First Steps of a Great Writer: How to Write Your Debut Book

Understanding Whether You Have a Talent

It is not easy to tell whether you have a natural talent or you don’t. There are no specific criteria for identifying a natural writing talent. It seems that writing talent is like any other talented people have. If you do it better than the others then you are likely to have a natural talent for that. If you are in a college, a good indicator may be feedback from people who are not very concerned about how you feel about your writing – professors. It is likely that you have talent if what you write is always better than what your peers can deliver. Gifted writers usually do it with ease (when in college). And obviously, if you do have a writing talent then you will likely have a passion for the word and will be looking for ways to write something all the time.
But not all great authors had that inborn writing talent. There are many of those who had that talent learned through the years of practice. So if it doesn’t seem like you were born with a pencil and paper in your hand, you don’t have to be upset. There some things you can do in order to become a writer despite all odds.

Write every morning

Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Despite the simplicity of this advice, it helps develop the ability to write on demand. It is necessary to have a minimum word limit around 600-750 words for this exercise. You can choose the topic yourself. It is not so important. What is important is that you write every day about whatever is on your mind.

Editing and rewriting someone else’s work

Editing and rewriting are two things authors do very often. Since you probably don’t have many of your own writings yet, you could find articles online and work on those. Check for spelling mistakes, vague points, long sentences, etc. and try to reword them so that it all would look better.

Headlining

It is important for writers to be able to come up with new topic ideas. So just find 10 headlines online and write them on a piece of paper. Then turn off your cell phone and computer and think for 5 minutes about the ides and topics you can develop from those headlines. Let your mind wander as much as it possibly can.

Choosing Your Writing Style

The writing style to choose depends on such things, such as your writing ability, audience, and the purpose of the writing. It is only when you understand all of these three aspects you can choose to follow a specific writing style.

First, it is important that you write in the ability that matches your talent. A technical writer will unlikely be able to deliver a highly engaging comical (at least without basic training and preparation). Secondly, you have to know who your audience is. Depending on the people you are writing for, you will be choosing the appropriate wording and slang. Thirdly, you have to understand the purpose of your writing (unfortunately, there are some authors who don’t have a clear idea of why they are writing the text). For example, if you mean to teach something you may want to use the instructional style of writing. Sharing a story will assume the abundant use of active words and sometimes compelling descriptive tactics.

Great Writing Tips from Famous Authors

David Brin, a Hugo-award winning author recommends interacting more with the world. He says that if you have other things in life, such as family, friends, work, etc. you don’t have to run away from them to produce a masterpiece. Instead, these things can interact with your writing and what you will have will be much better than if you would have closed yourself in a room for hours in attempts to deliver a masterpiece.

Ray Bradbury, the author of famous Fahrenheit 451, recommends finding out what your hero wants first, and then all you have to do as a writer is just follow him/her. This one is more for those who are involved in writing story-based books although all could find something useful insight into how to develop ideas from characters. In other words, let your characters decide the plot.

The next piece of advice will be mostly for fiction lovers but can also be an encouragement for any writer aspiring to write something that has never been written before. Toni Morrison who is a Nobel prize-winning author said that if there is a book that you really want to read but it seems like that no one has ever written it yet, then you are the one who should do it.

Dorothy Parker, an author famous for her elegant and concise style of writing, has once said, “I can’t write five words but I can change seven”. This is to emphasize the importance of editing. There are some writers who underestimate the importance of editing which often leads them to great failures.

Writing the First Book

Knowing how to become a writer should help you understand where you are going. But this is only the
first stage. Then goes the practice – writing your first book. There are no other things we would like to tell you apart from those we have already mentioned. Mastering a theoretical foundation of how to become a writer is easier than the reality of writing a book as it requires more perseverance and dedication. But that is something you have to find within yourself in the process.

The only thing we would like to tell you is that you have to write every day. Remember the writing exercises to help you become a writer? They were meant to teach you that writing every day helps you grow and develop. If you are writing a book it is even more important in terms of the final outcome. Your job is then to fight procrastination and develop a plan for completing the whole project. Obviously, you will have some deviations from the plan but the main thing is that you do have specific milestones to achieve.

After you have written your first book, you are halfway through. You still have to make sure your writing is flawless through professional editing and proofreading. Then you are to find agencies through which you can have your book published. Apart from agencies, you can also apply for writing grants as well as publish your book online. There are many resources available online that can guide you through the whole process of book publishing.

1. Tension is always a good beginning. Most recommendations concerning fiction writing boil down to beginning with some sort of action. Action is believed to be a good start for every fiction book. However, this is not so. There is something better you can do. Beginning with tension seems to be a better move. Sometimes tension is a tightly connected with actions but it should not necessarily be so. Grounded in some sort of tension your first chapters will grab the attention of readers and hopefully will never let them go. You can choose what tension you want to start your book with depending on further plot development. There are too many options available so we are not going to list the variations at this point.
2. Make pauses. There are a lot of writers who say that having a word-count quote for the day is a must for authors writing fiction. However, we believe that there is something more important than that. It is a capability to make pauses even if you haven’t met your quote yet. As a writer, you need to be able to make some pauses throughout the entire process in order to have a fresh look at what you have written so far. More than that, try to stop even if you know what you are going to write next. This will help you rest and develop your plot in an efficient manner.
3. Don’t think about your book all the time. Many authors get so absorbed with the idea of writing a book that they are almost not capable of thinking about anything else. However, you will be more effective if you give your mind some rest. This may sound weird but try not to think about your fiction writing project when you are not working on it. Otherwise, your brain will be tired when you start working on it. This was the advice Hemingway cherished a lot. He thought it is important not to worry about the writing all the time, especially when writer’s inspiration has been wandering off. You may not find this advice among common tips to write a book but if you try it out you will see how helpful it may be.

4. Unanswered questions in the end of each chapter. If you want your fiction book to be engaging for readers you have to know how to end each chapter in a way that one would want to keep on reading all the time. Figuratively speaking, you have to end every chapter on a cliff which will inevitable spark reader’s curiosity.
5. One sentence. Many authors experience problems with starting their fiction writings. They seem to know how to be a good writer and what devices to use throughout the entire book, but sometimes people are just stuck trying to come up with some kind of tension that would be appropriate for the beginning of a book. In this case all you have to do is to write one sentence and go from there. Squeeze one sentence out of your imagination and see how you can develop it into a decent beginning. Even if it seems like a poor sentence you can come to great ideas when developing your thoughts from it.
6. Show. Keep in mind that it is always better to show than simply say. The world of fantasy allows so much space for showing things rather than simply making statements. It helps create images in the minds of readers which is why a lot of people love reading fiction books. Offer some unexpected turns as opposed to those books that follow simple plot everyone can guess after reading first chapter.