Writing Advice: 3 Tips I Wish I Knew Before Writing My First Novel
Hello friends and lovers!
What you need to know before you draft your first novel. These are tips I wish I knew before diving in head first.
Over 220 pages later on my first draft of Lawsuit + Leather, the beginning phase of editing my first draft, about 6 chapters in, I decided to change from third person to first person. Why? First person is my voice. I just discovered it later than I should have.
I’m now on my second story, I had to pause L+L to understand the plot holes a bit better. However, I have learned quite a bit from writing my current second story.
Just a bit of backstory before I start into the tips. I’m the type of person that dives in head first into projects. My baking, my crafts, and now my writing. My passion sometimes gets in the way of taking my time to really understand what I am getting myself into. My husband knows this the best about me, he scolds me when I don’t read a recipe first, because I like reading the steps as I go, until sometimes, I come across a step where I may have needed a room temperature egg, but now half of my ingredients are in my stand mixer. Yup, you can give me the frown face too, I see it often enough.
I began writing back in April 2020, which is very, very recent, but I had an idea for a story and what did I do? I dove in head first, blinders on, and then I researched along the way. I began listening to author tubers during my work hours, since I work from home. It’s been a blessing in disguise to work from home, because I have learned so much about writing, social media, branding, etc… That’ll be a post for another day, but for now this post is to serve as a part of my journey and if it helps you, that is great!
Below are 3 main things I wish I knew before writing my first novel.
Figure out what your writing style is. First Person VS. Third Person.
Figure out your writing style before you take the time to outline and write your new novel.
How do you figure out your writing style? Write, write, and write some more! (Ok, although helpful, it’s not helpful.)
I found my writing style when I wrote short stories. I was so eager to write and create many stories, while writing my first draft for my WIP: Lawsuit + Leather, that I ended up finding my voice, after 13 short stories. It might be a short time to discover it, but I wish I took the time to discover my style prior to diving into novel mode.
Outline before starting!!!
Outlining is really important. I know there are pansters out there and they make it work. During my journey of writing style discovery, I wrote short stories based of prompts I found on Pinterest. I just had a deep hunger for writing and being on a break from my first draft wasn’t ok for me. Those short stories, I did complete panster style! I use the word complete loosely, because most of the ideas I came up with from the prompt didn’t fit the bill for a true short story. They are novella ideas I will be completing in the future.
Back to outlining, this is a great organizational time to understand your plot points, backstory, hook, etc…
I have a worksheet just for you that will help gear you in the right direction!
Character Development!
Development is so fundamental and when I first started I thought I did a great job of showing personality when it came to my characters, but when it came time for dialogue…. that was a whole demon where I sat for too long trying to figuring out the best way to have a conversation between the characters.
Why did this happen? Shit, it’s because I did not know my characters. I didn’t complete any development sheets, I didn’t understand their schedules, their likes and dislikes. Without this information being gathered in the beginning, I failed.
But that’s ok. I failed so I can teach you what tips are crucial when you’re ready to complete your first draft.
Now that you have these three important tips, how will you apply them?
If you’d like to follow my writing journey on a daily basis, be sure to follow me on Instagram. Want to know what my writing style is? Check out a couple short stories I’ve posted in my blog, the link is under related posts below.
Want more tips? Comment below and tell me what you’d like to discover as a newbie author.