10 Tips on how to start writing a novel

Author, Tobsha Learner

Write the outline of the story and character breakdowns of all your main characters before you begin. Collect as many research notes, visual cues, character quirks/physicality/details, plot graphs etc, and have them at your finger tips the moment you type your title onto that first blank screen…

This way you’ll have the total shape of the novel and you won’t get stuck rewriting and polishing every paragraph as you go and end up never finishing the book—a classic first timer’s syndrome…

Every author has written terrible first drafts. It’s all in the rewrite, writing is a craft to be learnt and practised not a ready-made gift no matter what your best friend or your mother tells you. We all fall into the trap of our favourite phrase or adjective. Do a global search and highlight them, then only use them once in the book and rewrite…

For characterisation, interview and record for dialogue and specific characteristics (with permission, of course). Get into the habit of eavesdropping and making notes, snippets of dialogue, psychological quirks etc. This will inspire and help build realistic and empathetic characters. For location, visit if possible, take photos, record sound, smell, and architecture. Everything to help create visceral landscape the reader can almost touch. If visiting a location is not possible, go online and collect images. On action/careers of characters—search out experts in that particular field and interview them. You’d be surprised how many will agree (with a promised thank you or reference at the back of the book). Just make sure you’re respectful and make it clear it’s for general atmosphere and not to use verbatim…

To over-write is better than under-writing. This allows you more choice as you hone down your narrative. Take time out between each draft to get a “clear eye” on each re-write—this will give you more objectivity. I’m talking weeks not days. I call this fermentation time, and it’s important to resist the impulse to sit down and fix what you think is wrong with a draft immediately after finishing reading it…

Choose your favourite example of the genre you want to write and study it. Observe how the plot unwinds throughout the book. Make a graph noting how the subplots feed into the theme of the book and how they all build to the climax and conclusion. Look at how conflicts between characters and the obstacles they have to overcome creates tension. Note how specific characteristics make a protagonist believable... 

For example, first person/present places them in the skin of your protagonist and moves them through the landscape right in the moment, the down side is that the description of other characters will always be through the protagonist’s eyes unless you jump tenses. Again look at your favourite books and note how the author uses tenses for different effects… 

You will naturally think it is pure genius and trust me—it won’t be. Wait until third or fourth draft and then choose carefully picked readers who reflect the correct demographic ie, if it’s Young Adult, get your teenage daughter to read it. Encourage them to be frank in their responses. If the same criticisms keep turning up, deal with them in the next rewrite…

Otherwise you will be wasting your money. There are two kinds of editors: structural editors for plot problems and copy editors for grammar, spelling and fact check. An editor is no guarantee of a publishing deal but it can help. Remember to check their professional credentials and that they know the genre you’re writing in…

You will be rejected. Always send the best and final draft—you will only be read once.

Tobsha Learner’s new book The Magick of Master Lilly is out now, published by Little, Brown Book Group

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