How do you start on something so ambitions? I've written poems and narrative essays before, but those seem like child's play compared to writing an entire novel.
How much time spent on research? How thorough should notes be before drafting begins? Yikes.
I know some of you have done it before, so I'd really appreciate some guidance. I've been sitting on an idea, which includes a MCs, setting, and themes that I'd like to flesh out into long-form. Any idiot can have an idea, though, and this idiot wants to make something good.
>>8198069
>How much time spent on research?
do this when you need to
>How thorough should notes be before drafting begins?
'notes' are a distraction. having an outline of the general idea is sufficient. just write.
> this idiot wants to make something good.
write well.
I remember quentin tarantino mention this trick he does for his characters, he writes out their entire life history, even if he only uses a little bit of it in the movie.
Also there is this concept in fantasy nerd books called world building.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldbuilding
finally, a story should have conflict, and the characters shouldn't be too perfect, and their imperfections shouldn't be cool either, avoid making mary sues.
Your character has to overcome something in his life.
This is called a character arc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_arc
>>8198113
Nah, unless you're writing some shitty fantasy novel, don't do worldbuilding before writing.
>>8198069
if you write 350 words a day, five times a week, then in less than a year you will have a rough draft of an average length novel.
>>8198123
What's wrong with world building?
>>8198142
nothing, but doing it before writing your novel is simply an excuse to say you're writing a novel when you're not, and largely unnecessary unless you're writing aggressively nerdy genre fiction.
i think im too young and unexperienced to write a novel, if it happens it will be after im 30.
>>8198069
>I've written poems and narrative essays before, but those seem like child's play compared to writing an entire novel.
Well, I assume you're not a child anymore so the concept of writing a novel should be on your level.
Just do it, faggot.
>>8198069
The process of most novelists is to write many drafts. The first draft being total shit w/ almost all of it scrapped.
>>8198069
If you don't know what you're doing, or would like it to eventually be more refined than something you pulled out your ass... outline, outline, outline.
You don't need to go that in-depth when you just start it, but you should have at least a page of brief bulletin points on the overall plot, themes, structure, and miscellaneous details before you do any significant portion of the actual writing. Add more as you go along if you need to.
I've only finished one 80k word book so far and roughly 3/4ths of the first draft of another that's around the same length, but one thing I've done for both of these was start out by coming up with and writing the ending first. As backwards as this might sound, it helps set the tone and direction the rest of the book will take.
>>8198197
If you're tossing most of your shit outright rather than refining what you've written and occasionally scrapping a few things that don't work for whatever reason, you're doing something terribly wrong.
Not sure there's a right way to write a novel, just like there's no right way to paint or make music.
Get good, hone your craft so to speak, at writing. Then you just write.
That's my take. For the record, I haven't written anything novel length.
>>8198234
>has never written more than a 500-word essay in his life
either that or you're happy with your mediocre first draft-level shit
>>8198254
Not at all. If it's so shitty that you have to completely gut the whole fucking thing, you might as well not have even bothered.
First drafts need work, yes, but never so much that you're entirely changing or rewriting more than maybe 20% tops from scratch, and even that's a lot unless you intentionally half-assed it the first time around. If it can't serve as a base for the final draft you just wasted your time.
You're not writing a novel, you're writing a series of scenes. It helps to think of the novel in this manner. Break down your story into the scenes and break the scenes into beats. Once you have this you have a map, all you gotta do is take one step at a time and eventually you'll get to your destination.
Don't waste time with editing, just chug out sentences, even if they suck. The first draft is doesn't matter at all.
Hope that helps.
