To start to write a novel, the first step is to choose a right subject and decide what to write about. Choosing a subject for a novel is different from picking up a card from the pile on the table.
Oftentimes, this is an utterly creative process. If the author, without having any mature ideas, simply decides to write a web fiction from scratch, we suggest that a beginner author may start thinking from the following aspects.
1. Start with the genre
Firstly, an author needs to decide what type of fiction he/she is interested in, including genres, categories, backgrounds, and so on. He/she will then go on to consider other settings.
This is a relatively passive and mechanical approach. While the advantage is that you can come up with more ideas based on the framework and characteristics of the genre that you have determined. Beginners will find it a simple way that helps them avoid making big mistakes.
2. Read an existing work and learn from it
An existing work has so much for beginners to learn, ranging from subject ideas to characterization and rhetoric devices.
At the beginner stage, it does not matter whether the work itself is good or bad, or even whether it could be published, what’s more important is to develop the ability to write.
However, authors who have surpassed the beginner level must be careful about the extent of reference. For one thing, they must refrain from plagiarism; for another, they have to avoid being too similar to the referenced work.
3. Outline the story’s protagonists
For beginners to start writing, it is necessary to label their protagonists with characteristics that make them more lively. This will help fresh hand authors to create trustful characters and to push the stories into further developments.
For example, you may want to shape a protagonist who is particularly afraid of death. Creating this feature of the protagonist allows the author to go on to write about what he would do when his fear of death is triggered under different settings, and how it affects other characters of the story.
4. Start with some new ideas
This approach is more challenging than outlining protagonists, and it poses a high requirement on the creativity of the author.
With this approach, the author may seek inspiration and creative ideas from other literary works, films and TV dramas, social news, and life experiences, to name just a few, for the subject of his own work.
5. Conduct a market research
This is also a sophisticated approach which is not recommended for beginners. Only experienced authors who are able to analyze the market can tailor-make a work catering to readers and meeting a specific need in a given market.
After the above five steps, we hope authors now to have a basic idea about where the inspirations are for online novels.
However, how should an author know if the idea he/she just generated is the right one for him/her and whether there are readers out there that would be interested in this idea? We will discuss this in the next sessions.
