What's so bad about a teen writing a novel?
There's nothing wrong as such with a teenager writing a novel. I wrote one myself when I was 15. What's wrong, or at least annoying to those of us who have some clue what we're doing, is teenagers who think they're writing the next Harry Potter or Twilight or (God help us) Eragon. Most of what makes a good writer is practice with which language you're writing, and experience of what it is to be human. Very few teenagers have enough of either to be considered in any way good writers. If you want to write novels, then on average, you need to write about a million words of fiction for practice before you're capable of writing something that someone who doesn't already know you will pay to read. That novel I wrote when I was 15? Unreadable crap. So you'll have to forgive me if I assume that you're one of the (approximately) 9,999 out of 10,000 who aren't an exception to the rule that teens can't write anything worth paying for. And if you *are* that 1 in 10,000, you'll know that the other thing that makes a good writer is persistence in the face of rejection. You won't be deterred when miserable cynics like me tell you that you're almost certainly wasting your time writing. You won't care that most novels are never finished, and most that are finished are never published. You'll keep plugging away at it, gradually getting better at writing, until eventually someone says yes. And yes, there are successful authors who were first published before they were old enough to vote... but saying you want to be one of them is rather like saying you want to be an astronaut. Actually, more people have been into space than have been paid to write novels while they were still teenagers, which should give you some idea of the odds you're up against. EDIT: Every single frakking time a question like this comes up, someone mentions S E Hinton. She's sixty-one this year! Old enough to be your grandmother! And Mary Shelley? I hate to break this to you, but she's been dead for over a century and a half. Frankenstein was published nearly two hundred years ago. That just proves the point about how rare it is for a teenager to get a book published. Christopher Paolini is a perfect example of why most teenagers shouldn't be published. He was very good at the "persistence in the face of rejection" part, but not so great at the "practice with the language" and "experience of being human" parts.
Is it okay to use Google Docs for writing a novel?
It is okay to use whatever text editor / word-processor software you like.The key features of any writing tool are that:01. It does not get in the way of your writing.02. It allows you to organise your writing.03. It is easy to cut, copy, move and otherwise edit your writing.04. It is secure from theft / hacking05. It is backed up.06. You own the access to your writing.Of these, the last three are often overlooked. In the case of Google Docs, Google is a big enough corporation that you can trust your documents are secure and backed up. However, what if Google decided tomorrow not to support Google Docs any more because the corporate strategy had changed? What would happen to your potential best-selling novel then?As a general rule, you should never rely on the continued existence of a third party or specific third party strategies for anything which really, really matters to you. Make your own copies (download a copy) of anything you create in Google Docs so that, should the worst happen, you don’t lose all of your hard work.Google Docs can export word-processor files in a number of different popular file formats. If you don’t own your own copy of Microsoft Word, you can download the well-respected - and free! - Apache OpenOffice office suite. It is an open source replacement for the Microsoft Office suite and pretty much as powerful.
When writing a novel, is it okay to kill the main character at the end?
Yes.See, you must understand that this is based on individual preference so other people will disagree with me. In fact, even you might disagree with me.Now, let me just assume that the novel you are writing fulfills one of two conditions;It is the last novel in an entire series, where it will detail the end of the protagonist’s journey.It is a stand-alone novel that is not going to have a sequel. It will contain details of the entire journey of the main character.But what I hate most about a lot of the series that I do read is that the protagonist gets a happy ending by the end of the story.You might not agree with this but I find that to be rather boring, unless you’re planning on doing a sequel. See, when I read a novel, I want that novel to be a description of the protagonist’s life. When you leave the protagonist alive at the end of the novel, it brings up many questions about what they did afterwards, you know?I want to know their story, the mistakes they made, the decisions they made, their good times, their bad times, their changes in personality throughout their journey. I want to know what happens to them at the very end of their lives. As they die, how does their mindset change? How do they look at the life they have lived as they take their dying breath?The thing is, when I finish the novel, I want to remember the protagonist as an actual individual I knew about. In real life, we often find it difficult to connect to people and know them to that extent. Books make this a rather easy thing to do if it is done right.This is why I insist on the main character dying at the end. Yes, it is a sad ending in a way. It is painful. It hurts. But it is also a privilege to see how they lived and what they left behind.Usually, if an author can make the attachment between the reader and the protagonist so strong that the death of the protagonist becomes very emotional for the reader, it’s a sign that the author is brilliant.Though, there are series that I have liked that don’t have the main character dying at the very end. The Percy Jackson series and the Harry Potter series do come to mind. I still do have problems with them but I liked them, as a whole.
When writing a novel, is it okay to have a short chapter (only 4 pages long)?
Pages - Short and Sweet ChaptersPage count is not what makes a writer good, though that is how printers charge when creating the work. When you write, it’s all about composition and word count. The question should be answered with does the work flow, how much does it add to a story, and is it justified to be in the work.Over many different works I’ve structured my chapters based on what needed to be inside them. Like the book itself, your chapter needs to have a certain flow. It needs a definite start, middle, and end point. The start engages the reader, the middle keeps them interested, and the end makes them want to keep going. This is why most chapters end with cliff hangers or reveals.If your chapter does not have the mentioned sections above, you may need to look closer at the work. Why is it this short? Remember, four pages is about 1300 – 1600 words. These words could be considered appropriate and engaging to the reader without have a reveal at the end, for they are all part of the reveal. In some cases, a short chapter could bridge the gap between characters. Short chapters will also explain things about technology in Sci-Fi. Little interjection chapters can give history on a character in fiction. There are many reasons to write a short chapter.Like I said above, there has to be a need for the short chapter in order for it to make sense. If it is just words strung out on the page, then you need to rethink what you’ve written.
