Writing a Fictional Book: How to Start

Fiction is one of the most popular literary genres for books. A lot of writers start writing fiction as an easy way to enter the publishing world. However fictional books tend to get more attention from publishing agencies and attract a wider audience. Writing a successful fictional book can help writers grow and gain recognition for their work.

08 Surprising Steps to Write a Fictional Book

Here are 8 steps you can follow to start writing your own successful fictional book.

Love Your Story

It is important that writers understand and appreciate their own work. Learning to love your own story is the first step that can lead to an amazing fiction book. Fiction is concerned with inspiration and creativity and without loving your own story, your book can lack these crucial elements. In addition, view your story as an extension of yourself and start acknowledging the strengths of your story.

Create a Solid Roadmap

Creating a coherent and precise roadmap can greatly aid the progression of your fictional book. Roadmaps are a great tool to utilize in order to give your story. A solid structure and cohesiveness. Roadmaps can help you determine which elements work and which don’t. roadmaps are a great way to view your story from a different perspective.

A good roadmap will allow you to identify what your story needs and how to make your fictional work more engaging and unique. Similarly, your roadmaps can also help organize your own thoughts and plot points.

Build Your Characters with Care

When you write your story, make sure that you pay attention to your characters. Fictional stories tend to focus a lot on characters and their personalities. If the characters in your story are relatable and unique, your story will automatically attract a wider audience. Make sure to give your characters dynamic backgrounds and personalities, don’t make your characters one-dimensional and caricatures of different tropes. Instead, treat them as living, breathing human beings.

Think about their motivations, expectations and goals. Try to integrate their ambitions into the story in a natural manner. Don’t force your characters to adhere to a specific trope, instead, organically cultivate their characteristics and pay attention to how the overall plot of your story influences your characters.

A Good Story Plot

A good story plot not only includes good characters but also offers something unique to the reader. Don’t just follow popular fantasy tropes, instead create your own plot and world. Make sure the plot is surprising and exciting for the reader.

Don’t make your plot too obvious. Follow the rule of ‘show doesn’t tell. Instead of telling your readers about everything that happens in the plot. show them through character actions and plot devices. Create a sense of mystery through your plot. In addition to creating a plot that will encourage the reader to keep reading. A good plot can take a simple idea and turn it into an exciting journey for the reader. Think about what sort of journey you want your readers to experience through your plot.

Get Feedback from Your Friends

Getting a second opinion on your work is never a bad thing. Getting feedback from friends, family or even some professionals can greatly help you avoid common mistakes. However, most often than not, writers tend to become blind to the shortcomings in their own work. Working on the same text for a long time can make it difficult for writers to make meaningful changes to the plot or characters.

By getting feedback from friends, most importantly every writer can gain better insight into how their fictional story flows. What plot points work and what changes need to be made. Feedback from a secondary source can be crucial to the writing process. It is important to know how your book flows from the reader’s perspective. A friend may be able to pick up on elements that the writer initially missed. Moreover, your feedback can help you view your work in a larger context and can help you avoid isolating your work from your audience.

Write Everyday

Sometimes the best way to get your creativity flowing is through writing every day. Even though the thought of writing every day may seem like a counterintuitive task, it can actually help you clear your mind and focus on the ideas that do matter. Oftentimes, writers face the difficulty of writer’s block, likewise, they are unable to create new ideas or work on their own stories. Writing every day can help you get through these frustrating situations.

Not all of your writing needs to be perfect or brilliant, instead use this activity as a way to get the boring and bland ideas out of your head. Writing every day can help you focus and clear your thoughts; it can help you keep your story fresh and you can avoid the mistake of using the same tropes and plot devices. Writing every day is also an effective way to increase your writing speed and work on your skills. Your ideas may change from day to day and writing every day can help you keep track of these changes and help you explore better ideas.

Include Climax in your Story

Every story needs a good climax. The climax of a story is usually the point where the action rises and the plot reaches a high-risk point. And the conflict is resolved. The climax is an important point of any story because it involves all of the characters and plot devices. The climax of a story can make or break your book because your plot works towards the climax. And if the climax falls apart then the rest of the plot instantly becomes useless.

This is why it is not only important to include a climax in your story but to also make sure that your climax is effective. You have to make sure that the climax of your book does not undermine the efforts of your characters. It is important to make sure that the climax validates your character’s actions and the plot devices you have introduced. A good climax will resolve the conflict in a clever and exciting manner. Don’t make the climax predictable and boring. Remember, the climax is the most memorable part of the story. A good climax will elevate the rest of your book.

Hire a Professional Editor

Hiring a professional fictional book editor can greatly facilitate your book. A professional editor can help with the direction of your book and as a result, it will help make more impactful changes. A professional editor will be able to recognize mistakes and changes that you may have missed in your initial draft.

Professional editors are usually more perceptive to changes that can help the flow of your book. An editor may also help guide you with how to tackle characterization and important plot points.

Fictional book editors tend to have a lot of experience with the progression and structure of fictional books. And hiring one of the fictional book editing services can give you the fictional structure and make your fictional story more impactful.

Conclusion

Writing a fictional book can be overwhelming, especially for first-time writers. However, by following the steps above, you can enter the world of fictional writing with ease. Following some of the guidelines mentioned here can help facilitate your own writing process and help you write an amazing fictional book.