How To Start Writing Fiction

*Collaborative post

They say that ‘everyone has a book in them’ and of course for some people that is where it should stay as many of them won’t be worth reading. But maybe yours would be if you got it right. So, you have a great idea, an exciting story to tell, but how do you start?

First of all, there are loads of writing tools online, which can help you. There are fantasy name generators if you’re stuck for what to call people and places, the Hemingway App which analyzes your text’s “readability”, meaning and what reading-level skill are you writing. Then, of course, there is Grammarly and if you don’t know about Scrivener, then get to know about it now. It is the king of word processing software for fiction writers. It’s easy to use, easy to keep organized, infinitely flexible. For those long-term thinkers, you can compile straight to any format, including ebook formats that are ready to publish on Kindle and various other ebook platforms. It has character and setting sketch templates, and it autosaves your work.

Get Your Idea Written Down

Start by writing down everything you know already, what your idea is and anything else surrounding it, then you can begin to develop it. It’s worth having a look online for a course; there are several free ones, including How to Develop and Test a Story Idea. In this course, you are advised to decide who your characters are going to be in this story, where and when the story is going to take place and what is going to happen to these characters before you begin writing. 

You then put them together in five key plot points that will drive the story. It’s a straightforward exercise, but it then leaves you with the basic building blocks of a story you can turn into a 70,000 to 90,000-word novel.

Study your genre

After deciding what your story is going to be about, you then need to pick a genre. This makes sense to do this after you choose your story idea unless you’re adamant on writing a romance novel you should need to begin with the story itself, then figure out what genre is most suitable for it. Then you want to study that genre, read books, watch films on it and take notes. There are rules and conventions in every genre; writing fiction is not just about making up whatever story you want, so you need to know these rules, and you need to follow up them so that you don’t upset your readers. 

Plot out the story

The simplest way to plot out your story is to plan the beginning, middle and the end. Any other story structure can be overwhelming. Stick with the basics and pick the three main story parts so that you can start writing it. This is one of the most important things you need to do; just start writing it. 

With so many ways of self-publishing these days, there’s nothing stopping you from telling the world your story.