How to Write a Novel: A Practical Guide to the Art of Fiction

by Anonymous

(PDF)

 PDF - Audio - eText

FOREWORD BY OLIVIA SALTER

Writing a novel is a journey that captivates the imagination and transports both the author and the reader to new worlds. It is an art form that allows us to explore the depths of human experience, to delve into the recesses of our creativity, and to create narratives that resonate with our souls. Yet for many aspiring writers, the thought of embarking on such a formidable task can seem overwhelming.

That's why I am delighted to present to you this practical guide, "How to Write a Novel: A Practical Guide to the Art of Fiction." Whether you are a novice writer just starting your literary journey or an experienced author looking to refine your craft, this book is a valuable resource that will equip you with the knowledge and tools necessary to navigate the complexities of storytelling.

Within these pages, you will find expert guidance on every step of the novel-writing process, from the initial spark of inspiration to the final revision. The esteemed authors and writing professionals who have contributed to this guide bring a wealth of experience and expertise from their own successful careers. Their insights, advice, and practical exercises will empower you to unleash your creativity and develop your unique voice as a writer.

Throughout this book, you will be introduced to essential elements of storytelling, such as plot structure, character development, dialogue setting, and theme. You will learn how to craft compelling beginnings that hook your readers, sustain momentum throughout the middle, and deliver satisfying resolutions. You will discover techniques to create vivid and authentic characters that resonate with your audience. And you will gain valuable insights into the intricacies of writing effective dialogue and constructing immersive settings that transport readers to the heart of your story.

But this guide goes beyond the mechanics of writing. It delves into the artistry that lies at the core of any great novel. It explores the power of language, the importance of voice, and the interplay of emotion and theme. It encourages you to embrace the messiness of creativity, to trust your instincts, and to fearlessly explore the depths of your imagination.

Writing a novel is both a labor of love and a dance with the unknown. It requires dedication, perseverance, and the courage to face the blank page. But it is also a transformative experience—a chance to discover truths about ourselves, to give voice to our dreams, and to share our stories with the world.

So I invite you to embark on this journey with an open heart and an open mind. Let this guide be your trusted companion, offering inspiration, guidance, and encouragement when self-doubt creeps in. May it empower you to tell the stories burning within you and to forge a lifelong connection with the transformative magic of the written word.

Now let the adventure begin.

Olivia Salter

04/01/2023

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
THE OBJECT IN VIEW

An Inevitable Comparison    3
A Model Lesson in Novel-Writing    5
The Teachable and the Unteachable    9
 
CHAPTER II
A GOOD STORY TO TELL 

Where do Novelists get their Stories from?    12
Is there a Deeper Question?    14
What about the Newspapers?    17
 
CHAPTER III
HOW TO BEGIN 

Formation of the Plot    25
The Agonies and Joys of "Plot-Construction"    28
[viii]Care in the Use of Actual Events    31
The Natural History of a Plot    35
Sir Walter Besant on the Evolution of a Plot    40
Plot-Formation in Earnest    43
Characters first: Plot afterwards    45
The Natural Background    47
 
CHAPTER IV
CHARACTERS AND CHARACTERISATION

The Chief Character    50
How to Portray Character    52
Methods of Characterisation    55
The Trick of "Idiosyncrasies"    58
 
CHAPTER V
STUDIES IN LITERARY TECHNIQUE

Narrative Art    63
Movement    66
Aids to Description: The Point of View    67
[ix]Selecting the Main Features    70
Description by Suggestion    73
Facts to Remember    75
 
CHAPTER VI
STUDIES IN LITERARY TECHNIQUE—CONTINUED

Colour: Local and Otherwise    79
What about Dialect?    84
On Dialogue    86
Points in Conversation    91
"Atmosphere"    94
 
CHAPTER VII
PITFALLS

Items of General Knowledge    96
Specific Subjects    98
Topography and Geography    100
Scientific Facts    101
Grammar    103
 
[x]CHAPTER VIII
THE SECRET OF STYLE

Communicable Elements    105
Incommunicable Elements    110
 
CHAPTER IX
HOW AUTHORS WORK

Quick and Slow    116
How many Words a Day?    119
Charles Reade and Anthony Trollope    122
The Mission of Fancy    127
Fancies of another Type    129
Some of our Younger Writers: Mr Zangwill, Mr Coulson Kernahan, Mr Robert Barr, Mr H. G. Wells    132
Curious Methods    134
 
CHAPTER X
IS THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF NOVELS EXHAUSTED?

