The START,To be a best selling author.
The START,To be a best selling author.
Now that you have laid the foundation for writing the book, you need to turn your attention to the book’s actual writing. There are several sequential stages to go through it
1. Believe, accept that You Are a Writer
You should do the inner work and accept your calling as a writer. Don’t worry about the imposer syndrome or any other syndrome. You are here to write. Accept this wholeheartedly. Permit yourself to think of yourself as a writer. Repeat the affirmation “I am a writer” many times a day if needed. Ideally, this precedes all other steps, including motivation. And sometimes, you might need to check in with yourself from time to time. It could be a potential mind block on your journey. You are sufficiently deep into the writing process to know now that you are the real Author as a writer.
You know that anything big can be tackled once it’s broken down
into smaller chunks. It would help if you thought about the book you want to
write. Is it a novel? Is it non-fiction? Is it a biography? You need to ask
yourself many questions that will give you some broad idea of the book. Of
course, this is not to say that you only need to think about your book’s
contents during this stage. You should have started some time ago. An idea
germinates in the head first.
Many writers have written books in a few days. Some books have
taken years. Irrespective of the total time taken to write a book, it has to be
broken up into smaller chunks. There is no way you can finish it at go, no
matter how dedicated and hardworking you are. Many writers recognize this and make
writing a habit. Some write as little as 200 words a day. Some write three
pages a day. You can choose how much you want to write per day as per your
comfort level. But you need to be consistent. It is how you win the writing
game.
You can think of granularity if it helps. A book is a manuscript
in a published form. A manuscript consists of pages. Pages consist of
paragraphs. Paragraphs consist of sentences. Sentences consist of words. You
can even change page count to a word count when you want to break the task down
to its molecular level.
book> manuscript> pages > paragraphs> sentences>
words> big idea
3. Narrow Down Your Big Idea
Once you have your idea, in one sentence (a few words), filter
down the book’s basic concept. Think of it as a summary in a sentence. Here are
some examples of published books summarised in a sentence.
- Madeline Miller’s Circe: Circe is a minor Greek
God who escapes the shadow of her own family and creates a life of her own
when she discovers her true talents.
- Brian L. Weiss’s Many Lives, Many Masters: A book
on reincarnation from a psychologist who didn’t believe in it until he met
the patient who changed his life.
- J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone:
Harry is a boy living with his relatives who mistreats him until he
discovers that he is a wizard who is invited to attend Hogwarts, the
school for wizards.
- Eva Ibbotson’s Song for Summer: The daughter of a
suffragette discovers true love in an Austrian alternative school when the
Nazis come to power and change the world as she knows it.
The one-sentence summary is your elevator pitch. What this summary
does is tells you that readers will decide if they will read this book or not
based on it. It also gives your outline a laser focus.
You can use some existing templates to arrive at this one-sentence
summary.
- [Your protagonist] is a ________ who wanted more than
anything to ________but couldn’t because ________, then ________ happened,
which________.
- [Your protagonist] wants ________ [concrete want] because
________ [abstract want], but ________ [conflict] stands in the way.
- So, [Your protagonist] is ________ [place/time/circumstances
when the novel starts] until ________ [a turn of events].
- When [your protagonist] ________ [verb] ________ [something]
________ [something else happens] but ________ [the person/thing/attitude
that’s in the way] then ________ he/she/it ________ [the action that sets
the story going].
4. Make an Outline
Now that you know what your book is precisely going to be about,
now is the time to create and outline Everything that needs to stand on its own
needs a basic structure. The structure will tell you what the story is going to
do.
Some writers do not believe in outlining and would instead write
spontaneously. Some fabulous novels have been born in that way. The punsters
are writers who ‘fly by the seat of their pants’ whereas the plotters are the
ones who make a plan before they go.
Many other books have been born because writers created a
structure before they build the book. If you prefer to know what is coming up
next, a plan is a way to go. There are literary heavyweights on both sides of
the ‘to plan or not to plan’ divide.
Famous punsters include the Canadian literary heavyweight Margaret
Atwood, horror and supernatural fiction writer Stephan King and American
science fiction author Pierce Brown. Renowned plotters include British novelist
J. K. Rowling, American author Joseph Heller, an American journalist, novelist,
and Ernest Hemingway.
Some authors follow a hybrid model where some parts of the novel
are written instinctively, and the other parts are planned.
If you are more of a punster, you can skip this step. If you are
more of a plotter, you can spend a lot of time on this step. However, if your
book is non-fiction, you will need an outline. It is impossible to keep so many
details in your head as you develop the book.
There are many ways to outline your book, depending on what you
want to focus on. Here are a few of them:
- The synopsis outline.
- The mind map method.
- The detailed outline.
- The snowflake method.
- The bookend method.
- The skeleton outline.
- The beat sheet outline.
- The character-focused outline.
- The eight sequence structure
Once you have decided on the outlining method you are comfortable
with, you can proceed with the steps to outline your book. The outline is
supposed to work for you. But what if none of these work for you? Then, you can
go ahead and invent your own too. No matter which kind of outlining method you
follow, here are the steps to follow to construct your book’s blueprint.
- Draft the premise of your book (this is your one-line
summary).
- Determine the setting.
- Decide the plot structure.
- Develop characters.
- Construct the plot.
- Organize the scenes.
- Summarize the chapters.
5. Create a Schedule
We have reached one of those dreaded parts of writing a book:
Time. Do you have the time to write a book? Time is connected to motivation.
