Writing creative writing, story writing and other writings by Rob Hopcott

Mortehoe, Devon - a place to inspire stories of smuggling and ship wrecks.

Writing novels is great fun and it is said that everybody has a novel inside them which of course is the story of their life but writing a novel others will want to read is a completely different order of difficulty.

However, not all novels need to be written for publication and there is often much personal pleasure and satisfaction to be gained merely through completing the writing process.

Whatever your motive for novel writing, my advice is to get started and then keep going at all costs until you have finished.

Blast through it in as few sittings as you can. If you get into difficulties, dance around them and carry on. Most projects hit headaches half way through and novels are no different. Sometimes the only way forward is to grit your teeth, stick your head down and keep pushing.

With this philosophy, one day you will be able to write ‘The End’, sit back and congratulate yourself on having written a novel.

Writing novels is like giving birth to a child. Once born, it is always there. Great or not, your novel assumes a life of its own. The characters exist where they didn’t exist before. The locations where the characters lived and the action took place have substance. The novel has a form and character of its own. It is unique and it is all yours.

If writing the novel was a form of cathartic self expression that you needed to complete to express strong feelings of pain, happiness or to think through a distressing episode of your life, just writing the novel may be enough. In this case, your novel has already served its purpose.

If, having written the novel, you decide you would  like others to read it, then you will need to edit your work and ensure that it hooks the reader, draws them in to the story and keeps their interest right the way through to the last page. Your novel may need many changes or it may need only a few and there is much advice online that will help you assess your next steps. Online writing forums like www.mywriterscircle.com can be particularly helpful.

One day, when you will have sculpted and moulded your novel into its final form, it will be ready to be read by others. Like children that have become teenagers, one day your novel must move away from your protective care and take on a life of its own and the parting may be hard.

Finding a conventional publisher, unless you are already famous, is always going to be very difficult. You may decide to publish your work as an online novel which has the advantage that you can assess its readability more objectively from the reactions of its readers. I have written and published several online novels and novellas. It is always good to know my work is being read every day.

However, when you have finally delivered your novel to your readers by whatever means you choose, there is one big advantage … You are now completely justified in starting to write another.

Good luck!

Bye for now

Rob

Rob Hopcott - online author