M. Popov
Scribe
Recently I stumbled on a example on how to plan and write a novel. Essentially the advice boiled down to using a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to outline your novel's structure, displaying chapters, their pages, their word count, the main perspectives and summarizing the main points the chapter is conveying to the reader. It offered a more systematic way to writing fiction, encouraging people to plan things out in advance instead of going with the flow.
Granted the writing process and resources differ from person to person, but seeing other people's approach to it made me curious. Other writers I met told me they prefer going in blind with just Microsoft Word, writing what feels right to them in one go, then sandblasting in the form of rewrites. Some people write their things out on paper first, use sticky notes for the plot and characters and later transfer everything onto a computer and begin the fearsome editing process. For characters and plot I've seen computer and mobile software meant to keep track of everything.
I'm not subscribed to the idea of there being a "definitive" technique to writing a novel. Of course there should be standards in a finished product, consistency in style, interesting characters and good structure, but all the steps people took to make said finished product is what this post is about. I'll describe how I currently approach my novel and I'm open to suggestions and insights.
I'm writing the novel in Microsoft Word with the following:
The story:
Granted the writing process and resources differ from person to person, but seeing other people's approach to it made me curious. Other writers I met told me they prefer going in blind with just Microsoft Word, writing what feels right to them in one go, then sandblasting in the form of rewrites. Some people write their things out on paper first, use sticky notes for the plot and characters and later transfer everything onto a computer and begin the fearsome editing process. For characters and plot I've seen computer and mobile software meant to keep track of everything.
I'm not subscribed to the idea of there being a "definitive" technique to writing a novel. Of course there should be standards in a finished product, consistency in style, interesting characters and good structure, but all the steps people took to make said finished product is what this post is about. I'll describe how I currently approach my novel and I'm open to suggestions and insights.
I'm writing the novel in Microsoft Word with the following:
- Courier New font, size 12.
- Line Numbers restart each page.
- Contents section is on the first page and every chapter is linked.
- Thesaurus is always active.
- When I still had my printer, I'd print out chapters and read them out. I'd write comments to the side, passages that didn't sound good to me were crossed out, wording that could be improved was highlighted in marker. I'd later make the changes to my document. This is also where I've jotted some of my most important notes.
The story:
- Each character is meant to be diverse with a different background. Meant to explore different themes and ideas.
- Inspiration comes from other fantasy media, Game of Thrones, Pillars of Eternity, Tolkien, Arcanum, Clive Barker.
- Other media includes the Sharpe series and Hornblower.
- The novel is presented through multiple perspectives. Each chapter follows a different character from the main cast. This is done to convey multiple ideas to the reader, develop lore and keep the story interesting.
- Chapters have color coding so I can keep track of who it should focus on.
- I've downloaded character sheets to summarize the cast, their appearances, backgrounds and motivations.
- I've outlined the main themes of the novel.
- I plan on following the advice I started with and making a spreadsheet to keep track of the novel's structure.
- I have the start, middle and end planned out.
- I plan on making a glossary to keep track of all the terminology.
Last edited: