out in the world. So, never miss this step.
What Is Up Next?
We can talk more about getting the novel done. There are multiple facets that go into editing and proofreading processes.
In the next blog, I would also talk about editing in detail. Then you would know when to stop editing and when to realize that your novel is finally ready to be launched in the public.
Till then, keep believing yourself, otherwise, no one else would. #selflove
