By following the five easy steps from the previous article, you should now have an idea to start writing with. But, now what? How do you begin writing it? Everyone has a different way in which they write, so you don’t have to do the following steps in order. However, it’s essential they are included for your story to be whole.
- Main Character
- Point of View
- Plots and Subplots
To begin the story, you’ll need to establish who your main character is. With a quick internet search, you can find hundreds of different templates so you won’t forget any minor details.
Point of View
This is the viewpoint from which you tell the story. You have options between First Person, Second Person, Third Person Limited, and Third Person Omniscient.
The tone of your story can be serious, humorous, satirical, passionate, sensitive, zealous, indifferent, caring, caustic, etc. It depends on the material you have decided to work on.
Style is the choice of words and the use of language, sentence construction, imagery, etc. This is the dialogue between characters, figurative language, personification, similes, hyperboles, puns, etc.
This is the main idea that weaves the story. There are different levels to this from explicit, implicit, multiple, and secondary.
The setting is the world-building portion of writing. Here is a search for templates. It’s a good idea to take a look at multiple versions to find one you’d like to use or create your own. You’ll be less likely to forget to add details by going this route.
Plots and Subplots
Plots are the order of events that happen within the story. This can be done in chronological and with flashbacks. The normal pattern of action is as follows: rising action, steady action, suspense, cliffhanger, foreshadowing, climax, coincidence, falling action, and resolution. There are progressive and episodical plots, depending on the length or type of story you’ll be working on.
As said in the previous article, don’t spend too much time dwelling on all of these details and don’t get carried away with the world-building at the beginning. You’ll end up creating too much information to be included within the book and, unless part of a series, it would be a waste of time. There are planners and pantzers in the writing world. Some authors prefer to have an entire outline before starting out while pantzers start with an idea and build the rest as they write. I fall more into the pantzer category on most projects.