Writing Tips : How to Write a Book

Welcome to Writing Tips - How to Write a Book. Welcome to what I hope will be the first of a number of segments on how to write a book - and this particular piece titled Writing Makes It Better.

Writing does make it better, and you get better at writing. True. Writing can have a tremendous cathartic effect. You can loose an awful lot of angst by writing. It can ease an aching heart. Certainly it’s something worth looking at just from a happiness point of view. However, most people don’t look at writing that way. They just like the idea that, one day, they’ll write a book.

There is a book in most people. You might have heard that phrase. Most people would like to write about their lives. Or they say they would. Most don’t get around to it. Not because they can’t write. They’re all literate enough to do that. But the main ingredient isn’t there: desire to get it written. And that desire must be stronger than the inertia which keeps you from starting.

Let’s assume you really do want to write that book. You’d love to start, but don’t quite know how. How do you go about it?

Start small! Don’t commence writing something you’re not sure how long it will take, and how big the book will be in terms of wordage. A few lines about your life could take you into an autobiography as long as Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. So don’t start with a book at all. Start by writing essays, or letters to friends about things that are of interest to you. For if you’re going to become a writer, you probably already have become one in some small way.

I never saw myself as a writer – that is a long-term, lifetime type writer – until one day my daughter, then in her twenties, remarked that I was. “Of course, you’re a writer, Dad, you’re always at it.” It was only then that I realized what she had said was true. I did write most days: letters to friends, the odd poem, heaps of essays. And by then, I’d also written a couple of novels and a couple of works of non-fiction. Yet, still I did not see myself as a writer. Perhaps you don’t see yourself this way either? Don’t worry about it. The actual writing makes it better.

So let’s say that you’ve already ‘ started small.’ You do write a lot letters. You find Emails too brief, so you nearly always include an attachment which explains further what you mean. You’re considered by your peers to be a bit old-fashioned because you don’t text much on your cell phone, you prefer to write a letter and send it ‘snail mail.’ That way you can read it thoroughly before you send it. Can alter it. Make it sound just right. And you’ve already developed the habit of finding out whether it sounds right by reading out aloud what you’ve written.

Whoops! You are a writer. You’re into it.

Now you want to know how to write a story? A big book? That novel? That major work of fiction on non-fiction?  You're already into the shorter stuff...

A couple of hints. Start where you want to start. Go with the urges. You don’t have to go from beginning to end as in chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, etc.. You can start in middle, at the end, anywhere. But be careful! For when you write this way you have to be able to ‘dovetail’ all of the story together. One way is to have a story-board, pieces of paper with a summary of what you’d like to include in each chapter. You can move the pieces of paper around; make the plot, the characters all fit just right. I’ve never worked that way, but I’m told it’s a good method.

I hope this short essay: How to Write a Book, has been useful. Writing makes it better. It really does. Writing makes things better because in your clarification comes an acceptance of how things are.

Good luck in your writing.

Tom.

Another hint. Do the introduction well after the book is written. Same with an prologue or epilogue. Oh, and remember, a prologue has to not only loosely set the scene but create atmosphere. I’ve used both prologue and epilogue in two of my novels. Keep both of them short, no more than two pages, for the prologue, preferably one, and certainly no more than a page – preferably half a page, for the epilogue.

A third hint on how to write a story - and you might have heard this before. When the book is done, put it in a draw for at least a couple of months. The temptation is to try to get it read by someone else, even marketed straight away. Resist that. Put it away in a safe place, then pick it up and read it through. You’ll find with time that you can view what you’d written with just that much more objectivity.

But I’ve said enough for now. Let me know if you’ve enjoyed Writing Tips : How to Write a Good Story.   

Good luck

Tom.