by Janet Blaylock

Created on: May 31, 2010   Last Updated: April 05, 2011

Writing a book is a challenging and an exciting adventure. Are you ready to take that challenge? If you are, you need to think about a theme.  What do you want to reveal to readers. Do you have an idea for your book? If not, you need to write a list of ideas that come to your mind as you think of your church, home, neighborhood, stores, television, movies, books, newspapers, relatives, or friendships.

You also need to ask yourself questions and see if you can come up with a specific idea for a novel. For example let's consider your home.  What does your home look like on the outside? Where is it located? Is it in the country or the city? What does the neighborhood look like? What about the interior of your home? How many bedrooms do you have? What about levels? Do you have a basement? Asking questions will help you write a description of your house outwardly and inwardly. Keep asking yourself questions, and you will come up with an idea for a novel.

Once you have your idea, your are ready to plan your novel.

Have you thought about your setting? Where would you like your characters to live? There are various kinds of settings that you  can select for your books. For example, you might choose a house, church, building, courtroom, hospital, city, somewhere in the country, an island, your neighborhood, school, shopping center, castle, mansion, or other places you might want to use for your book.

Think about the various places where you've lived such as the city, a small town, or a farm? You can make a list of every place you've lived, and then you can think of a name for that place. Do you want to use the real name or a fictional name? No matter what setting you use, you can add fictional settings such as tunnels, caves, woods, lakes, waterfalls, or whatever you want to use to make your settings realistic and more intriguing. Once you have selected your setting, you need to describe it, so you will have a visual description of it like you want readers to see. You might even want to draw a map of your setting.

When you describe your environment, you need to think of the house and the land in the town, city, or country of your setting. You also need to think about the mountains, lakes, rivers, and location of your setting.

When you describe the inside of a house, you need to describe the color scheme, furniture, how the furniture is arranged, if the room or house is organized or disorganized, and where the doors are to the other rooms.

Every time a

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>