Creativity Isn't Enough

When we, as authors, sit down to write, a lot more goes into our stories than a good imagination. Sure, creativity and imagination are an important part of being successful and writing an entertaining story, particularly in fiction, but it's not everything. I would even venture to say it's actually a relatively minor aspect in the storytelling process. You can have the best idea in the world, groundbreaking fantasy like Lord of the Rings or a sci-fi idea that will impact all sci-fi going forward like 40k, but that doesn't mean you can just throw it all at a page and it will work. Here, I'd like to talk about some key aspects of writing a novel that a lot of people (myself included) don't take into consideration when they set out on the road to becoming an author. The structure and fluidity of the story, the believability of the characters, a balanced world, and your language are all huge factors in the writing process that I would like to touch on. So let's get started!

Structure, Progression, and Fluidity

One aspect of story writing that I totally undervalued was a solid outline. Until I began working on The Wildervale Grimoire trilogy I had just written everything off the top of my head. Short stories, cooperative storytelling, and things of that nature were fine and dandy and I had no problems keeping everything in line and you might not either. I will tell you up front, though, that when you move into a full length novel (100k+ words) and a plan for several books, you will need the structure that an outline offers. Plan out your book and any future books, write in key plot points and put emphasis on where you want elements that will impact future plots. Write a couple outlines, pick the one you like best, and move forward with writing. You can always change the outline to match your current aspirations over the course of writing and it will allow you to visualize how changes will impact future planned actions.

I made it about 6 chapters into Queen of Ghouls before I realized I needed an outline. After writing it, it struck me just how my current story trajectory would impact the rest of the series and I had to go back and rewrite a LOT of stuff so that it would flow how I wanted it to. This took about a month to do and I recommend starting with an outline rather than realizing halfway through that you need one. An outline will help a ton with lining up progression, keep you on task, and remind you of the end goals through the story if you ever get lost in the pages as I tend to do. Your book's overall flow will benefit as well with a structured plan set up beforehand and people will be able to pick out the key plot aspects as if they were reading your outline.

Character Believability

A pit so many budding authors fall into is unbelievable or unrelatable characters. I also see this a lot in Role Play games where people have the freedom to design characters as they please. Tommy the Paladin is uber righteous and doing everything because he's just so good and loyal to his god. Boring. No one is that good all the time and no one will truly relate to it. Give him a motivation: his town is being threatened, his god seems to have vanished, he's actually out for revenge while claiming a holy reason for his actions. Being good for good's sake is fine and dandy until it becomes clear that that's all there is to the character. This is the same for protagonists and antagonists. The mustache twirling Disney villain who is evil for the sake of being evil is overplayed and boring at this point. Make the bad guy relatable, show why he's doing what he's doing. The audience might not agree with his actions, but they'll understand why he's the way he is.

It is of extreme importance to give your characters understandable motivations and a clear reason to do what they are doing. Don't end up like Game of Thrones S8. Build up to huge swings in character development, make it believable, even hint at it as you're working toward it. An audience member should be able to guess that a change is coming for it to be believable. There are, of course, some ways to drastically change a character in a very short time, but more often than not, you'll want a slow burn until the flame takes, so to speak.

A few big character tropes to avoid if you can help it: The Chosen One, the only person who can defeat whatever evil there is. It's a trope that can be done well but has been played to death. The Orphan, a character who has their parents killed or is beaten down from a young age. The Hidden Royalty, revealing later in the story that the character was actually the queen all alone or of royal descent.

If you've read Queen of Ghouls, you know I accidentally slid into one of those tropes and am working to dig myself out of that hole currently.

A Balanced World

One of the biggest complaints I have with storytelling is the unbelievable world. I'm not talking about "Oh well there's magic so it's not believable!", I'm talking about inconsistent mechanics, things that don't make logical sense, and changing power levels. This is one of the most objective aspects of storytelling, even if people don't want to admit it. After a rule has been established if you break the rule without a thorough explanation of how and why, it is objectively poor storytelling. For this reason, you need to think long and hard before implementing any magic or fantasy mechanics in your story (Magic can refer to literal magic or just things impossible in the real world like super jumps and sci-fi gear). Analyze every aspect of the system, think of how it might be abused and take it to the extreme, what prevents it from going totally over the top. A perfect example of a terrible magic system that everyone knows is the Harry Potter world by JK Rowling. Rules are changed as she needs, extremely powerful items are introduced only to be used for a single thing and then disappear (looking at you, time turner), never to be seen again, and characters are powered up or powered down depending on the situation with no real explanation as to why.

Another way to ruin balance is to introduce extremely powerful artifacts to solve a problem that might have uses that extend past that intended goal. For instance, I added a dagger that is essentially the kryptonite to Ghouls and Husks in Queen of Ghouls. I didn't really grasp how overpowered it was until I had to try to balance it with everything else that was going on. With some clever writing, I feel I've improved it without trying to write it completely out of the story, but it is still a broken item that I'm working to remedy in the next book. The blade itself can "deactivate" almost all sigils (the magic in my world), which runs into some serious problems when talking about locks or bindings that are supposed to be a major roadblock. I warn you now, before you add any item of even minor import, think about how it can be abused. Give the concept to some friends who share similar interests, ask them how they would abuse it, get some feedback. I guarantee you, when you publish, you will get emails asking why X character didn't use Y item in Z situation and you'll sit there kicking yourself for not realizing it.

Language, the Language of Communication

Yes the header is redundant, I'm trying to be funny. I need to tell you right now that you have to be a good writer to get anywhere with your authorship ambitions. Use proper English, watch for typos, know the rules, and keep it coherent. You might be shaking your head, of course being good at writing is important for writing, but hear me out. There are a lot of people who have great ideas, but when they put the pen to paper it comes out in a jumble because they don't use descriptive language, they can't link a paragraph to the next, and they repeat the same words over and over. Not to mention the dozens of manuscripts that I've read filled with double negatives, typos, poor English, and general inability to write.

If you're confident that you're a good writer, have at it, send me a copy of the book, I'll write a review for you! But if you have doubts, here are a few things I recommend:

1. Take a creative writing class at a community college. They're usually pretty cheap and most of the time the professor just looks for coherency and that's what you want to get good at before starting on your project.

2. Work on a few different projects before taking a shot at your target. Write some short stories, write for the fun of it, or do some writing prompt exercises. Then, once you're comfortable with your skill, begin your primary project.

3. Take part in some collaborative writing or role play. This can be fun and different, keeps you on your toes, and you get to learn from other skilled writers (or learn from the mistakes of not-so-skilled writers). There are plenty of groups on DeviantArt and various literature forums where you can take part in such activities.

I hope I've managed to convey the message I wanted to and you, as a casual consumer or dedicated writer, took something from it. This was in no way meant to be demotivating for writers hoping to publish, but rather a warning to check and double check yourself before setting out on this strange adventure.

Thanks for reading!