Do you really think inspiration is enough?
So you have got a big idea for your novel.
When you feel inspired, you sit down and write a few passages. The inspiration wears off and you stop.
After all, what’s the point of filling out pages with words if not guided by the inspiration?!
You think the fire of inspiration is what makes a novel so great.
Unfortunately, relying on inspirations alone to write or finish a novel is a notion that traps many writers into thinking this way. It often translates into an unfinished or unorganized manuscript far away from the story you wanted to tell and the way you wanted to write it.
Inspiration alone isn’t enough to write an engaging novel
Whether you are writing a novel or a short story, the chances are that it would begin with inspiration. It’s like a light bulb moment, an idea coming to a creative mind seemingly out of nowhere.
But inspiration can only do so much.
To turn an idea into a compelling story, an author needs to go through an elaborate, highly structured process.
Popularly referred to as the art of storytelling, it involves a step by step process starting before the beginning of your story and continuing until after the end.
Think of it like building a house. You would need to source a lot of different materials, measure different elements, create a structure, and then give the house a form brick by brick. If the architect just relies on their inspiration, the building would fall apart.
So, just like an architect needs to know the principles of building a structure, an author needs to have an in-depth understanding of the rules of narrative storytelling.
The rules of narrative storytelling involve multiple steps
The Greek philosopher Aristotle, in his Poetics, first coined the idea of a dramatic story needing to have a single whole action.
A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end.
Aristotle
Therefore, to give your plot or story a rich narrative structure with a single whole action, you would need to rely on a step by step process along with the inspiration.
Often discussed in the writer’s manuals, these steps include:
- Working with the idea to make it compelling for the readers.
- Creating unforgettable characters with authenticity and flaws.
- Expanding the idea into a narrative plot.
- Setting out the scenes and the chapters.
- Researching the context and intensifying the main conflict.
- Bringing the characters and the drama to its climax.
- Giving the story a satisfying resolution by closing all the loose ends.
Of course, these processes vary from author to author and also depend on the method of writing the novel. For example, if you use bibisco – our novel writing software, you would get a rich interface to follow all these steps and finish the story on time.
A personal project developed to facilitate our passions for writing, bibisco enables an author to create a structure, define the premises of the story, fabula, narrative strands, as well as the geographic, social, and temporal contexts of the novel.
Conclusion
There is no magic solution to writing a memorable novel or story.
Hence, the best process is often the ways the author feels most comfortable with.
Regardless of the methods, however, inspirations alone won’t be able to fuel your writing spree. Instead, you would have to approach it in a methodical way, perhaps structured according to your preference.
Considering that, our novel writing software bibisco comes with intuitive feature sets that are both functional and enjoyable.
Let’s check it out now!
