How to plan your novel | Creative writing course

1. Introduction: Hello, Hello everyone and welcome to this class. Here we're going to talk about how to plan your novel. Do you have a story idea but doesn't know how to develop it? This is the right class for you. Here you'll learn how to take the spark of an idea to write your novel and transform it into a full length story idea. Writing a novel, it's not easy and can be very stressful. The planning process is really important to get off on the right foot. This course is designed for complete beginners. So don't worry if you have never written as complete novel before, that's totally fine. That's why you're here. And we're going to do this together. First, we're going to talk about the things that you can actually plan before the writing itself. We are going to discuss how you can plan your characters. And I'm going to bring a lot of questions you might want to think about before start to write. Planning your characters is a really important step to make him feel real for the reader and relatable. Then we're going to talk about this setting, how to convey the right atmosphere depending on the genre you're writing. And then to finish, we're going to discuss the plot. A few things you might want to consider before you start writing. Okay, That's it. Grab your coffee and your notebook, and let's go. 2. Types of writers: There really is no one size fits all to plotting and planning and getting ready to write your novel. There will be as many ways to do this as there are alters. This process is really unique to each one of us and to each book that we're writing. And that's the exciting part of being a writer. The freedom that you have to be creative to write and find your voice and express yourself. But it's also one of the most difficult parts. Because you don't have a guidebook telling you how to be the very best altered that you can be. So all we can do is share the knowledge we have and try what works for us. That's the idea here. First, we're going to talk about the different types of writers and different types of processes. Then we're going to talk about the things that you can play. There are lots of different types of writer planners. You have gliders. Planners are people who want to figure out the plot ahead of time. So they tend to outline your novel, they tend to notice tractor. They figured it out, characters and setting in all this stuff. They will figure these things out before they start writing. So for a plotter, prewriting is often more work than the writing itself. Some plotters have every tiny detail planned before they start writing. So you've got that type of bladder, but you also have plotters that really just figured out the major basic plot points, a few things about their characters. And then they move forward. Then there are painter's. Painter is someone who prefers to write by the seat of their pants without any planning or thinking about things before starting the writing process. There are also people who don't fit into the exact definition of tensor or plotter. That's normal. Some people are e.g. what we call a planter, which is somewhere in between water and a pencil. Where you have a basic idea of structure and you start writing, then at some point, you just start dancing. You're way out. One thing that you really need to understand as we start talking about how to plan your novel, is that there is no right or wrong way. You don't have to have everything figured out. You don't have to be ashamed of being somebody who doesn't know anything when you get started is truly okay to just follow your own process. That's the important thing. Now, if you have written novels before, what I encourage you to do is leaning the things that have worked for you before. So think about how this process went, what worked, what didn't work, what you want to change. And this will help you to figure it out how to plan your next book. Think about when you were successful in your writing. What did you do? How you can recreate those things and think about the problems you had. How you can solve those problems and improve your process of writing this time. If you've never written a novel before and this is your first attempt, it's okay. You might not know what your writing process looks like yet, but you can look for clues in your life, like e.g. how you, how you organize your day-to-day life and think about what type of writer you might be. Okay, but you figured it out on your way. 3. Things to consider before start writing: Now let's talk about the things you might want to plan. The first thing is character. You can plan what your characters look like. What's their past, what their character arc will be like during this tori, you can plan their personality. Some people like to use the MBTI personality test to write different characters. So you can get into it as much as you like. But you can also have just a couple of lines about each character if that's what works best for you. These can look like e.g. he has green eyes and he's a real jerk. Or you can go deep into his backstory and know why he's a jerk and all those things. But it's a good thing to know what people you're writing about and how they act. So you can write different scenes. Another thing that you can plan is setting. So think about where your novel, it's going to be set. Is it going to be set entirely in just one place, or are the characters moving? Think about this because this setting, it's important to give the vibe of your book. You might want to think about the setup and the basic layout of the space because your characters are going to be moving around in it. So it might be something that you want to decide ahead of time. Then we have the plot. The plot is really what is going to happen in your story. The outline of what's going to happen in your story. So this is a lot of where you should focus your time when it comes to planning and prepping to write your novel. There are so many different ways and methods that you can use to plug your novel. There's the traditional three-act structure. There's this, save it the cat writes about, well, there's the Snowflake Method, the plot, a group. And none of them are alike, right and wrong. It's what works for you. Again. We will have a look at each one of them in the next class. You can also research or the methods and see what works best for you. 