Writing a novel is not a difficult thing – once one has learned the fundamentals involved. Certain tools are available to make writing a novel far less work than it would seem to the beginner.
How do you write a novel? Every writer in the beginning has taken pen and paper, typewriter (the old days), or word processor software (notice I didn’t call it an “app”, which is an incorrect term in widespread public usage), written “Chapter One”, and after a few struggled sentences found themselves struggling to get their thoughts onto paper. How do writers do it? How do they complete one novel after another when so many amateur writers struggle to complete a single page of manuscript, only to finally fall apart shortly into chapter two? What do they know that we don’t?
The answer is simple: The fundamentals.
Story Structure
Story structure is the single biggest key to writing a novel. In school, we all heard about three act story structure. If we had a particularly cruel English Lit teacher, perhaps we were assigned a book we had to read, and identify in a book report what part was Act 1, which was Act 2, and what was Act 3. No doubt we struggled with an assignment that if we’d been taught correctly could have been done at a dry erase board in three minutes.
Act 1
Act 1 quite simply is the first 25% of the novel. If your novel is 400 pages long, it’s pages 1 through 100. This forms the beginning or the “Setup”. We’re introduced to the scenario (London in the totaltarianistic future), meet the protagonist (Winston Smith), see his quest (freedom from governmental interference and control), and met the antagonist (Big Brother and the various members of the government). By the way, the novel 1984 was one of the two books I hate the most in the world – the other being the OTHER book I was required to read, Catcher in The Rye. You can do the same analysis with ANY book. Ishmael (protagonist) seeks fortune and to become a gentleman of substance (wealthy society). He joins the crew of the Pequod under its brooding Captain Ahab (the antagonist).
Right away, you’ve seen the setup, the scenario, the protagonist and the antagonist. “I thought Moby Dick was the antagonist!” No, Moby is actually the quest itself. Ishmael seeks the fortune he will gain from a career of whaling. Ahab seeks vengeance, and is willing to kill everyone on board to get close enough to Moby to strike at him. The struggle is between Ahab’s madness and the desire of Ishmael to gain fortune and a place in wealthy society. The two goals are exclusive. If Ahab wins, they all will die. If Ishmael wins, he gains fortune. Ishmael cannot win, and the book grinds you on a perilous inevitable collision with death in the person of Moby Dick.
Act 2
Act 2 is the middle 50% of the novel, pages 101-300. This is where things go from bad to worse. The protagonist goes off the rails, trying to accomplish his goal, but the Antagonist is forcing the protagonist into a place he cannot win. Right around the center of the book, things have to reach the height of “it’s about to go bad”.
Then it gets worse. Rapidly picking up pace to Act 3. Here’s a trick I do – I really haven’t found it in any of the writing books, but it works for me. Think of Act 2 as two separate acts – almost a four act book. Right in the middle is the tipping point, like a roller coaster. Act one is the slow ride horizontally, act 2 is the upward climb, the middle is the tip point, the last half of act 2 is the downward roll, getting faster and faster. Act 3 is where the roller coaster gets the fastest, prior to the last frenzied rush.
Act 3
The last 25 pages of your novel, pages 301 – 400. Everything that can go wrong must go wrong. Everything must speed up to the last 10% of your novel, the climax. This is where Ishmael, Queequig and Ahab enter the longboat to fight Moby. There’s no turning back. They must face death. Either Ahab or Moby will die in this scene. Melville here accomplished the final requirements of a novel here – the ending was inevitable. Like the entrance of Frodo to Mount Doom and the impending destruction of the Ring, everything in the book forces the protagonist and the antagonist to the final face off. While Frodo doesn’t sword fight Sauron and Ishmael doesn’t wrestle with Ahab for the flintlock, still they are locked in a duel to the death.
Conclusion
Story Structure remains for the novelist the fundamentals of writing. Few – very few – writers have an innate ability to write within story structure without planning or thinking about it – we call these “Pants’ers” because they write by the seat of the pants. Every writer wants to be one – few truly are. For the rest of us, we require planning to know how our novel will flow. Embrace Story Structure – don’t fight it. It is the one tool that will make it easy for you to succeed, and write not only one novel – but as many as you have ideas for!
