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Starting to write a novel is scary for any writer, even for an experienced one. Yet, it’s an exciting adventure and if you’re passionate about writing and know the basic principles of how to produce a great novel, you have all chances to come up with great stuff, which will definitely find its reader after publication.
Create a Story, Which You Would Personally Want to Read
Obviously, current trends are to be taken into consideration but writing about something that’s not really your thing won’t bring any good. The readers are intuitive enough to feel the lack of passion in your storytelling so try to write about something that you are truly interested in.
Write in the Third Person
There are quite a few advantages of telling a story from the third person point of view. One of the main reasons is that as a writer, you get more freedom of expression. While the first person point of view restricts the depiction of the story by the perception of one individual, in the third person novels you get a chance to present scenes from the viewpoints of other characters.
Don’t Overuse the Word “Said”
If you have many conversations in your story, you will need to use “he said” or “she said” around lines of the dialogues. Perhaps, you’re a beginner and you have never thought that an issue might arise here. Even though the verb “said” is pretty much invisible, its overuse will get your reader bored very quickly. To avoid this, try to substitute “said” with other verbs, which indicate speech. Yet, be careful and don’t be overzealous with synonyms to prevent your reader becoming dizzy from the oversaturation of emotions caused by, for example, such verbs as “exclaimed,” “insisted,” screamed,” “retorted,” “laughed,” “shouted,” etc.
Use Suspense
Suspense is the element of fiction, which can hook the reader and make him want to read further until the very end of the story. Some nonfiction writings also may benefit from suspense in the narration if used correctly. If to take horror movies, suspenseful music is one of the effective means used for setting a scary atmosphere. Writers can’t use music for this purpose so they need to go the extra mile and evolve the necessary mood with words. For creating an effective “cliffhanger”, one can use some of many methods, such as using short sentences, adding time limitations, changing character perspective at key points and so on.
Let Your Character Have a Pet
In the third person novels, the writer may describe the events from the point of view of many characters. This brings a sheer amount of flexibility in how to describe various scenes in the story. Yet, if you let your character have a pet, be it a beloved cat, dog, parrot or even a mouse, you will have additional opportunity to let the reader know what the character really thinks of what’s going on.
