How to Write a Novel: Part 1: The Basics of a Novel

[Partizan]

One of the odder quirks of my personality is that, when asked a direct question (in person), I am unable to lie. Nor do I seem to be able to evade. Instead, if you ask me a direct question, you get a direct answer. And every so often, I meet somebody who, in an effort to make friends, asks me what I do for fun. The answer, that I write novels for fun, always seems to get the same response question: "How do you write a novel? Because I've got this really great idea for a novel, and I was wondering....". The answer is always disappointing: practice, practice, and more practice.

But I have found that it is easier if there is something of a method involved, and this is the method that I have created to do so. It is not perfect, or even close to it—but it is relatively simple (to me, anyway), and it is fairly quick to run through. And, most importantly, it's the complete method—no seven steps to write a novel, no six things to avoid, or five things to include. This is the whole enchilada. The real deal. The system and process of turning a random idea into a novel, from first inspiration to to the last words written on the paper. As for turning it into a good novel? Well...that's a little more complicated. And, honestly, the entire reason why I just write novels for a hobby, instead of for a living, is that I still don't think that I've really got it down.

I am sharing this method because I feel it will be helpful to many of the forum-goers at SV, many of whom seem to wish to write novel-length tales, but have never seen somebody really go through an in-depth process with them, so they can know what the hey they're looking at needing to do in order to make a novel come together. This process isn't taught in school, I've never seen an actual class for it (although I've heard of a few), and I've never found a good account of how to do so online, although I have looked. So I've posted this.

I should add that, as a tool for helping me to become a better writer,Tempera's thread has been invaluable, especially in terms of the explanations that Tempera gave--he managed to clarify a huge amount of the hints I'd found here and there, as well as explain the importance of several steps that I really had never thought to pay attention to before.

I would also like to thank @7734 for his perspective on creating the focus of conflict, and why you should consider making it a separate step. This is not something that I normally do, not because it's unimportant, but because my memory is good enough to let me be sloppy.

Finally, I would like to thank @sunandshadow for her assistance in editing and beta reading. Without her assistance, this would be much less complete, notably less coherent, and massively harder to understand.

I have divided this method into six sections ( Basics, World-building, Characterization, Plotting, Writing, and Detailing), both for ease of reading, as my posts tend to be rather wordy, and to allow me to post pieces of this without getting distracted by something shiny, and forgetting the whole idea. Each section contains potentially over-detailed explanations for each step and component in that section, and what purpose each part serves, and then includes a sample, where I have taken an idea and run it through the process, so that you can get some idea of how it works. You will probably find yourself using a modified version of this system, if you use it at all—among other things, I have a massive tendency to make things more complex than they need to be, so if you can simplify, I urge you to do so.

Finally, a word of warning, and a plea for help: this is not the only style or method for writing a novel out there, and my own methods are influenced quite heavily by the fact that I have more than a few things that are decidedly odd going on in my brain. As it stands right now, these instructions do not cover all methods and styles of writing, no matter how much I would prefer that they do. So if you see something that this method leaves out, and which you feel is really important, please, let me know, and I will try to include it. This is meant for all prospective writers, not just those whose brain works like mine--so anything that can be included to broaden its information base will be greatly appreciated.

​

Novelling Basics:
The Basics are just what it says on the tin: the bare-bones basics of a novel, the things you fundamentally must have to reliably turn your idea or inspiration into a novel that will hold readers' attention over the course of over 50,000 words. This is the stuff that's going to determine the entire course of the story, as well as an astonishing amount of details, facts, and plot developments. A lot of this stuff, you can't control—some of it will require practice, some of it will require taking advantage of ideas when they come, and some of it will just take patience, a good memory, and lots and lots of notes. If you can't fulfill the basics, you are going to be entirely at the mercy of whatever source of inspiration you claim, and, as most authors can tell you, that is not a fun place to be, because when you are writing like that, you are not in control of your writing, your temper, your thoughts, or even your life.

