March 09, 2020

How to Write a Novel: Tips for Beginners

Are you looking to become a successful novelist in your own right like JK Rowling and George R.R. Martin? Then it is vitally important that you learn about the steps associated with it and the challenges that you must overcome while getting your first novel printed out.

How to Write a Novel: Tips for Beginners: eAskme
How to Write a Novel: Tips for Beginners: eAskme

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You may have read tons of novels and may even have attended classes to write novels, and even then you may find yourself lost when you are trying to write a novel.

So have a look at the various tips that we present here as they can help you to come up with the perfect novel even though you are just a beginner.

Definition of a novel

So what’s a novel?

A novel is best described as a type of fiction that is characterized by a narrative and detailed prose along with a set of characters as well as a plot and/or multiple sub plots and a sense of realism.

In other words, novels are long stories that have themes, messages and plots revealed to the readers gradually over many chapters and scenes as they make up the larger storyline.

Usually novels have a large word count that can go as high as 50000 or even more.

Planning a novel   

One of the most important steps of writing a novel is planning the whole novel.

This involves deciding on a plotline, developing the characters, having an outline for your book and knowing your audience.

The plot of your novel and the genre of your writing are some of the first things that you need to decide upon when you are writing a novel.

Based on the genre you want to work on, you may need to work with a number of different writing prompts that can help you to communicate your thoughts across.

The other thing that you need to think about is the character development of your novel.

Every novel has a range of characters like the main protagonist as well as additional side characters.

You must devote sufficient time to think deeply about your characters and have a clear idea about them so that you can improve the plotting and the incidents of the novel so that they have a better way of working out.

The audience you are writing for is also an important thing to think about before you write your novel.

For instance, you may choose to write my paper for young adults, adults and middle grade audiences.

The way you present your story and prose is going to depend on the audience you are writing for.

As you have decided on the factors described above, you can start working on creating the outline for your novel.

How to choose which genre you should write

Plenty of first time writers are at a loss when it comes to deciding the genre for which they should write on.

The best way to decide about this is you should write about genres that you really love to read yourself and passionate about.

So if you are a keen horror reader but despise romance novels, it is better that you stick to writing different kinds of horror novels.

Nevertheless, here are a few tips for choosing the genre that may work for you.

While you can always write about the genre that you love, you may actually love a particular genre like horror and yet be better at writing on some other genre, like science fiction, fantasy, coming of age or romance.

So in such a case, you may start writing about what you are good at and then later shift to horror.

Alternately, you may combine multiple genres where a horror story can have elements of a coming of age novel, fantasy or science fiction.

You should also put yourself in the shoes of your audience and try to understand what they may like.

This will help you to write better for your audience.

However, if you cannot understand the perspective of audience, then it is better that you do not write for that specific niche audience.


Do not get into writing to make money as most writers do not make a lot of money by writing novels.

Moreover, as soon as you will find out that it is not really leading to sufficient income for you, you are most likely to lose interest in writing further.             

Writing fiction characters

The characters of your novel serve as vehicles through which you can take your story forward.

Hence you should be careful when it comes to writing your fiction characters.

Depending on the type of novel you write and the journey that each of these characters go through, you must have a detailed understanding about their inner lives and the way that they relate to other characters and the incidents that happen in your story.

In some cases, your novel will require you to portray a very detailed picture of the thoughts and feelings of the characters.

However, even if you do not always need to discuss every single detail about the inner lives of your characters, you should still have such ideas clearly in your head so that you can write a flawless novel.  

Types of novel writers

There are mainly two different types of novel or fiction writers, namely the plotters and the pantsers, or as George R.R. Martin describes them, the architects and the gardeners.

The plotters or the architects must first have all the minute details of their story before they actually write the novel.

The gardeners or pantsers, on the other hand, start writing a novel with only a single or a few ideas and then go about making new details and plotlines as they go about writing the story.

So it is very important that you decide what type of writer you are before you can work on a novel.

Final Words:

These guidelines are meant to help you write your first novel and learn a lot more as you go about it.

You can also pick up new ideas and bits of information as you move through the main writing process. 

If you still have any question, feel free to ask me via comments.

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