Sage but traditional advice: Read a lot of novels before writing fiction. My advice: To be really original don’t read any novels for at least a month or two before you start writing. Of course, the advice to read a lot of novels prior to that is imperative.
Just busy yourself putting your thoughts together and get on to the planning stage.
Plan out a lifecycle of your future project.
Interesting anecdotes both personal, second or third party, all go into the repository under the title such as, FODDER or RESERVOIR.
At the very outset, create a file and set it on cloud computing. Keep your “brain dump” ideas coming and, save these in your created files. Every writer will have a different way of organizing their files.
You may want to collect in your files, pictures of different places and people you could later use in your novel.
For instance, the appearance of a picture of someone you found interesting can trigger the description of a character or part of a character’s appearance in your novel. Same with places, especially the ones you photograph and have been to. You can then get right into the virtual experience of positioning yourself at different places and be able to give fresh and original description of these places through firsthand experience, from your perspective, and readers will find this interesting. This will get you away from falling into the trap of using hackneyed descriptions and away from ,what I call a, “it was a dark and stormy night syndrome”
You will never write exactly what you planned and your planning has to be ongoing as you write.
A lady gave me a completed manuscript to read and critique. When I asked her how her novel evolved, she very proudly said, “Well, it never evolved as I knew from the very beginning what exactly I would write and what the end product would be.” Needless to say, I obliged her by accepting her manuscript but it was in the waste paper basket once she turned her back. Pretty callous, I know. But I am a stickler for creativity as the main ingredient in a writer, and I know rigidity of any form kills the creative process.
Like any good art, good writing is a “happening.” If Von Gogh knew exactly the outcome of his “starry night” once he assumed the paint brush and the canvass or if Hemingway knew exactly what his end product would be, then they would not have been the darlings of the world of creativity. Same with the other darlings of the world of creativity. Sure you have to know the direction you will be heading before you write, but God forbid you know exactly where you would end up.
There is no place for clichés in your writing—“THINK FRESH!”
And a quick advice to the writers grown on Harry Potter series or obsessed by it. Please get it in your brains that you can be super imaginative but not produce that caliber of work. But I correct myself by saying, yes you could be the next J.K. Rowling, who knows, but it is a stupendous task. So best not to cultivate your plot and characters without some rationale or reasoning when you can’t deftly handle the outcome like Rowling can, and it is best to stick to something plausible. Plausibility creates more interest in the reader. For instance, sure there is a remote probability the dinosaur DNA may be replicated and we could have dinosaurs in our midst. And fantasy predicated on this premise is a more interesting proposition than a genie appearing from nowhere in your novel as a quick fix, to solve the problem you have run into in your writing.
I will be discussing about how to get yourself into the proper mindset conducive to the art of writing in my next blog post.