4. Crafting characters: In this class we're going to talk about how to plan your characters in terms of who they are, what they've been through, what their character arc will be like. That's what we're going to be diving into today. But before we start, I'd like to remember that everyone's process is different in individual. So if you prefer to discover your characters on the page and let them speak to you in dialogue as it flows. That is totally fine. There are no right or wrong. There is just the path that works for you. So it's really a journey to discover your own process that is going to help you write faster and write better. Here, I'm going to talk about some of the things that I've learned that have worked for me in the past. And I've heard other writers talking about and talk about some of the resources you can use to write better characters. So there are two tools that might help you a lot in the process of planning your characters. The first one, our character profiles, and this second one, our character arcs. We're going to talk about them. A character profile is really all those details about your characters. Like you're creating a affidavit of them so you got physical appearance with job or they leave. What type of relationship they have, all those details on paper. They are this age, they are these Hide. You can get really detailed with your character profiles. Like what's their favorite song, where they have grown up. Like you could do a full interview with your characters, favorite themes and stuff like that. And some people find that extremely helpful. But also you could do just some basic and figuring out just your character's personality. And the other one is character arc. Your character arc is really more of the internal journey to which transformation your character is going to go through in this series are in this book and a character arc. It's something that you could have prepared before study, writing. Or you could discover along the way as you write it, that it's totally fine. Again, this is also about how much you as a writer need to know before you start writing. There is no right or wrong, or you should, you should do this and this and this. You just have to figure it out what works best for you. So would it be better to know a lot about your character life or just to figure it out as you write it. The screenwriter and teacher, Michael heck says in his book, writing screenplays, the cell, that character profile really come down to four things. So you have physical characteristics, then you have their personality than their role and their background. If people don't relate or like or enjoy reading your characters, or if they don't have any reason to care about your character, your book, it's probably just going to fall flat. So this is really important. So e.g. pay attention to the characters you have loves in the past and really analyze why you've loved the character, what made them resonate with you so much that it's going to elevate your writing so much. Back to the character profile. A character profile can be just the physical appearance of your character. So we're talking, what color eyes, what color scheme or color hair. How much do you weigh? What is their style and any other physical attributes? Then we could also give some personality things. So are they, are real confident person? Are they somebody who is really gentle and always kind? What's their personality? What are they bringing to the table, and how do they act in their relationships? Then you could also figured out what kind of job do they have if they are younger and going to school or day of bed student, a good student, are they responsible to? They have many responsibilities at home. Where they have like an absent parent, you should describe what role do they play in their current world right now. You also have this idea of backgrounds. So what have they been through? If we turn to some of our favorite fiction, we know a lot about the characters and we understand that background. E.g. Harry Potter, we know he lost his parents at a young age. And that's what's going to make readers care about your character, their story, what they have been through. So thinking about your characters before you start writing is a really time well spent. 5. How to create a character profile in 5 steps: Regardless degenerate, your characters must behave like real people in real life situations. So they should make mistakes, they should have regrets and grow emotionally or spiritually throughout the story. As a painter, you might want to follow Stephen King's practice of creating interesting characters in difficult situations and writing to find out what happens. But if you are a new rider or you think you are applauded, rather than a pencil, you might want to create a character profile before you begin writing your novel. If that's you, lend me talk you through the various elements of a character profile and what questions you should answer. Okay, Let's start with the basics. What is a character profile? A character profile is an in-depth life story of a fictional character. So you can have a character profile for your protagonist, your antagonist in each of the more important orbital characters in your story. Character profiles can help you write faster because you're not working from scratch. Maintain continuity. Add Plot, Twist, add character depth, build stronger relationships between characters. And the more detailed the profile is, the richer your character motivations are bound to be. Some riders delve deep enough to actually turn each profile into its own short story. Some add the character's favorite cold hobby, Kirk's favorite food, fears and childhood memories. So you have to think about some of those things and decide which ones you think work best for your writing process. But be careful with this because you don't need to dump every detail into your story. A profile is simply information designed to inform you about your characters. It helps you to get to know them well enough to be able to reveal to the readers What's most important for the, for the sake of the story. Remember to allow readers to deduce some things for themselves, give them a role in the reading experience. Avoid spoon feeding every tiny detail about your character's life. Now let's see how to create a character profile in five steps. Let's begin Step one, decide