How to Write an Original Novel

While they are nowhere near as popular as they once were, novels have retained their artistic allure because there is still no other medium able to equal their comprehensive element. If you want to read one, that is totally commonplace (but still less commonplace than watching TV, or a movie, or even, youtube), but if you want to write one you better really want to do it, because it's really not very easy.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• Computer/Typewriter/Legal pads/Journal/(blank sheets to write on)
• Idea for a story
• Many, many hours

1. Brainstorm. Decide what your novel is going to be about. Young people, old people, middle-aged people? Is it philosophical, or is it a ghost story? Is it romantic, or is it filled with guns and bombs?
2. Start writing. Write about your main character. Who are the other people in the novel, who does the main character meet, who do they know. Do their parents matter? Do they have siblings? What kinds of job do they have? What's the point of telling the story? (There's a problem that needs to be solved.)
3. 100,000 words is a normal length for a novel. If you cannot do that many, do not fear, many shorter ones are published. In fact, shorter may be better, in our day and age.

Tips & Warnings

• You must have guts to do this. You must be comfortable with sitting alone in your room (or by yourself at a cafe), racking your brain for perfect ways to state things, and not be afraid to show it to other people.
• Novels, like life, often contain material better left to the censorship boards. Unfortunately, we must not shy away from such divisive subject matter. To deny darkness its due is to deny unhappiness, and to deny unhappiness is to deny a problem, and to deny a problem is to render a novel moot.