Tag: writing

Writing a book is an art form, and that means that there’s not one right way to do it—it’s going to look different for everyone, and as long as someone’s method works for them, it’s fine.

That said, if you’re a new writer looking for advice, this can make a project as big as a novel feel daunting. How do you even start to tackle a project that might be a few hundred thousand words long before it’s over?

If you’re a painter, you need to learn about different methods and techniques and try each to see which resonates with you—you learn how people have been doing it, because that gives you a foundation of information to work with. With that foundation, you’ll eventually gain the experience necessary to use what works for you and leave the rest.

It’s the same with writing. While you’ll eventually reach a point where you’ve got a book writing process which works for you, you may need to try a few different methods before striking gold. In this article, I’ve got five methods for you to add to your toolkit—feel free to mess with them as you need to so they’re effective for your project’s needs.

For each process, I’m going to talk about how it works, who it might be helpful for, and what sorts of tweaks you could make to give you an idea of how to customize these processes. But before we get into that, I want to talk about brainstorming and outlining.

Brainstorming and Outlining

Before you start actually writing your book, you’re going to want some idea of what the book is about. You’ll probably need to know: 

– who the characters are

– where the characters are

– what the characters want (at least in the beginning)

& what the book is About (what big themes or ideas you intend to explore).

Some writers have this more or less all in their head before they sit down to write, but I recommend jotting it down. Here are a few ways you might brainstorm before you start getting into the meat of your novel:

1. Mind Map

Write a word in the center of a piece of paper related to your novel—it might be a character’s name, the setting, an idea, a theme, whatever. Draw two lines away from that word and write the first related thing that comes to mind, and do this until the page is full of characters, plot points, settings, phrases, and so on which correspond to your novel.

2. Stream of Consciousness

Set a timer for two, five, or ten minutes (whatever works for you) and write down literally whatever comes to mind. If you’re writing ‘I don’t know what to write and I think this brainstorming idea is terrible,’ that’s cool. Keep going until you’ve got enough to work with.

How do you know you’ve got enough to work with?

There’s not a hard rule, but basically, you’ve got enough to work with when you feel that the brainstorming process is done. You feel ready to start writing. You may need to revisit the brainstorming process while you’re writing to work out plot holes or sticky spots, and that’s fine! This is just to help you get started with a solid foundation.

And once you’ve got that foundation, you’re ready to write your book, and that’s where these five processes come in.

The Snowflake Method

Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method is built on the idea that “good fiction doesn’t just happen, it’s designed.”  The Snowflake Method forces you to start small and expand outwards until you’ve got a fully fledged novel. This process is outlined in detail on Ingermanson’s website, but we’ll go over a brief summary here.

Steps 1-7: Synopses and Character Description

You start with an elevator pitch for your novel. If you’re not sure how to write one, look up one-sentence novel descriptions to get a feel for how they should look—they’re basically a summary intended to sell the listener on the story.

Steps 8-9: Outlining

Here, Ingermanson instructs to use a spreadsheet to outline your novel. You’ll use one line for each scene. Then, you take this information and write out a narrative description—basically, you’re converting the spreadsheet to a word document and writing out how the book plays out. He says this step is optional.

If you’re using software like Scrivener, there might be a feature built-in for you to list your scenes. Otherwise, Google Sheets is free.

Step 10: Drafting

Draft the novel! You might need to take breaks to edit the design documents you’ve been creating as things change, and that’s okay. Ingermanson explains that these design documents will have to be edited if you’re doing well—as your ideas develop and change, you’ll have to reflect those changes in the pitch, character synopses, and plot summary.

The Snowflake Method is great because it offers structure for the process without enforcing structure on your book itself. You can use this process with whichever plot structure you like, and at the end of it, you’ve got the documentation you’ll need to sell this book to publishers or market this book on your own as an indie author.

If you’re going to tweak this method, tweak the time frames—Ingermanson lists how long each step should take (which is hugely helpful for keeping creative momentum going), but if you need to take more or less time on a given step or if you need to take breaks between steps, no one’s stopping you.

Discovery Draft

A discovery draft is what a lot of writers might refer to as ‘pantsing.’ For this, you might or might not have much idea of what you’re going to write about—if you have anything written down, it’s probably just a premise or starting point: a character in an interesting setting, a specific fight, whatever.

