New to book writing? Follow these 5 steps!

You made it! Welcome to the first step in your writer’s journey.

Before we begin: do you already have a story idea in mind or do you first need some help with that?

1. I have an idea already, so I’ll keep on reading.

2. I have no clue what to write about. Please help!

If you picked the second option: read my blog post about how to find an inspiring book idea! Once you have a good idea, return here.

I’ll ask you 5 questions that’ll get you reflecting about your story and in which direction you want to go:

1) What is the genre of your book?

There are two types of book genres: ‘commercial genres’ and ‘content genres’:

• Commercial genres: This genre dictates where your book will be categorised in a book store or library, or in other words: who do you write for? Examples are: children, young adult, new adult and adult fiction.

• Content genres: This is what your book is about. Do fictional races, such as elves, vampires, orcs, dwarfs, merfolk, etc. play a role in your book? Then you probably write Fantasy. Or is your story focused on the love two characters learn to share for each other? Then you are writing Romance. Other examples include Mystery, Thriller, Sci-Fi, …

When you combine these two types, you get the main genre of your book. For instance: Harry Potter is labelled as young adult fantasy, Sherlock Holmes falls under adult mystery and Pride and Prejudice is an example of adult romance.

2) What is the main theme of your book?

Essentially, it boils down to: Which main lesson do your want your readers to have learned after reading your novel? This is an important question, because it also forms the basis of the character development of your character. You can of course have more than one theme, if you so choose, but one of them will need to take the front seat.

3) Who is/are your protagonist(s)?

In the next step, you need to decide whether you want one protagonist or multiple. Ask yourself this: do you want to focus on one character, to let that person shine and go really in-depth into their internal conflict? Or do you want to split the focus to more characters?

Generally, the more protagonists you have in your story, the more complex it will be to write. And if you’re a novice writer I would suggest that you don’t make it unnecessary complicated for yourself. Less is often more!

4) What is the point-of-view (POV) of your story?

That leads us to the next question: the point-of-view (POV) of your story. Whose perspective of the story are we seeing? The number of POVs is heavily influenced by the number of protagonists you chose in the previous question. After all, wouldn’t we like to see what the other protagonist(s) is/are thinking? Each POV gives a unique and different view on the world and the plot, use this to your advantage to find the character voice(s). More about that later!

Now, you also have to decide whether to write in first person or third person. Stick to one of the two during your entire story (that includes sequels or prequels), or you’ll risk confusing your reader. And as Abbie Emmons, author of 100 Days of Sunlight, keeps repeating:

A confused reader always says no.

Last but definitely not least, you need to choose if your POV will be omniscient, meaning that the narrator and the reader know everything, but the characters don’t, or do you prefer the limited POV, where the protagonist and the reader learn about the story at the same time?

5) What are your protagonist(s)’s fear, misbelief and lesson they need to learn?

Depending on the number of protagonists you chose in question 3, you need to invent what the fear, misbelief and lesson are for (each of) your protagonist(s):

• Lesson: The lesson corresponds to the theme of your book. What has the protagonist learned at the end of the story? If you have multiple protagonists, the individual lesson can be different, but the overall theme should be the same. The theme can be: ‘love conquers all’. And the individual lessons may be: ‘I’m worthy of love’, ‘I’ll keep the love of my life if I continue to invest in our relationship’, ‘I can be myself around the people who love me for me’. An example from Netflix’s Bridgerton Season 2: Anthony Bridgerton, the viscount, needs to learn that he is allowed to find love and happiness while doing his duty for his family as viscount.

• Misbelief: The protagonist believes a misbelief about the world, other characters, themselves, … This misbelief is construed by taking the opposite of your book theme. In our example from Bridgerton, Anthony believes that it is his duty to marry and continue his family’s legacy, love has no place in his life.

• Fear: This is based on the misbelief your character has. If we take the example above again: Anthony is afraid to fall in love, because he couldn’t deal with losing his loved one. This fear has been created by watching his mother grieve the loss of his father. And the fear ties in nicely with his backstory, or what happened in your character’s life to create the fear and therefore also the misbelief?

Can you now see why knowing the theme of your book is so important? During your story, your protagonist will slowly start to realise their misbelief in the world and consider the lesson they need to learn, until they have adapted it as truth.

Let’s summarise

This was a lot to take in! Let’s do a quick recap. If you have a book idea in mind, ask yourself these questions:

1. What is the genre of your book?

2. What is the main theme of your book?

3. Who is/are your protagonist(s)?

4. What is the point-of-view (POV) of your story?

5. What is your protagonist(s) fear, misbelief and lesson they need to learn?

Have you found an answer to these questions? Good! No worries if you haven’t figured everything out now, that’s why you take the time to outline your book.

I'll write a blog post all about outlining soon!