THE STORY IN YOUR MIND 

If you are about to write a novel, there is a story in your mind ready to turn into a plot. Unless the story is about a real person, place or thing, it is fictitious. That’s what a fiction novel is, a conglomeration of fictitious events. Stories may be original or variation of those already told. We are assuming that there is one in your mind, but what if there isn’t? Within the human mind there is a Creator residing in the left side of the brain. In a quiet moment it can latch on to an idea that evolves to a story over time. That idea may originate from a myriad already in your memory bank, or from an external source. For instance, it may originate from a movie or a drama you may have seen, or are seeing at some moment, the moment of inspiration. That idea incubates for a while, sometimes transforms, links to another, and yet another until a composite forms. At this stage, you should be recording your ideas, no matter what, on paper or in a computer file. For example, assuming you are writing a novel in which murder takes place, you can put  your ideas in bullet form like so:

Chapter 1

• A burglar breaks a kitchen window.
• It’s quiet. The owners are asleep.
• He opens a drawer and pulls out a long knife.
• Tip toes to the nearest bedroom.
• A woman is snoring. Sound asleep.
• He stabs her etc. ……

Chapter 2

• Body is discovered
• Police arrives
• Crime scene is investigated …..

There should be enough ideas in a chapter to allow you to write an average of  5 or more pages per chapter.

This process of saving ideas, even if crudely at first, can be extended to 50 chapters or more. This sketchy  outline is the preliminary composite of the plot for your novel. Though you can begin writing the novel at this stage, it will be best for you to use the right side of your brain to see if the composite ties together  and makes sense before you start writing.  You will end up moving some of the bulleted ideas within and between chapters, and creating more bullets to fill the gaps, and to make it interesting and a believable. The reader enters a make-believe world in a novel, a world with suspension of disbelief. You get the point. While you are going through this process, be thinking of what the main or the central character in your story will be like; what is his or her goal, what is the conflict i.e. opposition to the achieving the goal. The opposition could be another character, the antagonist, or something else.

What makes the novel a page-turner is suspense. Each chapter must leave the reader undecided, uncertain or doubtful about what might happen next. It is the anxiety resulting from uncertainty, undecidedness, or  mysterious situations which hold the reader’s attention to the last page. Once you have established the plot (arrangement of events), you can start writing a coherent novel. The rest depends on you ability to express in words the pictures in your mind, the scenes in a visual manner. Describe what is happening moment by moment as if on stage in a drama, or in a movie. This is called showing. Keep the telling to a minimum. Don’t write about what you can’t see, the off-stage stuff. If you can’t make the imagery real in the moment the book is being read, you will lose the modern reader. Go to NOW WRITE in main menu for more on this.

You will be creating lines, paragraphs, and dialogue from bulleted ideas. You must have a concrete idea of how the plot is progressing as you write. Remain flexible. Alter the plot as needed to maintain suspense.

Some novelists first define a central character, generally the protagonist, and then write a story around him or her. Other create the character to fit the story in their mind.  In either case, the central character must have a conscious goal, which the character outwardly strives for. Beneath it is a need which has to do with his self-image, or with improving his life with love or riches to achieve fulfillment or happiness. An opposing character, the antagonist, will stand in his path, making it nearly impossible for him to attain his goal. An opposing force, for instance a character flaw, can also prevent him from achieving his goal or objective, e.g. the central character cannot get or hold a job because he is an alcoholic; his/her own antagonist.

To please the modern reader, you will create a plot with a sequence of scenes. There may be one or more scenes in a chapter. For this you use a writing technique, visual writing, which will turn words to scenes in the reader’s mind as if he were watching a movie. Reading novels on which movies are based will help the writer in this respect.

Before writing the novel, if you haven’t written a good one yet, you should read the other submenu items under NOVEL WRITING.

The alternative approach to creating a novel is to believe that the plot will evolve as you begin to write. Somehow it will all come together. Born writers may succeed this way, but it will spell disaster for the less gifted. Save time and effort. Do it the right way. Create a skeletal novel, say in bulleted form, as described before and then write.

Note: Technically, there is a difference between a story and a plot. But these terms are loosely used interchangeably.

Visual writing is described in  NOW WRITE in menu.