How To Plan a Fiction Novel
Many newbie writers have the same question, “How do I write a book?”. To veterans, this may seem complex a question. Traditional or Self-publish? Fiction or Non-Fiction? Hobby or Commercial? There are many ways to skin a cat, as there are with writing a book. Today, I want to go over the process of planning your Fiction Novel.
What is a Fiction Book?
It is important that we have a clear and concise definition of what defines a fiction Novel and what separates them from other classifications of books.
Fiction derives from the imagination, regardless of similarities to the real-world. It is the construct of our thoughts and ideas that aren’t based on real-world logic or realities.
If your story contains, dragons, princesses needing to let down their hair or talking pigs? It is fiction. On e of the most common genres to find fiction in is ‘Kindergartener’. These stories are focused on children. They often are stitched with imagination and wonder pouring from their seams.
How do you plan your fiction book?
Once you’ve decided to write fiction, it is time to break down how you go about the planning stage. Preparing your novel for drafting and marketing.
Step 1: Dig deeper than the Classifications
Beyond the basic, ‘ what classification is my novel. Fiction/Non-Fiction?’ You must determine what genre your story falls in. There are a million and more genres of fiction with just as many sub-genres beneath them. Finding that genre that defines your novel with help immensely in the following planning phases because it will help your structure your Novel the correct way. This will avoid major editing issues in the long run.
Step 2: After research, your idea will suck.
If you’ve defined your story’s genre — you must research more about that genre. Every genre in fiction has rules and guidelines that ensure those books are placed in the correct categories and labelled with books of a similar corset. This is to avoid children and adults picking up stories that aren’t for them. Likewise, it will make your writing job easier — these rules will course-correct how you go about writing your story, keeping you marketable and not being overrun with ideas. Here you will learn that your original idea doesn’t fully fit with the genre you’ve chosen. You can either change your ideas or the genre.
Step 3: Traditional or Self-published?
This is a question every author asks themselves before writing their novels. Often they may neglect the thought until later in their writing process but it is a conversation you must have with yourself before even putting ink to paper, or fingers to keyboard. Of course, the answer can change later on, but it is very important you ask your self this question early. It will save yourself effort and time. This is another course-correcting move because there are many different nuances to publishing your novel, whether by yourself versus with the help of a traditional publishing firm. These can range from what you write in your stories to how you present that story to your readers. In traditional publishing, marketability is 100% king.
Step 4: Know the stages of publishing.
The final step to planning your novel is learning/researching more about the publishing method you’ve chosen. As stated before Traditional and Self-Publishing both require different nuances to figure through. Researching these will help you determine what skillsets you focus on as a writer. Do you learn business ethics 101 and money management along with writing ethics? or do you focus primarily on writing structures and presentability? Both forms of publishing require different skills to focus on. In your research, you will be able to determine the skills you need, and it will once again, make your work easier — and in some cases, less work may apply. SOME.
And that’s it. The four (4) steps to planning your fiction Novel. Notice how we didn’t tell you to go read some books or learn proper grammar or writing structures? That’s because these are given. You can’t write a book if you don’t know the difference between Their/There/they’re — well you can, but it will be a pain to read. Next week we’ll continue this topic and look at the first 5 steps of writing a self-published fiction novel. See you then.