The idea of a discovery draft is that you sit down and draft the novel as quickly as possible, figuring out details about characters, plot, and all that as you go. Some discovery drafters will edit as they go—I recommend that you don’t, but do make notes or keep a separate document going with the changes that come to mind as you work.

This allows for a lot of creative momentum, because you’re discovering the story as you go—it’s exciting. The downside is that because you might not know where you’re going, you may get stuck. If this happens, I recommend slapping down a note that says “GOT STUCK HERE” and jumping to the next scene. If you don’t know what the next scene is going to be, that’s also okay. You can pause and brainstorm to figure out what happens next, or just decide what would be the worst possible (and realistic) thing to happen to these characters at this time and go with that.

You’ll end up with a first draft that’s also an outline and also a character sheet. Once you’ve finished this draft, go through and identify character arcs and plot arcs and determine how to hone them. Almost none of your discovery draft is likely to end up in the finished product, but that’s true of any first draft.

Bullet Point Outline

A bullet point outline is a great option if you’re looking for something super flexible, and it’s the foundation for many other methods you’ll see. Basically, this is the spreadsheet step in the Snowflake Method.

On a piece of paper, in a word document, or on a spreadsheet—doesn’t matter—you’ll dedicate a line to each plot point.

If you want a super detailed outline, you might write each beat as its own line. If you do this, I recommend organizing your outline so that each chapter has its own heading, just to keep everything streamlined and easy to refer to. You can use highlighters or different-colored fonts to color-code based on character, subplot, or whatever you desire.

If you don’t want to get that detailed, you can write down the major plot points in your novel and forget the rest.

As long as you have enough information to feel comfortable drafting, you’re good to go. A detailed outline can help save time in the drafting process, but a loose outline might make you feel a little more free to change things up as you draft—if you get lost along the way, skip along to the next beat, and figure out how to close that gap when you revise.

Start at the End

Have you heard of Sagging Middle Syndrome? It describes the phenomenon wherein you breeze through the setup of your novel, then stall out in the middle—around the middle of act two, it becomes impossible to reach the climax. Characters hang out doing unrelated shenanigans until the climax comes to rescue them (and the reader).

This is a pretty natural thing to happen, especially in a first draft. If it’s a particularly tough struggle for you, try starting your novel at the end. Where do your characters end up? Who wins, and what happens as a result of that? Knowing how the story ends makes it easier to figure out how to get there.

Another variant on this method is starting with the climax. If you’re the type of author to get an idea for a really cool climax before you think of anything else, just write that climax down. Yes, it’ll probably change dramatically as you rework it—this is inevitable.

After you’ve written the end or the climax or whichever scene you’ve decided to start with, ask yourself the following questions:

– who are these characters?

– how did they get here?

– who ultimately wins in this confrontation?

You can keep working backward, or you can pause and switch to a bullet outline—whatever works for you.

Storyboard Method

If you’re a visual learner, this might be your ticket.

Storyboards are commonly used for visual mediums like comic books, T.V., or movies, but you can use them for novels, too. Use index cards to draw out the scenes you want to have happen in your novel and tape them to a piece of posterboard, the floor, the refrigerator, or your bedroom wall. Instead of drawing the scenes, you could also write them out using short sentences or descriptions.

Again, if you want to use color-coding or some other unique marker to pick out characters and subplots, go for it! If not, cool. This method is great because it allows you to literally see missing spots in your plot, and it allows you to literally pick up and move scenes and see what they’d look like in other parts of the story.

Some writing software like Scrivener has features which allow you to do this, so if you’re looking for a way to do this that saves some space, you might find that useful.

When you’ve got everything lined up the way you want it, take that information and put it into a word document. This will serve as a bare-bones first draft, which you can get straight into revising!

When you’re writing, you have different tools and components at your disposal—plot, structure, character, theme, etc. You manipulate these things to make your work the best it can be, and having a good understanding of how all of these components work means you can move them around with intention.

Characters are sort of like pawns. To know what to do with them, you need to know what they’re doing in your story—what purpose do they serve, and what are readers going to expect from them based on similar characters from other stories?

