Writing a Book - What should you know before you start?

    You want to start writing a book, and you want some tips on how to do it? Well, you came to the right place!

How I started writing...

    I started writing when I was 16 years old. It has been three years since I started writing my first novel. Throughout those three years, I learned a lot because I have researched and worked a lot. That is the IMPORTANT KEY to writing a book - research.     But first... let's take a look at the steps:

First step - Idea     Whether you are a Plotter or a Pantser, the idea is what you need to write a book. (A quick description of the meaning of plotter and panster is up on my first post - How to Write a Short Story) For me, I always have a basic idea of what I want to write. I like to call that idea a skeleton. While I am writing I am building the meat and the skin over the skeleton.     An average word count of the idea I have for a book is up to 500 words (never counted, but approximately saying)     I have seen the video on YouTube that is about how to know if your story idea is a good idea. Well, I don't think there is a right or wrong way to know, I think you just have to believe in your work and love your idea for it to be good. If you love what you came up with and if you are excited about it even after a few months that have passed, I believe that the idea is a good idea.     So my advice is, think about the idea that you have, maybe even start writing the story after a month or even later, and if you still feel excited about it, there is no doubt that it is good! P.S. you may also ask a few friends or your family, they may give you good advice.

Second Step - Research

    Either you just started, or you finished your book, it is not early or late to start your research.

What may help you is a very simple but yet very powerful - YOUTUBE. On YouTube, there is a lot of writers, literary agents, or editors posting videos on writing. You can always type in the search bar what interests you to learn.

    Whether it is research on how to describe something, or what to avoid... both GOOGLE and YOUTUBE can be very useful.

Third Step - Names

    The problem I have run into when writing my second book was - I want my characters to live somewhere outside of where I live, but how should I do it if I have never been in Detroit (where I wanted, at the time, my characters to live)? My mom gave me great advice - device your own world! And that is the best advice I can give you. You may think, well how to just come with a new world?? Well, I haven't said that it is easy. It took me a lot to think of my first imagine word, and know I can do it seconds, everything is part of a learning process. If you really want to do something, you can with work and time.

    Now, that we took care of naming the place where your book will take place, is time to talk about character names! I didn't know about this when I was writing my first book, but I have recently discovered about the website reedsy - they have a lot of tools for writers, one of them is this - https://blog.reedsy.com/character-name-generator/ - here you can find great names for your characters.

    But, what I have always used is baby name generator - some have the meaning, so if I want the character with the meaning, for example, sun, I can always find one! So those two ways are great for finding the name.

Fourth Step - Book Title

    Book titles for me always come naturally. I haven't had a problem with naming my book. In most cases, I would name my book before I even start writing it! But, if you feel stuck, and don't know how to name your book there is a reedsy tool for you as well! Just go to this link https://blog.reedsy.com/book-title-generator/ Here you have three options:

    1. You can choose between five genres or, you can click on option ALL. 

    2. The third option is to choose whether your book is finished or not. 

This can be also a very good idea when finding an idea for your book!

    What you also want to do is to go on the internet and type the title of your book, just in case if it is already taken. 

Fifth Step - Formatting a Document 

    You can either write in the A4 document, or you can make your page small as a standard book. When I write I like to see how many pages I have, so I went as far as measuring the length of the books and I would count how many words is on a single page. In the end, I came to a standard 13x20. For the font size, I use 11.5, and that way the single page has 330 words on average. That way I can also see how many pages my book would have if it is printed. 

Sixth Step - Book Length and Word Count  

    Your first book doesn't have to be long. Take my journey as an example, my first novel has like 20 thousand and something words. I would beat myself over it - thinking can a book be that long? But for the first time writing that is okay, and there are a lot of short novels, so don't think about that too much! My fourth book now has 145 000 words, but that came with a lot of work! 

    Your fantasy book can range between 70 000 words and 150 000 words. - Also, there are a lot of books even higher than 150 000 words! So, don't take this as a rule, take it more as a guide. 

    If you are writing a crime novel or a romance novel, I would say that your book can be in a range between 50 000 words and 90 000 or 100 000 words. That is my take on it. I don't believe in many rules when writing. Writing is a creative process, so don't overwhelm yourself with a lot of rules, write with your heart, everything else will come to you and you will learn.    

 That concludes today's topic. If you want more information on how to write, please make sure to let me know down in the comment section!