The Trendsetter

Writing a novel is not as difficult as it seems if all the ingredients are ready and on the table. I told her she needs to understand the elements of the novel itself which are:

1. The characters – she needs to line up her characters from the main characters all the way to the ones that support her protagonist. She also needs to understand her characters very well – their physical, psychology and their social life.

2. The plot – every novel needs a plot to weave the story into a climax and then ending it in such away that brings an impact on the reader. I told her the conflicts between her characters needs to be realistic so the readers can relate to the story and its characters. She also need to be able to write the plot in such away that it will be as realistic a possible and not something appearing as forced upon the characters.

3. Writing style – she can use first person or third person when writing her novel. Usually there are limitations if she uses first person style. She won’t able to find out what the other characters are doing unless she saw what they are doing or are told by other characters. If she wants to be the story teller in her novel, then she better use the third person voice so she can act like God for she knows every character’s movement. However, if she uses the third person style, it will creates the distance between the reader and the characters, whereas if she uses the first person, she able to personalize the story and become closer to her readers.

4. Setting – she also need to have a setting that’s parallel to her character’s minds, action or thinking. So she should understand when to put her characters in the right environment or setting according to her action at the time it occurs.

So here is the list I gave her to get started writing her novel after gathering all the necessary elements of writing a novel:

1. List all chapters and add each a title and a synopsis.
2. Start to write the chapter 1, next the chapter 2 and so on. She also can jump to write chapter 10 or the ending if she wants to since she already have the synopsis for her chapters.
3. Continue to write even if she feels her writing sucks because it is still in a draft mood anyway. It can be polished later after she’s completed all chapters.
4. Use flashback to tell the relationships of some events that occurred between the characters in the past.