the characters row. So begin by deciding which role your character role play. So will he be the protagonist, the antagonist, the side cake, orbital, love, interests, confident. Okay. Then you can also establish physical characteristics. So high way body type, fitness level, hair color, hairstyle, eye color. Does he have glasses, allergies, overall, appearance, limitations. Decide on things like age, current, hometown, occupation, income skills, talents, hobbies, goals, habits, best qualities, worst qualities. Favorite book, favorite movie, favorite possession, greatest passion, favorite foods, best friend, worst enemy. Again, you can get as much detail as you need. Step three, layer in emotional characteristics. It's easy to conjure the appearance of a character, but what your character thinks and feels, it's what really drives him. So what compromises his emotional makeup? So you could think about personality. Attitude is here, introvert or an extrovert spiritual world view. Here you can also use tools like the MBTI personality test or the diagram. Any of those personality tests you might want to use with your characters to decide on their personality traits. Step four, create a best who we are. It's shaped by our family's background and experiences. So get to know your character story and you will likely learn what motivated them to get out of bed every morning. So think about birthday, birth place, and family members, childhood education, first jobs. And step five, How is this character involved in the story? Dig deeper, finished with these questions. What does he want? What are his needs or desires? What or who stands in his way? What we would do? What fundamental changes do you see coming in him? What heroic qualities need to emerge from him to succeed? Remember, your character is going to change throughout the story. So he has a problem internal and external, or just one. But he needs to have an internal struggle. And throughout the story he's going to learn something that will help him solve his problem. So what is your character going to learn? Those are the basic things you might want to think about when creating a character. You might base your first character on one of your best friends, or a curtain or relative, or an adult you remember from childhood. Maybe I make sense of all of them, regardless who you pattern him after, develop a character who feels real. And he could become forget. 6. How to create the setting of your novel: Now let's talk about this setting. And before we start, let's remember that this setting of a story can be just as memorable as a place you've actually visit. But how to authors choose the right settings for their stories and how do they bring them to life? That's what we're going to see now. First things first, what is the setting of the story? The setting of her story is a Literary to that establishes where and when the plot takes place. So story's setting can be drawn from imagination or based on historical events, as well as geographical locations in the real world, the setting will be like the background of everything that happens in a story, and it often contributes to the atmosphere of the book. So this is why Romans novels are typically set in small cozy town. If you can think about this setting in three major layers. The first one would be the temporal setting. So this one is about the era in which the story takes place. So e.g. this century, last century. Then we have the second one, which is environmental setting. This one is about the geographical area. And the third one would be the individual settings. So specific place within an area where the story is set. You can combine real time, real place, and invented or at least embellished individual settings to ground the story in authenticity while maintaining flexibility on details. Okay, but how do we write setting in the book? The first thing is to choose your setting wisely. So before you start writing your story, makes sure the setting fits like a glove. For some authors, this will be easy, but for others, especially if you're doing some world-building for a sci-fi or fantasy novel, choosing the study may be a bit trickier. Here are a few important questions to consider when thinking about the setting of your novel. Exactly where and when will your story take place? Take this time to nail down the details. If it is contemporary, does that mean present-day or ten years ago? If it is in a certain if it is in a certain country, which city and town? If you have multiple settings, how long will the character is spent in each one is deciding a real place? And if so, how much research will it require to convey in good faith? If it is merely based on a real place, how much overlap will there be? How will the setting of the story factor into the characters, lives? Will the setting help them or prevent them from achieving their goals? If neither than by Tuesday, Saturday at all. Once you've answered these questions, you can settle on your setting and begin writing it in more detail. Number two is to focus on what's unique. Not every element of your setting will be worth noting. So focused on what's unique. Every city has buildings and sidewalks, but how are they different from every other cities? If someone links their head out the window, what do they hear besides traffic and birds? Does the town square smell like bread from the local bakery or like pollution from a nearby factory. If it helps, you can think about your story setting almost as another character. So just as you might fill out a character profile, you can profile your setting to. Here are some Setting Profile questions to get you started. What is the weather like each season? What are the biggest landmarks of this setting? In what sort of residences the most people live? How do people tend to get around walking, driving another way? Why do people like or dislike leaving or visiting this area? And the most important question, how does this affect my characters? This is where you tap into the most interesting features of your setting by considering how your characters will perceive and react to what's around them. Tip number three is, use all five senses in descriptions. As you describe each setting of your story, makes sure you don't just talk about how it looks. Instead, use all five senses, sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste if you can. This