The more motivated you are, the more time you will find for writing.
Time is a finite quantity. So, in all probability, you will have
to make the time for your book. There is no other way. The time that you give
to the business of writing will come off from some part of your life. It is
when you decide aspects like:
- Will I give up watching that daily soap?
- Will I cancel my Netflix subscription while I work on the
book?
- Will I socialize less and write more?
It’s all a matter of priority. However, whatever the sacrifice you
make, let it not be your family. It is possible to be a writer and have a
normal family life. Let no one tell you otherwise.
Where you can look to find some free time is your day. Everyone on
earth gets 24 hours. How are you spending yours?
Identify the time wasters that eat into your everyday schedule.
Chances are you will have some free time—the best way to identify these time
wasters by keeping a daily log or journal. Keep a notepad and note down all the
tasks you do each day and the start and end times for each task. Write down
every activity you do, however, unimportant. Write down that 15 minutes you
spent watching cat videos. Observe your entries for a week or two while you log
entries into the journal. When you are done, you will get a clear picture.
With this information, you can decide to cut out the time-wasters
or if that’s not possible work with them.
Now you have identified the lost hours, how many do you need per
week or per day? Experiment and figure out the number of hours you can write
per day and stick to it. Some writers write for four hours a day; some write
for six hours. Suppose you are writing while holding down a full-time job,
kudos to you. Every spare minute counts in this case. Whatever the number of
hours, make a habit your good friend.
Another aspect to factor into your schedule is if you are an early
or late riser. If you are a morning lark, do not force yourself to write late
into the night. If you are a night owl, do not schedule all the writing at 6
am. It is a sure-fire way to set yourself up for failure. Work with your body,
and your body will work for you.
6. Decide on a Deadline
The end date of your book is the date by which you decide you will
finish the novel. If you are a first-time author, this is something that you
need to decide. If you have a publisher or agent, then this is sometimes
determined by them. Once you climb the ladder of success, you have more control
over the amount of time you can bargain for yourself with your agent or
publisher.
If you are setting your end date, get your family and friends’
help. There will be distractions. (We will look at them a bit later.) But how
you manage them will determine how soon your book will be published.
You’ll need to calculate backward. If you want to write, say, a
350-page book in a year. Then divide the total number of pages by 52 weeks of
the year. It will give you the number of pages you need to finish in a week:
this is 7. Now divide your weekly page quota (7) by the number of hours you are
available per week. That will give you your daily page quota. That becomes your
daily target.
Of course, the first time you do it, it is an experiment. Within a
few days of starting to write, you will know if you have set a realistic
deadline or tried to overachieve. Adjust the period to meet your practical
capabilities. Show yourself some love and factor in days you cannot write as
well. There might be medical emergencies, dentist appointments, school PTA
meetings, and other various tasks that might eat into your writing time. Once
you have a date, stick to it. That can be a motivating factor by itself.
7. Deal with Distractions and Procrastination
You can meet your daily, weekly, and monthly targets, and you will
need to deal with distractions and procrastination. First of all, accept that
there will be distractions and procrastination. There are no ideal conditions
for writing. Distraction and its cousin procrastination will be faithful
companions on your journey toward being a published writer. Better work with
them rather than against them.
One way is to understand why you procrastinate. Here are some
possible reasons:
- You are afraid of starting the whole task of writing.
- You are afraid of what this book will bring—the good, the
bad, and the ugly.
- You are scared that everyone will know everything about you
from this book.
- You are afraid that you won’t have any readers or have low
sales.
- You are scared that the reviews will be negative.
- You don’t know how to write a book.
These reasons might be the cause of……. as well. These are all
fears that writers who have looked at the blank page have felt. You are not
alone. It is a necessary step in your evolution as a writer. It would help if
you faced the fear of beginnings, fear of ridicule, fear of non-performance,
and the fear of the unknown. The one way to do that is to change your
perspective. What can keep you moving is the fear of future regret. You don’t
want to look back on your life and think, “Oh, I could’ve done that if only I
had the time/place/money/ perfect conditions.” So, start now, start small, and
dream big.
When you do start, you can use some apps to focus on your writing.
They block your email, social media, games apps, and the internet or let you
control it your way. It, in turn, helps you concentrate on your writing.
- WriteRoom
- StayFocusd
- Freedom
- FocusWriter
- Focus@Will
- LeechBlock
- Hocus Focus
- Mindful
Browsing
- Rescue Time
8. Research
Now we come to research. No matter the genre—fiction or
non-fiction, you need to do your research. It’s a big and vital part.
- Fiction: If you are writing
fiction you need to spend some time thinking of each character’s back
stories. That is where their motivation lies. What do your characters
want? One of your characters could be a pilot for which you will need to
understand their job. That also needs to be researched. All these will go
into the research stage of your writing.
- Non-fiction: If you are writing non fictional books all the more you will need to have a long and detailed research phase. You will need to draw up a research plan and gather your material. Interviews, secondary sources, field trips, writing notes go into your research plan. If you need money from institutions and universities, you need to apply for funding. The application process is long and detailed. Or you can hire a grant writer to help you. Some writers spend years in the research phase. For a good reason, because you are putting out a book on a subject only you know about, which makes people look at you as an expert. Any mistakes will be in the public eye, which might hurt your reputation as a writer.
 |
| START- write_ur_firstbook |
Comments
Post a Comment