How to write a novel?
You might just be rushing when you write. Meaning, you simplify things so you can get to the good parts or so you can finish the story. It's okay to do this in your first draft. In your second draft, go back and add in all the details of the scenery, character actions, and emotions. Adding in details is fine as long as you don't go overboard. Readers rarely, if ever, like purple prose. It's better to state things in simple but descriptive sentences. If you want to write a book, add in subplots. The subplot shouldn't be a random adventure your character goes on. It can be a different adventure from the main conflict of the book, but it needs to move the story along. A subplot can do this by teaching the main character something that will help him or her later. This is a basic outline of a book(It was featured in one How to Write a Book book): Beginning- 1. Character 2. Setting 3. Problem Middle- 4. Protagonist tries to resolve the problem and fails. This makes the problem worse. 5. The protagonist gathers their resources and tries to resolve the problem again and fails. This makes the problem a matter of life and death. 6. The protagonist gathers whatever resources are left and tries to resolve the problem for a third time. They succeed for a happy ending or fail for a tragic ending. This is the climax of the story. End- 7. Validation Good luck with your story. :)
When writing a novel, do you go beginning to end or skip around? I've written the first 15,000 words of my first book and have stalled a bit.
Ah, the ‘mid novel crisis’, something most writers experience—wait until you get to the ‘last act crisis’ where you are thoroughly sick of the thing and already planning the next one!There is nothing wrong with skipping around, (though you will at some stage have to edit end-to-end, to achieve consistency) as long as you know where the story is going and whereabouts you are in the novel. And that, my friend, is the root cause of the ‘mid novel crisis’ (which, of course, doesn’t necessarily happen mid novel): either, you have no idea where the story is going, or it is not going where you thought it would—happens to us all.What you need to do, is take a serious look at your story structure and decide how the story evolves and where it ends.Your story should look something like this:(Diagram by Christiana Wodtke (The Shape of Story))If you don’t know anything about story structure you may need to do some research at this point.You probably already have some idea of the Crisis, Climax, & Final Conflict, but given you are only 15k words in, it would suggest you are labouring with the struggle and how that builds tension to the final crisis.Here are a few tips:Write down a story outline.What needs to be revealed between where you are now in the story and where you need to get to. ‘Reveals’ are the information/character changes, that need to be disclosed/discovered by the characters in each step of the journey. Each ‘Reveal’ scene/set of scenes/chapter, should be more intense/important/dramatic than the one before. By concentrating on the information ‘revealed’ at each stage of the story you can plan your way from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’.Sub/parallel plots, involving minor characters, can also be woven around the reveals of he main story to add interest.Hope this helps you out of the doldrums.Nick
Is it okay to mix first person and third person when writing a story?
Is it a big mistake? Not necessarily. But, having said that...Doing something like this requires skill. It's going to be jarring to the reader, so if you're going to make it work, there will have to be a clear and consistent use for it, and a structural reason that the story is written that way. If it's just a gimmick, or you can't decide how to write the story so you just mixed perspectives at random, the reader probably isn't going to want to come along for the ride.There are writers who've used all kinds of unorthodox structures to tell good, engaging stories. William Faulkner, Iain Banks, Italo Calvini, Joseph Heller, and David Mitchell spring to mind as examples. But tinkering with the expected narrative flow or structure of a book is a tricky business that takes care and consideration. It's not something to undertake lightly.If there isn't a compelling reason why your story has to be told that way, you might be better served to rewrite it from a consistent perspective.
When writing a book, is it okay to mention/make references to famous celebrities, movies, other writers, songs, copyrighted stuff and related things?
When you are writing a book, during the actual writing process itself, yes all of these are allowed.It is publishing the book that can triggering copyright infringement, libel, and other legal issues.This is why publishers have lawyers that go over the entire book and clear all of the content. This is a very important legal service that publishers offer, and something that self-publishers often fail to be aware of.In general, yes, you can actually use real names in passing. Names of movies, writers, songs, books, celebrities, etc. What you cannot do is use actual copyrighted material: an excerpt from a book, lyrics from a song, dialog from a movie. But names do not enjoy copyright protection. In fact, it would be silly if they did since you could refer to anything in writing if they did. Nominative use is when you just refer to something by name and that is totall allowed.But you cannot go beyond that and use someone’s character. Sure, you can say “His hair looked like Harry Potter’s hair.” (By that way, don’t. That’s horrible writing.) But you can’t actually have the character Harry Potter in your book. That would be copyright infringement.And you run into all sorts of potential for libel if you include real people doing things they did not do in real life. Sure, mentioning them is okay. But turning them into a character in your book is a touchy subject. Disclaimers can help, but are undercut by using a real name of a real celebrity that is obviously a representation of that person.And, if your book is non-fiction then you must have a lawyer go over the book to look for libelous statements. There really isn’t anyway to make that risk safe otherwise.But again, this is the publisher’s headache, not yours. Unless you center your book on a fictional representation of a celebrity, making it essentially nonpunishable, you really aren’t negatively impacting your chances of finding a publisher by having a song quote or referencing Google or having a character carry around an iPad.Meanwhile, be aware that there are books like this out there:Shatnerquake“After a reality bomb goes off at the first ever ShatnerCon, all of the characters ever played by William Shatner are suddenly sucked into our world. Their mission: hunt down and destroy the real William Shatner. Featuring: Captain Kirk, TJ Hooker, Denny Crane, Priceline Shatner, Cartoon Kirk, Rescue 9-1-1 Shatner, singer Shatner, and many more.”