8 technical foundations that you must acquire before writing a novel

Maybe at some point in your life you have considered that you want to write a novel. Maybe you have some idea stored up for a long time, or you want to capture in writing certain interesting experiences that have happened to you in life, or you simply like reading novels and would like to be able to write them.

When we read a good novel, the reading becomes so light that we can make the mistake of thinking that it has been very easy for the writer to generate it, like those people who, when they see a painting by Picasso, say that their own could paint that. four-year-old son.

Furthermore, in the reading process, while we experience the events that are told to us through identification with the characters, we interpret all those events, creating our own version of what we are told, and even leaving ourselves with only a series of conclusions. abstract of what we have experienced while reading. So we can fall into a second mistake: thinking that, if we want to write a novel, there are a whole series of abstractions that we have to put on paper, without realizing that we would first have to carry out a process of deconstruction to understand that What the novelist has done is capture for us an entire congruent microcosm in which we dive to live.(or relive) the human experience in our flesh, and only from there can we draw a series of abstract conclusions, but these are in no case told by the writer, but rather are interpretations of the reader.

That is why I usually advise people who come to my accompaniment without having previously practiced creative ghostwriting services that, even if they have a novel approach, they first go through one or more short story courses, where it is easier to acquire technical knowledge. necessary so that writing a novel does not become agony or a fiasco.

Next, I am going to list some technical fundamentals that, although you do not have to have mastered one hundred percent, it is advisable that you be more or less familiar with them in order to be able to write a novel:

Novels are not written with abstract concepts, but through characters with defined characteristics who have conflicts and act on them, in certain places, stepping on tiles, earth or parquet, with the sun that…

1. Distinguish between the abstract and the concrete

The tendency we have when we start writing is to tell things in the abstract, in an explanatory way. If we want to express the love or joy of our character, we say: “he loved his wife” or “he was very happy.” But that is like saying nothing, because it does not take you (neither you nor the reader) to the experience, but rather remains a mere intellectual understanding.

Learning to write specifically, through specific characters and events, is the first thing we have to train if we want, one day, to write a novel. Because novels are not written with abstract concepts, but through characters with defined characteristics who have conflicts and act on them, in specific places, stepping on tiles, dirt or parquet, with the sun rising or setting, the coffee that tastes to sawdust, the broken clock and the neighbor’s music that is too loud. Everything in a novel is “things”, objects, bodies that move, speak, act and interact, and in this way they advance their conflicts until their resolution.

2. Management of narrative voice

Another fundamental issue, which you better have explored and exercised before starting to write a novel, is the narrative voice. It is something that the beginning writer often ignores, because the voice with which you speak in your daily life is something so inherent to you that it does not occur to you that when writing you even have to think about it.

But the truth is that it is one thing to speak and another to write, and the normal thing is that, when you start writing, a false voice comes out, perhaps borrowed from authors of the past, or from impersonal reports, or from the afternoon soap opera. The fact is that finding your own voice as a writer(the one that sounds natural without being vulgar) requires a path of exploration.

The good use of the narrative voice marks 80% of the effectiveness of a text, since the voice carries (in its tone, in its closeness, in its expressiveness…) a lot of emotional information without requiring extra words.

You must also keep in mind that a good use of the narrative voice marks 80% of the effectiveness of a text, since the voice carries (in its tone, in its closeness, in its expressiveness…) a lot of emotional information. without requiring extra words. That is to say, the voice has to do not so much with what is told, but with how it is told, and in how a story is told there are many implicit keys to being able to understand and experience it.

Blog article about it: The narrative voice that defines you: 10 tips to identify it.

3. Choose the narrator’s point of view wisely

The point of view we choose to tell a story totally determines how that story will reach the reader. It is not the same to tell it through a protagonist narrator in the first person than with an external narrator in the third person, or by a witness narrator, or an equiscient narrator…

Each story asks for its own point of view, so it is not a trivial choice, it must be made judiciously. If we get confused in our point of view, or we alternate points of view without realizing it, we may end up telling a very different story than the one we intended to tell, or it may end up completely unfocused and confusing.

