December 11, 2024
Wondering how to best plan your novel? Before you put one word to paper, you must know what your story is and how you’re going to tell it. To plan your novel takes some time and effort, but it will make your writing go faster and easier. Whether you’re a first-time writer or a seasoned pro, you will find outlining and planning helpful.
Novel planning is all the work you do before you start writing. It involves mapping out your story, creating an outline, and taking notes about your characters and setting.
You’ll gain many advantages when you plan your novel before you pick up a pen or a word processor.
If you’re ready to start to plan your novel, use these tips. They’ll help you stay on track from page one to the ending.
Who is your main character, and why should a reader care about them? When you develop a character, focus on the traits that make them likeable. Avoid the temptation to make your main character seem perfect. When you plan your novel, be sure to include personality traits or quirks that make them seem approachable and likeable. You want readers to root for your main character.
Along those same lines, ask yourself: Why should the reader care about this character’s struggle? Every novel plot is about a person who wants to reach a specific goal. With few exceptions, every story is a quest at heart. You want the readers to cheer your character on and root for their success. The goal might be to defeat a monster, bring a killer to justice, or marry the man of their dreams. Whatever that goal is, it should be something big and exciting.
When you plan your novel, your character will face a series of obstacles getting there, and you want to be sure your readers stay interested in following every twist and turn. At the heart of every good plot is a reader wondering, “What happens next?”
If you’re drafting a book of genre fiction, your novel planning must include an opening scene that grabs the reader’s attention. Get your readers interested and excited about the story or the character from the opening scene.
The most successful genre writers have an ability to create a tantalizing scene that sets up just enough information to keep you intrigued without giving the whole story away.
In Neil Gaiman’s “American Gods,” the readers learn in the opening paragraph that the main character is in jail, is large enough to scare other prisoners, likes to play games of chance, and loves his wife. The reader is intrigued by the setting and the setup—why is he in jail?—and knows what is important to him: his marriage.
John Grisham’s “The Last Juror” starts by introducing the editor of a small-town newspaper whose personality starts to change, probably because of the steel plate in his head. He’s not the main character, but the newspaper is—it’s a central setting where most of the action centers, and it’s also where the main character works.
Ruth Rendell’s “A Judgement In Stone” opens with the information that Eunice, a housekeeper, killed the family she worked for because she was illiterate. That shocking opening sets up several questions: Why did she kill them? What does illiteracy have to do with murder? It also sets up our fear for the family from the first page, because we know they’re going to die, but we don’t know when or how.
When you plan your novel, set up an opening that invites your readers into an interesting setup that gets them thinking. If you can do this, they’ll eagerly turn the page to learn what happens next.
When you plan your novel, you can’t go wrong with the classic storylines that readers flock to.
The classic romance storyline is “boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back.” That pattern can apply to any character in a love story, whether it’s a female main character or a male one.
The “losing” part could be caused by things the lovers can’t control—like a forced separation—or things in their relationship—like jealousy or fear of getting close—but whatever they are, the lovers must overcome them if they want to be together.
The quest is a key part of novel planning, even if you’re not writing a sci-fi or fantasy book. Every character has a quest.
The adventure story may be the oldest story of all time. It goes back to “Beowulf” and “The Iliad.” These stories feature a main character who’s on a quest to find something of value or destroy something evil. Doing so means going on a long journey into dangerous territory, usually with only one or two close companions.
The TV show Hercules: The Legendary Journeys is about a hero who routinely leaves home, sometimes with his trusty sidekick Iolaus, to go vanquish a monster or a wrongdoer somewhere. Each episode is a complete story of good conquering evil. It’s an old formula, but it moves viewers—and readers.
One time-tested plot is a character who rises above their circumstances. It may involve someone struggling to invent something, find something of value, or become financially successful. In the sci-fi novel “Vicious” by V.E. Schwab, two friends try to invent a scientific method for developing superpower skills. Their drive and competitiveness drive the novel’s plot.
In John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” Tom Joad is determined to keep his family together and help them survive the Depression. The family suffers poverty, homelessness, loss of their land, and a long, dangerous journey to a new state. Throughout the story, Tom and his father work hard to provide for them. By the story’s end, the family is stable, and Tom has become a fighter for workers’ rights.
A common plot involves a character who gets an offer. It might be a job or a chance to make a lot of money. It might be the chance to get revenge on someone who hurt them in the past or to reconnect with a lost loved one. Sometimes called “the lure,” the use of an offer plot can help with any writer’s novel planning.
In “The Hobbit” by J.R.R. Tolkien, Bilbo Baggins receives an offer to go on an adventure. Although he doesn’t consider himself a hero, he agrees to take the trip and ends up proving himself.
On the opposite side of the race to the top is a novel that involves a hero falling from grace. In this story, a character starts out as a good person but eventually turns evil.
In the movie “The Dark Knight,” Harvey Dent begins as an incorruptible district attorney. He’s a brave defender of his city who joins forces with Batman to fight for justice. After the murder of his fiancée and a disfiguring accident, he becomes bitter and angry. By the movie’s end, he becomes the villain Two-Face.
An outline is a major part when you plan your novel. Most successful writers say an outline is essential. There are many ways to write an outline, so pick the one that works best for you.
Here are some tips for using an outline.
Every published book starts with an idea. When you plan your novel, you expand on that idea, add details, and create a finished story. At Publishing Xpress, we are proud of our work with first-time, self-published writers. We’ll help you get your words in print.
© 2024 Publishing Xpress. All Rights Reserved.
