Novel Writing is NOT for Beginners

Novel writing isn't for beginners, so why is it that every beginner wants to write a book about how rough their life has been? There's no use in attacking me. I already have 100 beginners standing at my door and waiting to flog me to death. By the time you arrive, there will be little left for the imagination. But… it would be nice if you wrote my husband and extended your sympathies.

Novel writing is something that should be left for someone who has AT LEAST had some experience in short story writing. And when I say, "some experience," I mean some experience in being published.

And now for the brutal, searing facts of life: no one cares what has happened in your life. Not unless it can be of practical use to them. The day for caring about what happens to your neighbor is nearly at an end. Can you even call six neighbors by their first and last names? I rest my case.

But this is not an article for ranting and raving. There are solid reasons why beginners shouldn't try to write novels. These are only some of the things they won't know:

· what a hook is, or how to make one
· how to build paragraphs with proper structure
· what a theme is, or how to find it
· what a plot is, or how to build it
· how to build a character, or how to give it warts
· what an arc is, or how to use it
· what resolutions are, or how to do them
· or how to write a properly crafted 2,000 word short story

So where does that leave all of you beginners who are reading this? How can you learn these steps? The obvious answer is a writing course. Start at the beginning and work your way up. Two classes will be all you should need, unless you also need a review course in punctuation and mechanics.

But if you can't do that right now, read every article you can find on writing and take notes! Take The Writer Magazine, which is the best on the market (and I have no affiliations with them). Write to people with writing websites and ask them specific questions.

Another thing you can is to join one or more writing groups. The one I recommend is Writing.com. They have a five-star rating system where you can rate other people's writing and they can rate yours. And before you get into a writing group, make up your mind that you will accept and act upon 95% of the suggestions and criticisms that you receive, and that you will not wear your feelings on your sleeves.

So how do you know which 5% not to accept? At first, you won't. As time passes, you will be able to discern that.

In closing, when you can craft a good 2,000-word story (the equivalent of one chapter), take a novel writing class. A novel is too much work to "try out".