How to write a book? If you’ve come this far thinking about magic formulas, use your finger to leave my humble abode as soon as possible, everything I have to tell you takes time and effort. And yes, life is that hard, and writing a book, you can’t even imagine.

Here are some writing help that can be very useful for you.

How to write a book step by step

How to start writing a book? And here’s the question. The answer is not simple, not easy, not even possible. There are no rules. No one knows how to get it right every time. The urge to write comes because you have something to teach others. The impulse is so strong that even though you know it’s crazy, you do it. You start writing, but that initial question haunts you. To stop it, I’m going to try to give you some keys without which this adventure can become hell for you and, above all, for your future readers, poor creatures. Respecting them and trying to make them have a good time is the most important thing you should know and not making them run in the opposite direction to your work. There you go, and we haven’t even started yet. Keep going, and you’ll see.

1. The idea to write a book

To write a book, the first thing you have to have is a good idea. God be praised! I’ve just discovered gunpowder. You probably think that this doesn’t start well, and you’re right. Writing a book usually starts this bad and secret. Too many times, it ends up worse.

Sometimes, great ideas come up that will never lead to writing anything. It often happens that you’re in a deep sleep and suddenly something crosses your mind, you open your eyes and think: there it is. You are even capable of getting out of bed to go running to write that marvel that has just occurred to you. Groping and almost in the dark, so as not to wake anyone up, you scribble on the first thing you find that luminous beauty. What happiness, it’s hard to go back to sleep because of how wonderful it’s going to be.

The next day, the first thing you do is run to read the paperwork, which (oh, Lord, take me soon!) was the tax return, honey, on flakes, and you squint your eyes trying to read what is going to get you out of poverty… Oh, and it’s… how to put it finely, you put the word.

Don’t worry. It happens often, and most of the ideas we come up with to write a book are not even enough for a micro-story. The concept itself must have enough depth to resist the immense amount of questions you have to ask to extract a book from it.

A great idea often catches you without the proper preparation, time, or funding you need to put it into practice. Solution: put that bomb in a drawer and pray… just kidding. Work for better times to come.

2. Documentation and information process

If the story requires documentation (and all of them do), you will have to do some research beforehand. It is possible to do it during the creative process, but that will lead you to rewrite much more than you should. You need to know the basic facts about your idea before you start. All of them. Indeed, they are not few, so you will hardly be able to create a good structure until you don’t have them.

For example, this happens if you want to publish a historical novel or an essay and respect your readers, no matter how much you write romance novels. There is always a documentation process, don’t skip it. It’s necessary. You’ll be on the safe side without fear of having to rewrite everything later. Your mind will get the most out of what you are doing and compensate you with better ideas. Do you want more advantages? A crucial one is that your readers will thank you immensely.

3. The internal structure of a book

Structuring a book is a step that many people think is not for them. I hope you are not one of these people because I will give you a hard time. When someone tells me that they are more of a compass person and go about writing willy-nilly as inspiration strikes them, I start to tremble. At first, I was scared (you can’t get an idea of what it’s like to edit a book like this, no matter how good it is), now I tremble with rage. But well, would anyone think of building a house without foundations, sewing pants without previous measurements, designing the urban planning of a city as it comes at any given moment, whoever does these things? Nobody, right? Well, stop talking nonsense and start building a proper structure if you want to write a good book, man, now.

After the attack, I feel much better, thank you. I’ll get down to business. Considering that you are different from the rest of the people who write, that you have your own non-transferable and original way of creating, there are specific biases that are mandatory to write a book. That’s the way it is. In literature, there are few rules, but this is one of the most important. The structure I’m talking about may not be written down anywhere, but it must be clear in your head.

And, of course, if the story is complicated, with many plots, characters, and different narrative voices, more than one outline becomes essential. Or do you think Aramburu wrote Patria by divine inspiration? He told me that he had all the walls of his office covered with notes and diagrams. That’s how you create a good book.

4. Control your readers’ emotions

If you want to write a good book, you must control the reader’s emotions to the millimeter. For example, if your thing is crime novels, you will know that you must prioritize and measure at what point you put each data. It is the key to rhythm and tension and the great mistakes in this type of novel. Not measuring in this particular case is the worst thing you can do.

Every story has a method. Think about how you have yours in your head. You have the key. You’ll be able to start writing when you have that story burned in your head. Until then, make sure that there are not too many loose ends because later when you start writing, they will come out from under the stones. A novel or a book is a Swiss watch. If you want it to work well, you must control which piece must move and when.

Once you have the outline clear, consider the best way to tell what you want to mean. The structure of a novel or book is fundamental to transmitting the data correctly and for the reader to internalize the information you want.

And forget the myth that if you plan too much, you kill your inspiration. To begin with, this ungrateful muse usually appears when you are working. Besides, inspiration and improvisation will always be present in the process, even if you don’t want them to.

5. First chapter. It must be a shot

The first paragraph must ignite the reader’s mind and grab his attention; but, above all, it must show him a universe in which he wants to live.

It doesn’t have to have fireworks initially, but you have to raise questions in the reader’s mind to keep him reading. Look at your favorite novels and how they begin. Give a spin on why the author started there.

Studying the beginning of your book and the feelings it arouses is essential. Get the reader right into the action, don’t explain, don’t describe. The beginning of a book should be like a good story, fast, hot, attractive, and not a word should be leftover. All the words you use should be loaded with meaning. Flowing like a shot. If you want to expand on this, I leave you a link to the worst mistakes in the first chapter.

6. The importance of chapters

Taking care of how they begin and end is essential for the reading to be fluid and addictive. Opt for short chapters, but with meaning. Do not break scenes to create tension if it is not justified.

