7 Tips to Start Writing Your Manuscript
If you want a jumpstart to writing your book, you've come to the right place!
We're excited to help you begin your journey to becoming a published author. Here are seven steps to take to get started with your manuscript:
1. Choose a Genre
Your first step in writing a book is choosing your genre. This decision will help you target your reading audience and help you focus on exactly what you want to write.
Take time to consider your personal reading interests and preferences because that will help you narrow down the best genre choice for your book. Once you have picked your genre, you can brainstorm ideas for your book and move into outlining the structure of your story.
2. Develop Your Idea
Think about what makes your idea interesting and unique. Sure, plot formulas exist, but no one can write your book besides you.
If you’re writing non-fiction, think back to some of the poignant moments in your life when you learned something or stories you want family and friends to know about you that you may not have shared before. Did you face any challenges? Were you able to overcome them? Focus on what you want future readers to learn about you or from you.
If you’re writing fiction, what are your characters like? What kind of setting does your story take place in? What is the main conflict or challenge that your characters will face?
By answering these questions, you can start to build a richer and more detailed story. The more thought and effort you put into developing your idea, the stronger your story will be in the end.
3. Create a One-Sentence Pitch For Your Book
A good book pitch should be concise and informative. It should be able to convey what your book is about and grab someone so they want to know more. Try to keep it brief, but make sure to include some key elements, including the main character (or characters), your plot, and the setting. Have a fresh perspective or an unexpected twist? Be sure to work those into your one-sentence book pitch, too.
4. Do Research for Your Book
Research is a crucial step in writing your book, especially for non-fiction, historical fiction, and mysteries. Use your research to gather a wealth of information that will help you add accuracy, detail, and depth to your book. We recommend using sources like books, articles from trusted online sources, interviews, and more.
Be sure you use sources that are reliable and accurate; we don’t recommend pulling information from Wikipedia. That’s because Wikipedia pages can be edited by anyone and could be inaccurate.
Take detailed notes and keep track of your sources for citations within your own book if they will be needed. Write down or take photos of all copyright, author, and publishing information for books, keep detailed notes from interviews, and save all your links to online articles you used. This will make it easier for you to organize your materials.
5. Write Your First Three Chapters
The first three chapters of any book is when the author is working to hook readers. So, they are very important chapters in your book. It’s your chance to pull readers into your story.
Your first chapters serve several purposes, including introducing your protagonist (main character) and creating reader empathy for your character. It’s also the time to establish your book’s setting, including the time period and the tone.
Be sure to strike a balance between character development and plot progression. You’ll need to introduce your characters and their motivations, while also moving the story forward.
6. Write Strong Dialogue
Dialogue brings your characters to life on the page. Make sure that your characters’ dialogue sounds natural and realistic. If you feel like your dialogue is too stuffy and formal, try sitting in a coffee shop, museum, or other public place for an hour or so.
Listen to conversations around you and take notes of what you hear people say. Then, when you sit back down to write or revise your dialogue, use those snippets of conversations to help you write conversations between your characters.
Also be sure to use dialogue tags, which are short phrases used to indicate who is speaking. Dialogue tags look like: "he said," "she argued," or "they shouted." By using tags, you can make it clear who is speaking.
You’ll want to avoid long paragraphs of dialogue. Break up your dialogue with description, other characters' reactions, or even action.
7. Know When to Start a New Chapter
Knowing when to start a new chapter doesn’t have to be a guessing game. Often a change in time, place, or point of view is a good time to start a new chapter. If a chapter gets too long, it can overwhelm your readers, so it’s also a good idea to split a chapter if it gets too lengthy.
If you need to create a sense of urgency, excitement, or suspense, shorter chapters that end on cliffhangers will be an effective tool. The opposite is true if you want to slow the pace of your story.
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