How to Draft a Novel

If you ever have the need to write a novel here are a couple steps to get you started on your endeavor!

Usability test:

I met with my friend Hannah during one of our breaks to ask her to test my instructable. I recently gotten back into reading books with Alice in wonderland. Although I don’t have much time to read them, I would like to show people what a process it is to write a book. Much of my childhood revolved around Harry Potter, so books have always been important to me. I have her a pen and paper to create the outline of the novel.

The first thing to do is to find something you want to write about. It can be anything, all you have to do is look down the rabbit hole. You just have to be inspired enough to want to write a full lengthen novel. It can be about a place, a certain ideal, or a person (just remember to change their name).

Usability test:

It was funny watching Hannah struggle. After explaining to her step one, she looked at me blakly for a brief second. She then said she wanted to go home. There is was! Easy as that. The story was going to have something to do with leaving school.

If you're not writing a complete opinion piece, then some sort of research will be needed. It doesn't have to be the sitting down in a library for hours on end kind of research. Such types of research can be:

• Observational: simply watching people, how they interact, for a framework for characters
• Active Viewing (Watching/Listening): analyzing different types of art to see what styles you like and don't like

However, a good deal of research includes looking at articles, books, and news reports to get a better understanding of a topic. If you plan to do a story about a girl falling down a tree into a magical world, there isn't much research you have to do. The story calls for an abstract gaze that doesn't need a lot of research.

If you were to do a novel about someone who is insane like the Mad Hatter, then you would have to do some research on what typically would a person like this say. The research you do has to correlate with the characters, settings, and plots you choose.

Usability test:

This part is tricky for the specific topicthat we were covering. We decided to think about what makes people want to leave school, but still go to it. School is something to do. Apart from getting entertained you are also paying for an education. This is supposed to help you out in life. Now why do we want to leave school? It’s early, it can be boring, or it could be a toxic environment. Our research was more simple than most, but it helped us along our journey of writing Hannah’s novel.

Whether you're writing a zombie apocalypse or a mystery novel, it is important to outline a specific character, setting, and plot. These three things may not come easy to you, everyone has their own style of crafting a story. I will outline three different perspectives regarding this starting point and how to develop it further.

• If you have a character; say you are stuck with this idea of a talking cat. Where could this cat be? It could be in feudal Japan, outer space, or a rain forest. Let's stick with the feudal Japan era and go from there. If we have a talking cat in feudal Japan, what might it be doing there? Is it a magical creature? Is it trying to hide from someone? Or is it simply part of a girl's imagination? From a character you can choose a setting or a plot and develop these ideas further, simply giving each part more depth and focus.
• If you have a setting; you can start to develop characters and plot from there. If you have a concept such as wonderland, plot and characters can be a free for all. But if you have the setting of a college campus in the 1960's, there are a lot of potential plot and characters that you can topic. Plots may include, someone joining a fraternity/sorority, a school massacre, or a disastrous homecoming weekend. Possible character's could include a group of communication majors, art majors, theatre majors, biology majors, etc. From a setting you have an idea of what plot and characters you might want to cover.
• If you have a plot; I would say as being one of the most important things for a story, it is hardest to start off with. If you have an idea of a girl who falls down a tree into a magical land. Although this could be a great plot, you have to think about what will happen in this magical land, what does it look like, and what people might she meet there

These three things create a foundation for your novel. However, they all won't come to you clearly. Each person has their own method to finding these three concepts.

Usability test:

Our character was Hannah herself, that part was easy. She was going to be stuck in her high school, a place that she hated (the story was becoming more of an autobiography). It was her senior year, she was basically forgotten about at that time, and she was doing community service after regular school hours. She then was locked in school with a few other students doing community service when they became locked in. The janitors and some of the students then turned into monsters. Hannah had to try and find a way out of school without getting found.

A good novel has supporting characters that help drive the story. Of course there are some good pieces that have only three characters. But good supporting characters can help develop a novel. If Alice were left alone in wonderland to find her way back without the Cheshire Cat, the White Rabbit, and the others, the story would be boring!

Characters, setting, and plot all work together, while supporting characters develop the foundation.

Usability test:

Hannah only decided that someone has to die. I asked her if she wanted to add different monsters, but she didn’t seem to care too much. Supporting characters help develop the characters and plot, so someone dying would certainly do that.

It is tricky to nail down your writing style. Typically the way you write comes naturally. Even more so when you've developed an overall sense of the novel (this is why the other steps are necessary to map out first). Once you have a better understanding of how the novel is going to effect the reader, its easier to adapt a writing style to that. However, if you are having trouble finding the feel of your story, then you can look to other sources for inspiration:

• A song/poem
• Other novels
• Your own personal tone of voice

After you find your inspiration for your voice, this will develop your novel too.

Usability test:

Exact quote: “well it’s going to be first person because it’s about me!”

I asked her if she was descriptive or if she purely relied on emotions. I wanted her to figure out how she wrote. But she said that it would be a natural process, that she wouldn’t form a craft.

Writing a novel isn't supposed to come easy!

• Research can sometimes be lengthy
• Writer's block is the worst!
• Life can get in the way

It's easy to feel the pressure to get the novel done but sometimes art under pressure is the worst. Writing a novel should be something you enjoy, not something you have to feel pressured or anxious about. So take your time and make sure you make the novel your own.

Usability test:

Hannah liked this step. She liked the idea of no pressure, it being leisurely. However she said that she will probably forget about it because she isn’t super passionate about this. The only critiques are that this isn’t an every day problem solver. And the steps are more abstract. I asked her to apply this to essay writing. She thinks that this process would definitely help her write essays but the time constraint on essays is the problem.