The Question Stated    138
"Change" not "Exhaustion"    142
Why we talk about Exhaustion    145
 
[xi]CHAPTER XI
THE NOVEL v. THE SHORT STORY

Practise the Short Story    154
Short Story Writers on their Art    159
 
CHAPTER XII
SUCCESS: AND SOME OF ITS MINOR CONDITIONS 

The Truth about Success    164
Minor Conditions of Success    169
 
APPENDIX I
The Philosophy of Composition. By Edgar Allan Poe    175
 
APPENDIX II
Books Worth Reading    201
 
APPENDIX III
Magazine Article on Writing Fiction    205

The PDF might take a minute to load. Or, click to download PDF.

If your Web browser is not configured to display PDF files. No worries, just click here to download the PDF file.

How to Write Your First Novel | Tips for New Writers (Video)

How to Write Your First Novel

Tips for New Writers

 Writing your first novel can be intimidating. In fact, most writers will attempt several novels before they get to the end. So what’s the secret? Unfortunately, there isn’t one—but, there are tips and strategies you can implement to keep yourself on track, get the draft done, and prove to yourself that you can do it.


TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
0:33 - Basic story building blocks
1:15 - Don't overcomplicate
1:50 - Get in late
2:12 - Accomplish something with each scene
2:48 - Use chapters consistently
3:34 - Set small goals
4:34 - Prepare to get stuck
5:47 - Return to the elements of story
6:25 - Find a writing community

 

  Writing the Breakout Novel: Insider Advice for Taking Your Fiction to the Next Level by Donald Maass | Writing Book of The Day

 

Take your fiction to the next level!

Maybe you're a first-time novelist looking for practical guidance. Maybe you've already been published, but your latest effort is stuck in mid-list limbo. Whatever the case may be, author and literary agent Donald Maass can show you how to take your prose to the next level and write a breakout novel - one that rises out of obscurity and hits the best-seller lists.

Maass details the elements that all breakout novels share - regardless of genre - then shows you writing techniques that can make your own books stand out and succeed in a crowded marketplace.

You'll learn to:

- establish a powerful and sweeping sense of time and place
- weave subplots into the main action for a complex, engrossing story
- create larger-than-life characters that step right off the page
- explore universal themes that will interest a broad audience of readers
- sustain a high degree of narrative tension from start to finish
- develop an inspired premise that sets your novel apart from the competition

Then, using examples from the recent works of several best-selling authors - including novelist Anne Perry - Maass illustrates methods for upping the ante in every aspect of your novel writing. You'll capture the eye of an agent, generate publisher interest and lay the foundation for a promising career.

 

 "Writing the Breakout Novel": A breakout novel is one that rises out of its category--such as literary fiction, mystery, romance, or thriller--and hits the bestseller lists.

 

 

 

 

"Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook": This powerful book builds on the success of it predecessor and takes readers to the next level: improving their work with practical, hands-on lessons and exercises.

 

 How to Market a Book: Overperform in a Crowded Market (Reedsy Marketing Guides Book 1) by Ricardo Fayet

 

 

Get your free copy of "How to Market a Book: Overperform in a Crowded Market (Reedsy Marketing Guides Book 1) by Ricardo Fayet"

 

From the Publisher

Adopting the right marketing mindset

The first step to successful marketing is to adopt the right mindset. In this book, you'll discover a proper framework to approach book marketing in a systematic way.

Building your author platform

Before you start promoting your book, you need to build an author platform that will be able to sustain it. This book will show you how to optimize your product and packaging, build your mailing list, and start growing your readership before launch.

Promoting and advertising

When it's time to start bringing traffic and driving eyeballs to your book pages, you'll learn how to master the main advertising platforms such as

Facebook and BookBub.

Description

Product Description

Writing a book is hard. Marketing it can be even harder.

Marketing a book in 2021 can seem like a full-time job, what with the crazy number of things authors seem to be expected to do: social media, blog tours, advertising, price promotions, mailing lists, giveaways, you name it.

