Daniel L Carter

I've been writing scripts, plays and music for over twenty years but it wasn't until three years ago that I decided to write a novel. I had no idea what I was about to embark on or the schooling I was about to receive. After writing my manuscript four time I had learned several lessons that I would like to pass on to any new authors trying to write their first novel.

1. Outline First: Before you start your first chapter have an outline. If you don't know where you are going or where you want to end up you can get lost very easily. This is what I do and I'm sure this varies from author to author.
a. Outline the plot. What do you want to accomplish? What's the story about?
b. Do Character Outlines. Who are the main characters? What do they look like? What do they do? How old are they? The more questions you answer before writing the more real these characters will be to your reader.
c. I personally write down specific scenes that I have stuck in my head that I know I definitely want in my story. This helps me keep those moments fresh in my mind and it also helps move the plot along as well.

2. Less is More: One of the identifiers of a new author is that they try to explain everything. This world that we as an author have created can very often be vast and the characters that we have imagined into being can have many layers of history and emotional complexity. Don't try and tell all of it to the reader at the beginning. If you try and explain too much you will overload the reader and they will shut down and lose interest. Tell your story not the history. Let the events and situations of the story give the history and details of the world you've created. Do it gradually throughout the story so that the reader can absorb the information. Also do this in a fashion that causes the reader to ask questions.

3. Description: This goes along with number 2. When you introduce a character for the first time it's not necessary to give a full description of them.
I often see new authors do the following- He watched the beautiful woman enter the room. She was a little over five feet tall wearing a tight black dress and matching heels. Her long shoulder length wavy blond hair and dark blue eyes caused every head to turn.

This comes off to me as a little too clinical and after doing this for each character you introduce in the story it feels more like you are giving a bio instead of telling me a story.
Instead just say something like- He watched the beautiful woman enter the room. Every head turned to stare as she walked directly toward him. He long blond hair and dark blue eyes reminded him of his wife who had passed away only five months earlier.

Use the character's point of view and history to give the description. By doing this you can accomplish telling the history of a character and give the reader a description of the new character. This allows the reader to now understand the depth of pain for one character and that he is probably prone to liking blonds. You've now setup a possible romance scene without being too clinical.

4. Point of View: I cannot stress how much this has helped me as a writer. Having had an acting background made this part of writing a lot of fun. When you are writing a chapter/scene do so from a single character's point of view. Many times I see new authors (myself included) trying to write from multiple character's point of view and it takes away from the reader's ability to identify with those characters. Example: Jason was unsure of himself as they stood at her front door. Their date had been the best time he had ever had and moment of truth was at hand. Rebeka watched patiently as her date fumbled with his hands in his pockets. Should she kiss him first?
Now there isn't anything necessarily wrong with either point of view but as a reader which am I going to identify with? If I'm a woman reading this I don't identify with Jason's point of view like I do with Rebeka's. If you wrote this scene totally from Rebeka's point of view I as a female reader will understand more of the insecurity, awkwardness because I have probably gone through this myself. Which brings me to my next point...

5. Know Your Audience: Understanding this at the beginning of writing will help you make the decisions like which character's point of view you should be writing from. Is your story meant for teens? Is it a romance or girlfriend story? Is it science fiction/fantasy? Is it more adult and provocative? Is it a children's book? Knowing what type of story you want to write is essential before you start writing.

6. Write What you Know: I know this is cliche but it doesn't make it any less true. This is especially important for non-fiction writers since your world will be about the real world. Writing about visiting China when you have never actually been there will show when you are writing. Now for fiction writer's this is less important but still true. As a writer you still want a certain level of plausibility and believability to your story. Even if you are writing about another world and galaxy there is a level of writing what you know about. Writing about quantum physics but having no real understanding of the basic concepts involved will make your writing less believable and in many cases dismissed by the reader outright. Which leads me to the next point...

7. Research: So you want to write a story that involves time travel and the origins of the universe. As a reader I'd like to know how much you actually know on this subject. Because it will become very quickly evident that there is no basis for the story I'm reading. Now if you have actually incorporated how gravity has actually been proven to alter the relativity of time at an atomic level and that the speed of light has been proven no longer constant but rather deteriorating you have a plausible/believable foundation for a time travel story. Or how quantum physics is measured by the electron bound into an atom or molecule. Makes me sound like I actually know what I'm talking about but really it is just a few minutes of research on the subject that allows me to give the reader a foundation for the story to unfold. The internet has made an author's research go from a nightmare in some cases to a simple click of our mouse. I suggest Wikipedia, Google for you computer savvy folks. =)

8. Write What You Like: Write stories that you yourself would want to read. Don't try and write something just because it's the newest fad...IE Vampires. Everyone is writing about vampires because it's the newest craze. Don't get caught up in this. Write what you like not what is popular. You are more likely to be picked up by a publisher and be successful. By writing about what is popular you will be judged by everyone else who is writing about the same subject. This is just an opinion but I think most author's will agree with me on this.

9. Leave Them Hanging: Remember this if nothing else... Questions are an author's best friend! Now when I say questions I mean questions in regards to what is going to happen next or what happened to this character to make them act or feel this way. I don't mean what is the author trying to say or what was that chapter about? You don't want the reader asking these questions. These kind of questions will lose your reader real fast. But if you can write a chapter in such a way that causes the reader to ask good questions then you have the formula for a great book. Questions are what make a reader stay up all night and forgo the need for sleep. Questions are what cause a reader to tell their friends about your book.

In the first chapter of my book The Unwanted my goal was to cause the readers to ask the following questions: Who is this Damon character? I didn't tell them up front who he was.
Why are there always 5 children killed at each of the crime scenes? This question is a vital one throughout the entire story.

Just be careful that you don't create too many questions without giving some answers later in the book. Unanswered questions can be worse in my opinion than anything else.


I'm sure I will come up with other tips but nothing is coming to mind right at the moment. So there may be more to come but I'll save that for a follow up blog.

Blessings,
Daniel L Carter
Author of The Unwanted Trilogy