This Year You Write Your Novel

the narrative voice The voice that tells the story is the first thing the reader encounters. It carries us from the first page to the last. We, the readers, must believe in this narrative voice or, at least, we must feel strongly for that voice and have a definite and consistent opinion about it.

The writer, however, must loosen the bonds that have held her back all these years. Sexual lust, hate for her own children, the desire to taste the blood of her enemy—all these things and many more must, at times, crowd the writer’s mind.

Without a first draft, there would be no novel, so this is without a doubt the most important accomplishment of the writer.

Sometimes you need an image, but the full-blown metaphor is too strong. That’s okay. We have a tool for the milder image making—the simile.

The third-person narrator is the voice in which we naturally tell stories about things that happened to people other than ourselves.

Other voices are possible. Novels have been written entirely in the first-person plural, told entirely by an unspecified we. Others address the reader as “you” throughout. But these are idiosyncratic and challenging approaches to storytelling.

The structured writer may break down the whole novel into brief numbered descriptions of each story, chapter, or section.

Details will devour your story unless you find the words that want saying.

A character is made up of many attributes: the way he talks; her age and education; his level of cleanliness; his bravery or cowardice; their love of life or sex or food.