is especially important when writing a first-person account, but also applies to other POB. You shouldn't use all of these in every description, nor should you always rehash settings you've already described. But as a rule of thumb, each time your characters visit a new location or experienced that location in a new context, you should devote a paragraph to setting the scene. Remember, the more you show rather than tell with science-based setting descriptions, the more you will immerse readers in your story. Just don't go overboard with pages and pages of detail and you should be fine. Tip number four, develop your character's relationships to the sighting. Once you establish the characters in your story, you can dig into their relationships with this setting. These relationships can take many forms. Say your main character has lived in the same town their entire life. They might have a long-time fondness for it, or they could be resentful and feel trapped by the setting. Characteristic should interact with the setting in a specific and realistic waste for greater impact, use setting to challenge them. A system or both. One of the quickest ways to confuse readers is to give them too much setting detail. So tip number five is keep your readers oriented. You don't want people to get distracted from your plot because they are too busy trying to understand where the action is happening. When introducing a setting, keep the descriptions concise. If you have more to say about the setting, you can incorporate it it later. And bonus tip is considered drawing a map, whether you're building an elaborated world from scratch or simply wants to be as accurate as possible when representing a real place. A map of your setting could help. This will give you a more concrete sense of your setting while you're writing. There you go, the basics and some things you might want to think about before starting to write your novel. When it comes to the setting of your story. 7. Things to consider when it comes to plot: Now let's talk about plot and how you can be better prepared to plot your novel. The first thing to understand is that plotting is a motif step process. There are a few different approaches when it comes to plotting your novel. Whether you're new to fiction writing or you've written novels before. Here's a step-by-step guide that will help you when it comes to plotting your novel. They will become an effective blood. Once you have your basic idea for your story, the second step is to develop a story premise. One way to do this is using the Snowflake Method. There's no flake method involves starting with a core premise or anything and build every other aspect of narrative and character as you flesh out the big picture. E.g. you write your premise in one sentence and then you need to expand that sentence into a full paragraph. It's a really good method if you have an idea of what your story should look like, but you don't know much of the details. And you can research more about the Snowflake Method. And I'm sure you're going to find great content on this. Back to the blood. The third step is to have a clear central conflict. Creating a clear central conflict will anchor your plot and give you a narrative focus. Harry Potter is a great example of a story with a clear central conflict. Jk Rowling wrote seven books all centered around a central conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist. If this is their first novel, it's a great idea to analyze other stories where there's a clear good guys versus bad guy conflict. Next step is to choose your structure. There are many ways in which you can base your blood structure. The most common is the three-act story structure. And learning the basics to this can help you start to piece together your plot and structure, your narrative. But you can also research different types of blood structure and use the one that works best for you. This can take time and you might not have everything figured it out just yet. That's totally fine. Just take the ideas you have seen, ideas, character ideas, keep them safe and continue to work on them. That's the moment to play with your creativity. Think about things you love seeming, books, movies, and write about that. You can mix ideas and that's the fun in writing. Once you have your main plot ready, it's time to start to think about building subplots. Subplots can often be character specific. So this is a good time to think about the secondary characters and how each individual backstory might come into play. The golden rule, two subplots is to remember that they should advance your action rather than distract from it. So remember that when crafting subplots. Also when thinking about your blood, remember, cause an effect. Good stories involve a logical series of events. The progress one into the next. Makes sure that your sins are each motivated by something that happened before. A good driving narrative, Sheffield dynamic. Your story arc needs to have a sequence of events. There should be a logical progression where one scene triggers the next and pushes the action forward. The next step is to have a detailed outline. If you are a plotter, you might want to dive deep into this. If you are a tensor, not so much, but again, you need to see what works best for you. If you decide to outline, one idea is to catalog the main story and individual plot points. It should be comprehensive enough that someone who has no knowledge of your story could look at the outline and piece together the narrative of events. Identify your inciting, incident, rising action, and climax. Once you have a detailed outline, is time to tie up loose ends and feel any plot holes. So you should go back to what you wrote, what your outline, and see if there's something missing. If it should be another scene between some plot points. And remember, the outline doesn't need to be perfect. You're just writing this to help you too. Don't get lost as you write. And this should help you not stress you. So yes, keep that in mind. And you also don't need to be extremely strict with the outline if you're writing and decide to change something, that's totally fine. Just keep track of the changes you're making so the editing process will be easier. These are a few important points you might want to think about before start writing. I hope this helped you and thank you for watching.