But here’s a little secret: you don’t need to do all those things to successfully set your book on the path to success. What you need is a solid plan to find the one or two tactics that will work, and start to drive sales… in a minimum amount of time. And that’s exactly what you’ll find in this book.

Instead of drowning you in information or inundating you with hundreds of different tactics and strategies that eventually prove fruitless, this book will guide you through a step-by-step framework to find the ones that actually work for you and your book, so that you can start marketing more efficiently.

In particular, you’ll learn:

✔️ How to change your mindset and sell more books with less effort.;
✔️ How to write books that guarantee a lasting, profitable career;
✔️ How to get Amazon’s Kindle Store to market your book for you;
✔️ How to get thousands of readers into your mailing list before you even release the book;
✔️ How to propel your book to the top of the charts at launch; and
✔️ How to automate your marketing so that you can spend less time marketing and more time writing,

After helping over 150,000 authors crack the marketing code through a popular weekly newsletter, Reedsy’s Co-founder Ricardo Fayet is sharing everything he’s learned over the past few years in this beginner-friendly, jargon-free guide to book marketing.

Get your copy now and benefit from all the experience of a seasoned marketing professional.

Review

"This is the most comprehensive guide or marketing book I've ever seen." -- Ben Galley, Epic & Dark Fantasy Author

"Scour the author Facebook Groups no more. Ricardo's book has answers to nearly every essential marketing question in self-publishing. I highly recommend it!" -- Bryan Cohen, Founder of the 5-Day Amazon Ad Profit Challenge

A must read for anyone just starting out, and full of plenty of wisdom for those looking to level up. -- Erica Ridley, NYT & USA Today best-selling author

"This is more than a marketing guide, it's a self-help and inspirational book that can make a big difference in a writer's life." -- Reedsy Discovery

"A great primer for anyone looking for an overview of book marketing."
-- Ryan Zee, Founder of BookSweeps

"Ricardo's book is like Ricardo himself: something you're going to want to get to know: incredibly helpful and infinitely useful. This book is sure to be a part of the standard repertoire for authors!" -- Nick Thacker, USA Today best-selling author of the Indie Author Mastery Guides

 

 

Get your free copy of "How to Market a Book: Overperform in a Crowded Market (Reedsy Marketing Guides Book 1) by Ricardo Fayet"

From the Author

In the past five years at Reedsy, we've helped tens of thousands of authors get their books out there. Many have grown to become full-time authors and make a living off their writing. I have personally consulted and worked hand in hand with hundreds of them, helping them build marketing plans, run online ads, grow their mailing lists, and develop new income streams from their writing.

This book is the result of all these years of teaching and working on marketing with authors across all genres. It compiles all the information you need to get your book in front of readers--and then get those readers to

buy it. I hope you enjoy it!

About the Author

Ricardo Fayet is one of the four founders of Reedsy, a marketplace connecting authors to the world's top publishing talent--from editors to cover designers, book marketers, or literary translators. He's the author of several Reedsy Learning courses on marketing and a regular presenter at several prestigious writers' conferences: NINC, RWA Australia, and The Self Publishing Show Live, among others.

He oversees the marketing for all Reedsy products--Marketplace, Book Editor, Learning, Discovery--and is a big SEO and Facebook advertising enthusiast.

 

Ricardo Fayet is one of the four founders of Reedsy, a marketplace connecting authors to the world’s top publishing talent—from editors to cover designers, book marketers, or literary translators. He’s the author of several Reedsy Learning courses on marketing and a regular presenter at several prestigious writers’ conferences: NINC, RWA Australia, and The Self Publishing Show Live, among others.

He oversees the marketing for all Reedsy products—Marketplace, Book Editor, Learning, Discovery—and is a big SEO and Facebook advertising enthusiast.

In his spare time, he enjoys watching football (or “soccer” as y’all call it over there), and carrying tactical analyses to explain why his favorite team won, as well as referee mistake analyses when his team loses.

You can sign up to his weekly book marketing newsletter here: http://rdsy.me/newsletter 

 

 

Get your free copy of "How to Market a Book: Overperform in a Crowded Market (Reedsy Marketing Guides Book 1) by Ricardo Fayet"