In this article, we’re going to talk about the different types of characters in a story that you’ll encounter across mediums (T.V., movies, books, etc.). Not only will this make it easier for you to analyze the media you encounter, but it’ll help you more intentionally and thoughtfully craft your own work.

Character Roles

Let’s first talk about characters by the role they play in your story. This is the function they serve in terms of the story, and these terms are used across genres and mediums (a protagonist is called a protagonist whether you’re talking about a children’s adventure book or a grisly war movie).

These roles often overlap—antagonists may start out as deuteragonists, for example, and in a series like Heroes of Olympus by Rick Riordan, characters who are protagonists in one installment may not get as much on-page time as they do in another. 

Protagonist

The protagonist is the main character of your story. They’re the ones driving the plot and undergoing the most change, usually. The story is about them, and the story’s main arc will be tied directly into their own internal character arc. A story told from multiple points of view may have multiple protagonists—if this is the case, each character should have similar weight.

Examples: Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, Miles in Looking for Alaska by John Green

Antagonist

The antagonist directly opposes the protagonist. We see this in superhero movies all the time: the antagonist wants to destroy the world while the protagonist wants to save it. They often need to be defeated by the protagonist in order for the plot to resolve. The antagonist’s chief job is to create problems for our main characters.

Examples: Sauron in Lord of the Rings, Logan Roy in Succession, Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

Deuteragonist

A deuteragonist is the character who is secondarily important to the protagonist. This is often the protagonist’s closest friend and companion. Because of their proximity to and influence over the protagonist, they play an enormous role in the plot, and they often undergo significant change themselves—conflict between the deuteragonist and the protagonist is a common subplot meant to steer the protagonist toward the inner change needed to succeed in the climax.

Examples: Dr. Watson in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sam Gamgee in Lord of the Rings

Tertiary Characters

Tertiary characters are the third most important characters in a story. These characters don’t often see a lot of character development, or at least not particularly complicated development—they mostly exist to flesh out the world and add texture and depth to the setting, as well as to deliver one or two pieces of information to the main cast. They might be townspeople, henchmen, or miscellaneous council members.

Example: Pintel and Ragetti from Pirates of the Caribbean: the Curse of the Black Pearl

To know how to name characters, click here.

Character Archetypes of the Hero’s Journey

An ‘archetype’ is sort of like the blueprint. An ‘archetypal mother,’ for example, would be the picture of a mother—not necessarily the perfect mother, but the perfect example of a mother. In The Hero’s Journey, Joseph Campbell outlines eight major character archetypes which pop up in fiction.

The Hero

The hero is usually the protagonist. This is the character who has to battle their internal struggles to overcome the antagonist and save the day in the end—the reader generally roots for them and wants them to win. They tend to be aligned with moral good.

Examples: Marvel’s Captain America, Percy Jackson from The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

The Mentor

This character exists to offer advice and guidance to the hero. They don’t usually have much of an arc unto themselves, instead serving as a plot device—they show up when the hero needs a key piece of wisdom to help them on their internal journey. This character tends to be older, but that’s not necessarily a rule.

Examples: Yoda from Star Wars, Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings

The Ally

The ally is the hero’s right hand man. This is usually the deuteragonist—this person wants to help the main character achieve their goals, and their interests are tightly aligned with the hero’s. If they become misaligned, this is the source of enormous conflict, as the ally and hero tend to depend on one another.

Example: Nick Carroway from The Great Gatsby

The Herald

The herald isn’t always a character—this can be a person, but it could also be an object, like a message. The herald’s purpose is to herald, or signal, an upcoming change for the hero. This typically happens at the start of the story—a character’s living their regular life until the herald calls them to adventure.

Examples: the letter from Hogwarts in Harry Potter, the summons from Fiona’s parents in Shrek 2

The Trickster

The Trickster is there for comic relief. Sometimes this is also the protagonist’s best friend (you see this a lot in buddy-cop movies), since having a sidekick who tags along to make wisecracks is an easy way to keep the mood light. They may also provide emotional support or serve some other function, but this character is the one you think of as ‘the funny one.’