If everything I’m telling you sounds like Chinese to you, it’s better that you don’t start writing a novel yet, but instead try all this through a short story course.

4. Use of time, place and action coordinates

The coordinates of time, place and action are those that govern any story, those that guarantee that a narrative can have an experiential journey and that the protagonist advances in his conflict. In this sense, a novel would be like a movie, with different sequences in which the character’s act, over a certain time and in specific settings.

It is easy for, as a beginning writer, to go crazy about these three coordinates and spend pages and pages in which the story takes place – for example -exclusively inside the head of the protagonist, or in which a conversation between two characters, but the place in which it is happening is not mentioned nor does time seem to pass, which can give the sensation that things happen in an indefinite and unreal limbo.

For this reason, it is advisable to have practiced this narrative framing through short stories before embarking on writing a novel.

Writing a story with a beginning, middle and end is not difficult, in fact it is something organic, that we have inscribed in our genes.

5. Mastery of the basic structure of a story

When I talk about “mastering the basic structure of a story” I mean something as simple as knowing how to write something that has a beginning, a middle and an end (and that these three parts are balanced, so that the beginning takes up about one quarter of the story, the knot extends over two quarters, and the denouement occupies about another quarter). The structure of a novel can be much more complex, but dealing with this is the minimum basis to be able to delve into more complex terrain.

Frequent errors, in this sense, are writing stories in which the introduction or the beginning is too long, and then we go directly to the outcome without there being a development of the conflict in the middle, or where there is an endless knot in which the conflict it remains stagnant and there is no type of outcome or change in the character (this, to mention only two of the possible errors).

6. Operation of narrative units

Just as a sentence is divided into words (which would be the minimum units of language with meaning), a story could be divided into narrative units, which would constitute those minimum portions with narrative meaning.

7. Knowing how to combine action and plot

A successful balance between action and plot is, for me, the basis of any good narrative. And it is, perhaps, the most difficult thing to understand and achieve as writers. In fact, it is that terrain in which you will continue to advance – over the years – until true mastery. Only the best achieve perfection in this.

The action would be the achievement of the events in their temporal succession (which, summarized, would constitute the plot of the narrative). The plot would be the achievement of events in their causal succession (which, summarized, would constitute the theme of the story). The line of action goes along the surface; The plot line usually goes underground. The action is what the Ghostwriter for music specifically “shows” to the reader. The plot is what the reader “interprets” or “abstracts” from those specific actions.

Again, if this sounds strange to you, you better not start writing a novel just yet, but rather soak up these notions for a while through the short story.

Knowing how to make the distinction between people and characters, and learning the delicate art – which José Luis Samper called ‘transubstantiation’ – of immersing yourself in those beings that you have to let direct the story for you, is essential.

8. Create characters

Finally, knowing how to create characters is essential to writing a novel, even if it is autobiographical, and even—I would say—especially if it is autobiographical. Those who appear in a novel or a story are never people(and it would be fatal to pretend that they were), but rather they are necessarily characters. And the characters have their own characteristics and idiosyncrasies, which we must respect.

When creating characters, the beginning writer usually makes mistakes such as trying to control them excessively, so that they seem like puppets more than living entities, or, on the contrary, leaving them so much freedom and power that they go off into the wild and They do not respect the thread of the story. It’s also easy for your “self”(the one you consider yourself to be and who usually wants to take control of your creativity) to interfere with its own opinions or preferences in the essence of your characters, or to constantly act as an intermediary between you and your characters. and, therefore, between your characters and the reader.

Knowing how to make the distinction between people and characters, and learning the delicate art—which José Luis Samper called “transubstantiation”—of immersing yourself in those beings that you have to let direct the story for you, is essential for a novel to work. And you better have gotten practice at it through short stories.

I hope that all this I tell you helps you when it comes to discerning whether the time has come, for you, to write a novel or not.