writing help: OK, I want to write a novel. - Help.com

What style do you like to write in? This is usually the best place to start. Do you want a hero, or an anti-hero, one main character or a cast of them.

Start with a plan of who, what, when, where, why and how then go from there.

The best novels always portray life as an amazing thing and do so accurately at the same time.

Do you have samples of your work? It would be easier to think of ideas if I knew where you were coming from or else I can only give you ideas I would write myself.

I’d write about a mighty mage you has to save his pet donkey from a vicious monkey atop an isolated mountain covered in delicious but deadly chocolate fudge tainted in cyanide.

Not all my ideas are insane, just some of my favourites.

I see what you mean. A book needs a compelling story line so that you don’t have to read it but follow the words and let the story flow off the page. Relatable characters are useful. A firm grasp of the language you are writing in, such as vocabulary, grammar, structure.

When I read a book, if I am not interested by the end of the first page, I rarely look at the second.

Just write something you would read and I am sure that it will be a great work.

Start with the structure. Who is doing what and when. Personally, I start with a character, tell them where they are going and they tell me how they get there. I hope that makes sense.

Conflict. Your main character has to want something and you have to make it darn near impossible for them to get it.