Assembling your creative piece

Hey!

After talking recently about self-publishing, I felt that the next logical step was to take a spin at explaining the process I go through when coming up with my next idea - or rather, what I do with it and how I begin to write.

A common saying that people like to say is "Ideas are cheap." This means that as much as an idea may be great, it is all down to the execution. An idea is only made brilliant when it is handled well.

✍️Starting a novel

A few years ago, I started my first novel. I had written a few shorter pieces in the past but I had never taken on the enormous task of writing a full-length novel. When I began, I had a brief idea and just started writing. This was great as I just focused on getting words down on the page. After a while, however, I got stuck and slowed down.

Most of this was because I didn't have a plan. I had written myself down a road and, on the way, forgot where I was heading. Instead, I aimlessly wrote chapters that didn't fit and had to keep editing them.

So, from experience, my first tip is to get yourself a plan. Whether this is simply a bullet-point list or table, any sort of planning is better than nothing. For me, I like to plan the plot of my novel and brief character development, but I let the writing carry their reactions.

Having an outline doesn't have to take the fun out of writing, it just needs to be a skeleton of the main novel so that you have checkpoints to focus on. It gives you small goals on the way to the larger objective of writing a book.

1️⃣First to second

Once you have finished your first draft after many hours of brain-dumping, it is time to start your second draft. This is where you rewrite the book in its entirety. For some people, there may be little changes to make. Although, for me, I find that I am re-writing the book again.

I like to think of my first draft as my "vomit-draft." Excuse the lovely imagery, but it works. I start by getting all my ideas down on paper in the most cohesive way possible. When it comes to my second draft, I restructure it so that my plot works and the pacing feels natural.

Another way a second draft is helpful is that it gives you a chance to fix that dodgy wording that seemed okay at the time but you hate it on a second read-through. I get to let my inner critic back out and properly word my novel in a way that sounds interesting to read.

👨‍👨‍👦Getting others involved

From there, I like to send it to some friends to get their views on it and repeat this a few times. By the end, I end up having around five or six drafts. While this hasn't happened just yet with my current project, this is the strategy I use for my shorter creative pieces.

Hopefully, by following my outline, I will get my full-length novel complete soon - we never know.

That's all from me today,
Fin :)