A Beginner's Guide to Writing a Novel
BY RACHELLE ARLIN CREDO
No one is born a novel writer.
But do you believe that we all have the capability to be
writers? Impossible as it may seem but the answer is yes! If
we have the passion for it and if we strive to make it happen,
novel writing can be as easy as writing ABC. Writing is
actually not a very complicated thing. It is just like
drawing, painting, and even cooking. It is an art! Your
imagination is all that it takes to get it started. What makes
it hard is not writing itself but how people make it harder
than it really is.
The first key to writing a
novel is the ability to dream and imagine. Think back to when
you were a little child and dreamed. Your imagination took you
to places you've never been before. It made you do things you
never thought you could do. Having superpowers... being in
strange places... the conditions are limitless. Writing a
novel is actually imagination translated into words. You close
your eyes and let your thoughts drift while creating a web of
consequential ideas. After which, you write them down on
paper.
The second key to writing is
formulating the premise of your novel. Let's say you'd start
with a huge asteroid moving about in space. Then suddenly it
collided with another asteroid and instantly created an
explosion. Some of the explosion's debris fell down into the
earth's atmosphere. By accident a person comes in contact with
it. These sequence of events could be your initial start in
which you let your mind take hold of and run with to produce
the succeeding events.
The third key would be
creating a stream of spontaneous ideas. Once you have the
initial idea, sink down into it and allow yourself to be
completely absorbed. Let's say after the person comes in
contact with the asteroid debris, he gains supernatural
powers! And then he notices some new changes in his being, not
just physically but also emotionally and psychologically. This
is where an avalanche of new ideas start coming in. You will
notice that you are no longer directing your story but your
story is directing you. That makes writing now so easy. You
don't need to analyze anything because the story now starts to
play like a movie. All you have to do is put them into words
as the story plays in your head.
Next, make sure you are able
to retain your daydreaming and concentration as one event goes
after another. This state is now called the "alpha state".
According to Judith Tramayne-Barth, this is the place between
consciousness and sleep. Time stands still when you are in
this state. Words keep coming to you until you start to feel
pain in your legs and in your waist and then you suddenly
flick consciousness and you become flabbergasted because
you've not only written one or two pages but five or more
without even knowing it!
The next key would be to
practice flipping in and out of the "alpha state". You can do
this by rereading what you've written and internalizing it as
if it was your first time. It might take you time, as much as
hours or even days before you are able to go to your "alpha
state" again but once you're adept at going into the zone, it
would only be a matter of minutes before you start writing a
new dialogue.
So, you've finished your
story! Now it's time to do the final touch-ups. There is still
one last thing that you need to do. Yea, you guessed it. You
need to check the entire story again for spelling,
punctuations, grammar, correct word usage and coherence. You
might even need to revise it a few times before you are able
to arrive with the final output. But don't fret, it's not much
work really compared to writing the entire novel. What's
important is you now have your own novel, written by yourself,
using your very own imagination. How much more proud could you
get?
Copyright © 2005 Rachelle
Arlin Credo
Rachelle Arlin Credo is an
entrepreneur and relationship coach. She also works as a Web
layout designer and part-time writer. Formerly a contributing
scribe to The Philippine Star and Sunstar Daily -
Philippines, she writes short stories, poems, essays, and
tons of articles for Writers.net, Netterweb.com,
Ideamarketers.com, Searchwarp.com, and Goarticles.com.
Email her for more info.
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