Elements of a Novel, Part 1

We meet once again, my loyal followers. Today we shall explore the mysterious world that is a short story. How did so many famous authors write such incredible and creative novels? We'll see today. Although writing is a process involving many cycles of planning, writing, editing and proofreading, we'll see today it's not that hard.

The first part of writing a novel is choosing the theme. The theme is an underlying idea or concept constantly represented repetitively in the plot or cut scenes. For example, the theme could be friendship, or romance, or humour and comedy, or hurt and tragedy. The list goes on. The theme is very important since it dictates roughly how your story will be written. Think of it as the type of dough used to bake bread. The type of dough will determine the quality of bread baked in the oven. Choose a theme you are familiar with, e.g. friendship, and there you have it, the beginnings of your own novel.

The second part of writing a novel is planning your plot. The plot is your story, i.e. what you will write about. Most people falter here, with a cliche or mediocre plot. They rush through this stage, eager to get to the writing. Let me tell you, if you spend a good five minutes or so working out a central idea and a creative or impressive plot, the story will be so much better later on. This is why the plot is important. Without a plot, you can't write a story. If the theme was the dough used to bake bread, then the plot is the way you knead the dough. If you do a good job kneading the dough, the bread will turn out fantastic. If you don't, no matter what you do the bread will be inferior later on. Brainstorm on a plot, e.g. a pirate looting treasure, or a battle of two armies. Remember that you don't need to confine your story to the current era. Presto, your next part is done.

The third stage is creating your characters. The characters are the people/animals/aliens/ that good/bad things happen to in your story. The characters are essential to your story, since they are the beings that your readers will connect or relate to. Usually there is one protagonist (main good guy) and one antagonist (main bad guy) so it becomes a battle of good vs. evil. These two characters would be the ones that the story orbits around. For example, in J.K. Rowling's bestselling series "Harry Potter", the protagonist is Harry Potter, while the antagonist is Lord Voldemort. The story focuses on these two characters, emphasising the character development, history, personality etc. of both these two characters. Then there are other characters in the story, those that help the protagonist/antagonist along. These people make the story more interesting. There would be some character development, history, personality etc. displayed, but not much. Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger are other characters in "Harry Potter". The characters are the flour slapped on the dough. Too much or too little will ruin the bread. But the right dosage of flour will make the bread sweeter and moister. Remember not to make your characters perfect. If they are, readers cannot relate to them. Once you've completed this, you've finished another part of your novel.

To be Continued, my faithful audience...