Examples: Donkey from Shrek, Jaskier from The Witcher 

The Shapeshifter

While most of the main characters undergo change in some form or fashion, the shapeshifter’s change is different—they cross the line between ally and enemy. Someone who starts out as an ally and is later found out to always have been an enemy is an example—so is a redeemed villain who always had a heart of gold.

Examples: Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender, Rhea Jarrell in Succession

The Guardian

The guardian, also known as the threshold, is a character who stands between the hero and his destination. They warn the character about the danger ahead, either explicitly in the form of a verbal warning, or implicitly by their dangerous nature. The hero has to defeat, outsmart, or otherwise work around the guardian to proceed with the quest.

Examples: Cerberus from The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, The Minotaur from The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

The Shadow

The shadow character is the antagonist, or the antagonistic force. This is the threat which looms over the story and which ultimately must be defeated by the hero. They also represent an opposite world view from that of our protagonist—usually this looks like a morally good protagonist who represents evil.

Examples: Darth Vader from Star Wars, Gollum from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Character Tropes by Genre

Character archetypes, as you can see by the examples listed above, span over many genres and mediums. Within specific genres, though, these archetypes take the shape of character tropes.

Tropes are commonly used elements within a story—they’re building blocks to which a reader will instantly assign meaning based on their previous interactions with that trope.

To know how to create believable worlds for your character, click here.

Character Tropes in Sci/Fi Fantasy

The Wizard

The Wizard usually acts as a mentor figure. They tend to be older (sometimes centuries old or immortal), and they often have some supernatural abilities which give them transcendental knowledge which they can impart to the protagonist. They also tend to be loners and live in seclusion.

Example: Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings

The Chosen One

The Chosen One is a trope where the main character is literally destined for the plot. They’re the only person who can, for some plot-provided reason, save the day. The Chosen One will often grapple with this enormous responsibility, and their decision to take on that responsibility or abandon it will make up their inner arc.

Example: Harry Potter

The Reluctant Hero

The Reluctant Hero is one who doesn’t want to save the day. They want to go about their regular lives, but eventually, the plot demands that they take on the role of the hero.

Example: Shrek

The Dark Lord

The Dark Lord is a very powerful wizard, sorcerer, or magician-type character who also usually serves as the story’s antagonist. They tend to represent evil, and they tend to have an all-powerful aura about them—Dark Lords often have armies, henchmen, and so on which must also be reckoned with during the quest.

Example: Voldemort

Character Tropes in Romance

Secret Billionaire

The Secret Billionaire knows that they’re a billionaire, but their love interest and the story’s secondary characters don’t. This means that the love interest falls in love with them purely for their personality and not for their money, which is what the Secret Billionaire is used to, and which is why the Secret Billionaire will resist the exposure of their wealth so hard.

Girl-Next-Door

The girl-next-door is a little naive, friendly, and helpful. They’re not supermodel beautiful or insanely talented in any particular regard—their strengths come from their down-to-earth goodness, patience, and sensibility. These are common protagonists in romance novels, since they function as great self-inserts for readers.

Newbie

The newbie trope, also known as the virgin trope, is where we have a character (most often a young woman) who is completely new to the world of romance, sex, and dating in general. When handled poorly, we get characters like Anna from Fifty Shades, whose naivety feels almost supernatural in nature and who is frequently infantilized for the purpose of fetishization.

Character Tropes in Horror/Thriller

The Scholar

The scholar character is the one who does a ton of research—they might be a professor, lab assistant, or doctor—and provides the protagonist with this information at some key point in the story. In a supernatural horror, this information might be lore about the entity haunting the cast. In a realistic thriller, it might be a detective or police force sharing what they know with the protagonist.

The Amateur Sleuth

The amateur sleuth, commonly the protagonist, has no background in solving crime. They’re often an everyday person who becomes forced to investigate the mystery themselves when proper authorities aren’t an option, either because they refuse to take on the case or prove incompetent.

The Lonely Monster

The lonely monster is usually the antagonist. This character, as the name implies, lives alone, and if that loneliness is highlighted by the story, it might give them a sympathetic edge. This might be a ghost kicking around an old asylum, a monster hiding out in an abandoned warehouse—they still often need to be defeated by the heroes, but they might not feel great about it.