Writing a Fiction Book That You Will Love

Writing a fiction book can seem like a challenging task unless you have a clear idea of where you want to go with your novel. There are so many components of a novel to balance as you write: developing characters, writing believable dialog, weaving plots and subplots, juggling multiple points of view, and more. That's why it's so helpful to begin with a clear plan in mind. Everything else you do will flow from out of that.

First Things First

In this article, I'm going to show you four simple steps that will help you come up with a great novel idea. When it comes to writing a novel, getting started is the hardest part, in my opinion. Once you have a novel idea that inspires you and you have a good feeling for where you are headed, everything else will tend to just fall into place.

Step 1: Decide on Your Kind of Novel

Many people who want to write a novel struggle with the question of what they should write. The answer is actually right in front of their noses, however. You should write the kind of novel that you love to read. Why?

If you've read a lot of books of a particular type or genre, you'll naturally have a good feel for how this type of book should be written. As you've read, you've absorbed the typical way these novels are structured, what the lead characters are like, what they want, and what they tend to go through before they get it. This puts you way ahead of others who are not familiar with this genre. Plus, If you love reading this kind of novel, then you will love writing this kind of novel as well. Plus, your enthusiasm and genuine interest will be reflected in your writing, not to mention that it will help keep you motivated to finish your novel, just because you're having so much fun with your story.

Step 2: Who's the Main Character For Your Novel?

The next step is to decide on the basic details of you novel's Lead character. Give them a name and decide on their gender and age; that will be enough to help you begin imagining who they are. You want to conform to the expectation of the genre you're writing within; for example, for a children's book, you will want the main character to be a child.

Step 3: Define the Crisis

Early on in your novel, your Lead will be confronted with a major crisis that throws everything in their lives out of order. Evan Marshall, the author and literary agent, gives this suggestion to writers about creating this crisis:

It should fit your genre

It should throw your Lead's life into a state of chaos and confusion

It should be compelling and interesting to you as the writer

Step 4: Your Lead Decides to Take Action

Because of this crisis, your Lead is forced to take action in response. They must decide to address this problem and set a goal to solve it. This goal will carry them through your novel and will not be achieved until the end.

Marshall recommends that novelists adhere to the following four criteria to create a goal that is powerful enough to hook your readers into wanting to see how it all turns out. From his perspective, your Lead's goal should be about:

Reaching for something that your Lead really wants or getting relief from some situation that they really don't want to experience.

A lot at stake: if they fail at their goal, there will be dire consequences.

Your Lead's intentions must be admirable and positive so your readers will really like them.

The odds of success should be slim to none.

Using these simple guidelines to develop your story idea will give you a powerful, dynamic starting place for your novel. At the outset of your novel, your task is to find an idea that really inspires you and these steps will help you to do that. As I said before, everything else will flow from this idea so it's really worth it to take the time to find one that you love.

More Ideas For Novel Writing:



The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing is a great system for writing a fiction book. It leads you step-by-step through the whole process of writing a novel from idea to submission. If you're interested in writing a great novel with the potential to become a best-seller, I think you will want to check it out. You can learn more about this system at: Marshall Plan Novel Writing. Check out this article for more about Fiction Novel Writing.



Laura M. McKennah is a professional writer who loves writing about novel writing and other creative topics. You can read more of her thoughts and suggestions about writing at writerssolutions.com. She's also blogging there on what it's like to actually use the Marshall Plan for Novel Writing software to develop a novel idea.