Writing A Book For The First Time — A Step By Step Guide

Writing a book for the first time can be a challenging task. Many writers get unnerved by the demand of the market. They get overwhelmed by the trends. And when they finally sit down to find out how to get started with writing a book, they find a plethora of fancy pieces of advices. Most of these do nothing but intimidate the writers and push them back to the state of baffled numbness.

A common piece of advice that I frequently find online is — interview your characters. Ah well, I have an aversion towards this particular tip. How do you interview someone who does not exist and that too when you are getting started with writing a book? I tried this when I was getting started. I even set up a character bullet journal to document the characters’ interviews. The method did not work for me and after a while, I said — f*ck with it and abandoned the entire idea.

However, when you are writing a book for the first time, you need to try a few pieces of advice to find what suits you. So, before giving up on the interview your character advice, try it and see whether you can make it work or not. If it does not, don’t beat yourself up. There are other less fancy but more effective pieces of advices to follow.

Before delving into how to get started with writing a book, let me do a quick introduction. I am Anasua Ghosh. I am an author, reader, blogger, and writing coach. I have written and published three books. Currently, I am writing a gothic vampire fiction which people are telling me to abandon because vampire fictions don’t work anymore. But then again, it is my book and I am writing it for myself. So, I say — f*ck with it. That being said, here is a step-by-step guide that is simple enough to follow.

Book Writing — Before Getting Started

A book is a fusion of three parts — the beginning, the middle, and the ending. Therefore, you need to plan it accordingly. At least I do it that way. I take out a few blank sheets of paper, preferably A4 size, and write down my book idea, just a few lines do the work for me. You can get into details if you want. But detailing your book plot comes later on.

Once the idea is in front of my eyes, I write down a few flashy first lines. All these I do by hand before even the book writing begins. These lines come in handy when I actually sit and start to write. Don’t underestimate the power of these one-liners. These can save you from walking into writers’ block later on.

When you are writing a book for the first time, you should be prepared to hit a dry time as you get deeper into your story. The middle can be difficult to pull through. Usually by the time writers reach the middle of the book, they lose their writers’ high. Due to this, many give up on their book at this stage. So, create a plan to keep yourself excited. I will suggest that — when you are getting started with novel writing, you should stick to smaller books. Target 60k words rather than 100k. It saves from getting frustrated with the slow writing pace.

The ending is an art. After battling down the middle, I again sit with a few sheets of blank paper and write the ending of the book. These lines again help me with the concluding part of my story.

Outline

Those who are rolling their eyes, need to know that every writer is different. Writing a book for the first time can be scary. Therefore, it helps to have a roadmap. I follow a scene-by-scene outline. I will explain my method in a later post. But you can have a chapter by chapter outline (this will save you a lot of work when you start submitting your work to the publishers). You can also have a one-page outline of the book.

Put some effort and time into creating an outline. Don’t fall for the outlining is not creative line of thought when you are getting started. Plotting might not be your kind of thing. But then again, you need to find that out. I was subscribed to the notion that I was a pantser. But that’s not the case. After walking into countless writers’ blocks and piling up thousands of unfinished novels, I finally came to the grudging decision of outlining each book before getting started.

Lastly, have a daily word count target in mind. Don’t go for an unrealistic target that you will struggle to meet. I had a 250-word count target when I was writing my first book. It worked for me. When you are writing a book for the first time, you should start slow, then gradually increase the word count as you gain experience. Now, I write 1000 words every day. My gothic vampire fiction is proceeding well at that pace and I am eyeing a Dec 2022 release. I will keep you all updated.

So, with this, I am going to wrap it up. I will be back with more on writing and writing life. Till then — Have Fun.

Originally published at http://anasuaghosh.blogspot.com on March 9, 2022.