Write Your Novel Step By Step (Part 12)

Okay fellow writers. I am about to enter the 12th excerpt into my step by step novel writing process. We have just passed the halfway point of this series and I hope it is beneficial to each and every one of you who read it. I am presently trying to get my first novel published and am working on my second one. I use each and every one of these topics to help me get through. Remember though you have to maintain passion for the art of writing or you’re just wasting your time. I can give you all the pointers you want but if you don’t have the drive and desire then they are no good to you. Okay time to move on.

56. Hold Your Reader

There are three major points that combined work together to hold your reader. The first one is be specific. Anything you do in your novel it’s important not to be vague. This isn’t a short story where you can get away with that. When decisions are made throughout your story be definite about them. There are no maybes. Maybes only get you in trouble because it gets the readers confused. And finally any information you give has to be concrete. You want the foundation and everything above it to be solid. Any weak points and that’s where your book comes tumbling down.

57. Your Book Doesn’t Get All Your Time

I don’t care how you want to do it but once in a while you need to take time away from your writing. What I personally do is take 2 full days away every week and once a month I make one of those two dayers into a three dayers. What you are going to find when you come back to continue your novel is that your mind is story fresh. That’s going to go a long way in the success of your novel.

58. Can You Make Your Reader Cry

Sympathy sells. All over the world everyday in every language possible stories are being written and sold with sympathy as the main angle. If you can get your readers to buy into the emotions of your characters then you have them reading to the end of the book and looking for your next one. I say sympathy but it can be any emotion provided it is done right. Sympathy is an easier one but fear and anger are also two big ones.

59. Feelings

Hers another great tip. You can not and I stress can not tell your readers how to feel. You have to make them feel how you want them to feel. If you want them to be scared then write something scary enough. Even though it may seem just like words on paper. When I read “Needful Things” by Stephen King he had me turning lights on and looking up every time I heard even the smallest noise. So are those just words? I don’t think so that is a brilliant author bringing a story to life and scaring the pants off of me.

60. The Meat

So by now you should have anywhere from 80000 to 120000 words written. There tat wasn’t so bad now was it? Now comes the hardest part of writing. At least it is in my opinion. Now you get to start rewriting and editing your novel. One things for sure you better not be tired and you better have a clear head going into this stage of writing your book.


I know a lot of this seems like its going no where but trust me I write this from experience. Writing a book is no easy task. I wish someone would have helped me out like this when I first started writing. I will tell you one thing. Now this relates to me and it could to you but you have to want it to. No matter how hard the writing got I never disliked it. I still love writing and maybe this is a pipe dream but I hope to be able to retire and live totally off the money I earn from writing. Okay this is the end of lesson 11. I hope you are enjoying it so far. I also hope you are taking advantage of the opportunity to print this out because if all goes well I will make this into an e book so take advantage of it free.

Dale Mazurek

Dale is presently in the process of getting his first novel published. He has also started dabbling in short stories. You can find some of these on his blog at http://stcajo-readshortstories.blogspot.com/ and lastly he deals a little in the affiliate marketing gig which can be checked out at http://affiliatemarketingfornewbies.blogspot.com/

In writing my novel I learnt a lot of things the hard way so I just wanted to put this series out there for would be writers to help them on their path to writing their own book.