How to Write a Good Book

For all you book worms and first time authors, like me, I present to you my very first Instructable. I have organized my Instructable like a staircase, and at the top of the steps is your goal of success. All I'm asking of you is to step carefully to the top, making sure to pay close attention to what I'm telling you. Any big leaps between steps are a risk to falling down and having to start again from the bottom. I do hope you will enjoy this, and again, please take note of what I tell you, for I believe that these tips are simple but important.

Anyway, let's get started!

By the way, if you plan on writing a chapter book, skip step five. I don't care what I said up there, just do it confidently and I promise you'll be fine. For any other type of book, stop at step five.

*ATTENTION*

Eyes and hands are needed for obvious reasons. Thank you.

This is either going to be the easiest or hardest step for you viewers to take, but obviously the most important. You can't write a book about flying pigs and then say it's nonfiction. Anytime you write a book, you need to decide what type of book you want to write, whether it's a chapter book or a children's book, a fiction novel or a hardcore, nonfiction jam. But remember, I'm here to draw the guidelines, but only you can color in the full picture.

Figuring out the main idea is also a very important step to take in order to write your book. Most nonfiction books that I've read are about Geography and Biology, like the books you might find at the school library, but if you want to write a children's book you could write about letters and numbers and other things that are needed for development, or just a fun, simple book about kangaroo trying to find its way home. It could even rhyme. You could write a tutorial book about how to make good pixel art. These are just a few of the many examples that can help you choose what to write about.

A starter title is just an unofficial title that just cooperates with the main idea. A good title (starter or not) should be short and easy to remember, unless you want to write a series of books. A great example of that is the Harry Potter series. That 7 book series has a title and a subtitle (Example: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone). If you were to write about the kangaroo I mentioned in the last step, a good starter title for it could be Joey gets Lost. And if you want to write a nonfiction book about snakes, a fun title could be All About Snakes.

If you want to illustrate your book as well as write it, then here are some examples of art you can use in your book (These can be drawn digitally too). If you are illustrating a children's book and want to draw something simple, the cat is an example of a simple drawing that can be drawn in your book. If you want to draw a cute kawaii looking book, the 3 flavor creatures (whatever they are, probably cows) are something that can be drawn in a book. If you're looking for something to shove into your nonfiction book, you can find something like the snake online or elsewhere. Or if you have a good hand for drawing 3D stuff, like the dragon (good luck!), then you could sketch something like that in your fiction fantasy.

I can't necessarily give any real tips for this except this:

NEVER GIVE UP. When stress and an idealess brain try to take you down, fight back. If your boredom kicks your butt, go do something fun. Play a game, listen to music, get some cleaning done, whatever. Just keep fighting the good fight, alright? Can I trust you on that? You promise? Really? Okay, good. Now let's take another step up this staircase (unless you're planning on not writing a chapter book, duh).

Most chapter books have introductions, but if you don't want to write one, that's okay too. If you do, then here are some tips for writing a good introduction:

1. Get the reader's attention so they get interested and want to keep reading
2. Write about the subject matter (the character's pain, potential pleasure)
3. Write a preview of the main argument
4. Outline the structure of the main idea
5. Spill out a few events that may occur in the book
6. Start the book with a call to action

This is the part I can't really help you with. All I can do is list a necessity for keeping whatever lucky reader is to come across your book wanting to read more, meaning even if it is 3:00 am in the morning and they haven't had a second of shut-eye, they will want to keep their eyes open until the next page, which turns into the page after that, and then the next chapter, and... yeah, you get the idea.

1. Understand how long you want your chapter(s) to be. If you want to speed up the pace, short chapters are recommended, and they should be full of action. If you want it to be a reflective chapter that lingers over setting or description, I'd suggest a longer, more detailed chapter, but don't make it terribly long because that can make your story lose sense of direction if the reader is unfocused.

Begin with action. When in doubt, begin the opening scene of a new chapter with action.

Here are some things that I would suggest you put into each chapter (you don't have to add in all of them per chapter).

1. Setting (place, time, background)
2. Character(s)
3. Conflict
4. Cause and effect
5. Reveal new information
6. Add in small, sensory details

There are many ways to end a book. Humor, if you would, is my favorite way to end, next to cliffhangers and surprising dialogue. Don't forget, when you finish your book, make sure to add acknowledgements; if you had any person, book, or author that you would like your reader to know of that inspired or helped along the way. Here's the final step you must take in order to reach your goal of success:

HAVE COURAGE. When I started writing this Instructable, I had a few typos and a lot of doubt that it was going to be helpful, but ending it off here, I realized that I had gained a lot of courage, and even had fun along the way. What I'm trying to say here is that even if you feel like you can't do it or you'll never be good enough, you just have to keep going because I have seen first hand what can happen.

Which step do you think is most important? Which was the most helpful? Did you like my jokes? Let me know down in the comments. I do hope you enjoyed this advice and learned a lot from it. I hope to see you as a bestseller! Bye!