How To Begin Writing A Book?
Writing a book is a very challenging prospect for even the most seasoned professionals. One of the most difficult parts about writing a book is how to begin. Getting started is the most challenging because writing a book has many steps. Knowing which steps to take and when can mean the difference between a successful book and yet another start and stop experience. What follows is a guide on how to begin writing a book so that you will be in place to actually finish it and keep your focus.
Long before you ever begin writing your book, there are exercises of the mind that you should go through. A book is much like a child in that way – planning goes a long way towards success. Before you put the pen to paper, you should first get a strong idea about what your book will be about. While certainly some of the most talented authors in the world can sit down and start writing without a plot line, the majority of people are not capable of this. Start your book writing adventure off right by thinking up a plausible story idea. A great story idea is the beginning of a great book.
Once you have a great story idea and plot line you should write them down. Putting the idea down on paper can quickly spur your imagination. Focus all of your attention on this story idea, and work on writing the information that will be on the inside flaps of the book. Pretend that your book is finished, and write down the storyline as you would hope for it to appear. This will help you not only in your proposals, but also in your focus.
The next step in writing your book is to create the settings that your book will be using. If you are writing a book where all the action happens in a real place, now would be a great time to familiarize yourself with that place. Find out about the history and people who live there, as well as various other things such as temperature, weather and so on. This will help you with the finer details in your book and it helps to know them going in. If you are creating a mythical setting, then it is even more important to work out some of these details ahead of time. Take some time to really visualize the setting so that you can write about it with confidence.
Finally, you will want to go ahead and write character sheets for all the people who will be in your book. While characters sometimes will be added on-the-fly, the core characters of the book should be fleshed out ahead of time. The more information you can have about your characters going in, the better. Work out all the details of their look and personality. Write out their major reasons for being in the story. All of this will serve to make your book tighter in the long run.
These are all the basics of getting started on a new book. While there are plenty of other things that you may wish to do before you begin your rough draft, the things listed here are the least. Certainly there are those brilliant authors out there that can make up a book on the fly. Unless you were one of them, you should do these things as a bare minimum.
