5 Novel Tips For Writing Your First Book

    A common item on any bucket list is to pen your own novel but it can seem pretty daunting with an empty Word document flashing in front of you. To coincide with the start of summer when you might have a bit more thinking and writing time, we bring you five top tips for writing your first novel as prepared by Adam Lively, leader of Middlesex University’s MA Novel Writing Degree.

    Middlesex University
    by Middlesex University

    Community Contributor

    1. Take Inspiration From Anywhere

    Via giphy.com

    It's not true that you should only write about what you know: you can also write about what you don't know but want to find out about. Ideas for fiction can come from any and all areas of your experience – personal memory, observation, reading, day-dream. Many creative possibilities can arise from combining ideas from disparate areas of your experience.

    2. Think About Your Direction Of Travel

    Via giphy.com

    Depending on how plot-intensive your novel is, a detailed synopsis may or may not be necessary. What is necessary is that you have an idea of its shape and direction, with the major dramatic landmarks mapped out in your mind. Think of your novel as a landscape spread out before you: you may not know in advance every twist and turn through the undergrowth that you will make along the way, but you have a picture of the lay of the land, its valleys and hills.

    3. You Don’t Have To Start At The Beginning

    Via en.wikipedia.org

    To start in the heart of the action is a fictional technique that goes back to Homer. The filling in of the backstory, through the memories or discoveries of the characters, then becomes part of the story, enriching it. Readers hate having everything spelt out to them at once: controlling the drip of information is a vital means of provoking the reader's curiosity.

    4. Set Up Questions in the Reader’s Mind

    Via pintrest.com

    People turn the pages of a novel because they want answers to questions that have come to mean something to them. Perhaps it is a mystery of some kind: what is the author withholding from me? Or perhaps there is some element of suspense: what is going to happen to this character with whom I identify? Curiosity and suspense, along with surprise, are the most basic sources of reader enjoyment.

    5. Enjoy the Process!

    Via tgdaily.com

    Writer and reader make contact through their shared enjoyment of a journey of discovery. A book (or kindle) may be a thing you hold in your hands, but a novel is not really a thing at all: it's a process passing through the imaginations of writers and readers alike. So enjoy the process, and carry the reader with you.

    Novel Writing at Middlesex University

    mdx.ac.uk

    Our fully online Masters degree enables you to develop your novel at your own pace, at times to suit your lifestyle, from anywhere in the world. You will be supported throughout by our acclaimed novelists, who are experienced creative writing lecturers with valuable industry links.