The plot itself will tell you where each chapter begins and ends. It should be a series of scenes arranged as organically as possible.

7. Narrative rhythm

In the narrative, as I said before, prioritizing information is fundamental to achieve rhythm, balance, action, suspense, mystery, and a long etcetera of elements.

It is vital to measure the rhythm in each of the chapters and that together they have a balance so that the emotion does not wane at any time. It’s also important to know if you’re leading the reader with your tongue hanging out. You can’t drag it out like that for six hundred pages. You can put up with that when you have no choice in real life, but in a book, when it’s so easy to close it, it’s a bad option.

To achieve that constant tension, they often resort to plots that have neither strength nor action, as they say in my town. They are dismantled from one chapter to another. You are dedicating yourself to give scares to the reader without severe consequences in the plot or its evolution along with it. Forget about this. It’s a fiasco, a big one.

Control their emotions and make the experience addictive. The key is to know when to air the plot or intensify it. To do this, you must control the tools you have at your disposal, for example, dialogues to lighten; narration to give it intensity. Study what you need at each moment. It’s the only way to get it right.

8. How to create a character

You must be clear about who will be the main characters, supporting characters, and beyond. And know them well—all of them. Be clear about the hierarchy. Please give them the prominence the story requires. According to Jim Thompson, there are forty-two ways to tell a story, although in reality, each work has an ideal way to be written, and, with honorable exceptions, the characters will be your guides in this sense. They will lead you down the best path. It is like what Michelangelo used to say. He saw the sculpture enclosed in each piece of marble; in literature, something similar happens. History rules. You have to know how to interpret its signals (I leave you an article on creating good characters, so you can expand if you want). The most important thing: make them alive.

You must show them as they are, without telling it. Forget about long descriptions. Prioritize their traits in order of importance or which of them are decisive and gradually add them throughout the chapters, but if your protagonist has green eyes and you want to say so, don’t even think of putting it in chapter twenty, when the reader has already imagined your character with deep black eyes. You will dismantle the story, and the reader will lose faith in you as a storyteller.

9. Space and time

Never lose the reader in space and time. The moment he has to go back because he doesn’t know what’s going on, you’ve just expelled him from the universe you’ve worked so hard to create for him. It’s like a sacrilege.

The characters must be well-placed from the beginning of the scene constantly. If you have to say that it’s night, say it at the very beginning of the set. It is a critical piece of information so that he can imagine what you have to tell him.

10. Don’t disconnect from the story

Before writing a novel or part of it, always read the previous chapters. It is crucial not to lose the tone of the scenes, the characters, and the style. The book must be a rounded and cohesive whole. Reviewing what you have written before comes in handy to correct and at the same time to get back in tune with the story. It will never be time wasted.

11. Patience. Don’t be in a hurry

And speaking of time, it may be that you have been writing for many months, and the desire to finish at once can get the better of you. There are thousands of reasons for this to happen: you have just come up with a much better idea; you have committed yourself to make the presentation before finishing writing (as tricky as it may seem, it happens frequently) or a long list of possibilities that drive you to write madly and kill characters, send them on a trip or marry them because you are worth it. A blunder, the reader will realize it and be disappointed with the story, not to mention what he thinks of you. Writing times should be appropriate to what you want to write. No more and no less. Be calm. Writing is a long-distance race.

12. Find a good professional

Find a professional to help you proofread it. No matter how many times you go over the novel or the book, you can’t do anything else after several revisions. You know each of its chapters by heart, and no alarm bells can go off in your head to tell you where the flaws are.

Besides, if your first readers have been family or friends, what do you expect them to tell you. Seek help if you want to have any chance in the publishing market. And, even more so, if you want a publisher to bet on you. If you’re going to write a good book, you have to invest in it and promote it as much as possible.

An editing service or, at least, a professional zero reader will be of great help. What’s more, if they are truly professional, they will talk to you frankly about the possibilities you and your work have. It is the difference between an ordinary work and a good, rounded work with its entity.

Professional proofreading of a book: the key

If you want the reader to consider you as one of their favorite writers, your stories must be well-crafted, and they must not notice any difference between you and the greats. That’s the goal.

The world is full of bad books. If you want yours to fall into this category, go ahead: skimp on the proofreading. If you want everyone who reads it -regardless of the subject matter or genre- will value it positively, you must strive to proofread it professionally. That is the key.

Taking apart a good story is so easy that you are leaving it to chance that this work of years will end up in the readers’ mental wastebasket without excellent professional proofreading.

You might think I’m saying this because I’m in the editing business, but I’m in the editing business precisely because I’m convinced of this point. I try to make my authors shine, to make their creativity visible to everyone. I want their books to be as rounded as they deserve to be.

13. Love yourself a lot

If you love yourself a lot and well, you won’t let yourself be carried away by absurdities or fashions, you will know if your work is a potato, and you will always be able to pull it off because having self-esteem is vital to keep fighting in life.

If you know that you are good, that your work is worthwhile, you will do everything in your power to promote it to the maximum, and you will never give up trying to offer that wonder to your readers. So loving yourself is always the first option. Of course, it is essential not to confuse this self-love with wanting to be the navel of the world. Such a pathetic eagerness for protagonism prevents many writers from working on the road to excellence, because of course, why they would want to improve if they are already outstanding. Anyway, if you ever have that thought, please run and get someone to punch you. It would help if you had it.
How to write a book from scratch and publish it

In conclusion, to write a great book, the idea must come from deep inside you, your characters must evolve as the pages go by, the plot must develop with new information, the reader is the center of everything, never lose him, and finally, find a way to tell everything with the minimum. Simplicity is the mark of good literature.

So far, these are 13 keys to writing a book. Publishing it is the second phase, but I will deal with it in another article, as it is already loaded.

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