If you want to write a novel, especially if you want to write a good novel, than one of the three key elements is planning. And in order to plan successfully, you will need to know these basic elements ahead of time:

1) which Genre you want to use,
2) your idea,
3) your Plot Archetype,
4) what your setting looks like,
5) your primary theme(s),
6) your secondary theme(s),
7) what your antagonist(s) is/are all about,
8) what mnemonic you will be using to keep yourself on track and in tone,
9) what kind of research you expect to need to do to create a story that is believable for modern culture.

Once you know these basic elements, large parts of the story are going to write themselves in your head--even just knowing the over-plot, for instance, will tell you most of the general, basic shape of your story. Combine this with the primary themes, and you'll have the gist of the story already worked out.

I would strongly urge you not to try to plan out your story before setting up the basics. I've tried that on several occasions, and I always get the same result: I'm good as gold for about 2/3 of the story, and then I break either the theme, or the tone, and I can't find any good way to continue. Now, you can create a salable story without having a good theme, but, let's face it, you're not trying to sell a story, you're trying to sell a good story, and that takes quite a bit more work.



Choosing Your Genre:
Typically, choosing your genre is something that happens somewhat automatically--some authors work in more than one genre, true, but even then, there are elements in their stories that are common throughout all of their works. Most authors, however, work primarily in a single genre--so much so, that venturing outside of that genre often entails using a pen name. While this is changing, the fact remains that choosing your genre is often, although not always, your first step in your writing experience. Don't think of this as a limitation--most ideas will work perfectly well in a variety of genres--but as a starting point. Knowing your genre will tell you a great deal about what type of story you want to tell, and that, in turn, tells you a great deal about what kind of idea you're looking for. For instance, fantasy, being a genre primarily composed of morality tales, will require the good guys to win, generally without dark, bloody, and personally painful sacrifices, against great and vast forces and powers. Suspense stories, on the other hand, will require a sense of the shadowy, and the mysterious, so that the reader can join the characters in their efforts to unravel the mystery of why these people are trying to kill them and, ultimately, turn the tables, and repay like unto like.

Most genres will also have sub-genres, which it is important to be aware of, as this will significantly help you with the world-building phase of your efforts, as well as other elements of your planning. Mysteries have the police procedural, for instance, along with the Agatha Christie civilian-solved murders, and several other sub-genres. Science fiction has military science fiction, space operas, exploration sagas, and more. Each genre has its own sub-genres, typically split according to different categories, as authors, publishers, and readers tend to favor different types of stories. Each of these sub-genres has its own conventions, and while they can be mixed, doing so is often very, very difficult. This is one of the places where knowing the shape of the story comes in handy—if you're doing a story of exploration and triumph, military science fiction will probably be less useful to you than an exploration saga, for instance. You can mix the sub-genres and story types in ways that don't always match conventionally...but that's always a bit harder to do, as they don't quite seem to mix in most people's minds, and it will require more extensive planning, and a better idea of what you're doing, and why it will work. I can't usually do this--my mind doesn't really work that way--but I've seen a handful of authors who could, so I know it can be done.

The Idea(s):
Your original idea is central to any novel that you write. This is what you will build your novel around, and will serve to provide the core elements of your story, as well as the inspiration for you to continue to press on should difficulties arise. Therefore, there is only one real requirement for this part of your writing experience: your idea has to be something that interests you enough to make you want to keep exploring it further, until you can find a story spinning out of it. As long as you can do this, there is literally no such thing as a bad idea, or an idea of the wrong type. If you cannot use an idea, than that just means that the idea is incomplete, and will not currently allow you write your novel. Let me repeat this: any idea, no matter how wacky, apparently limited, or completely bizarre, can be spun out into a novel...if it has garnered your interest enough to make you want to keep exploring it past the point where you've nailed down all the technical details surrounding it. Likewise, any idea that does not garner your interest as a writer, no matter how appropriate, will never be enough to let you write a novel. This holds true for both fiction and non-fiction alike. Thus, it is not necessary to feel intimidated, or to worry if your idea is good enough, or even to try to pick between one of two or three ideas (seriously, if you're stuck trying to pick between two or three ideas, and you can't make yourself explore just one...find a way to merge them into one big super-idea, and move on). As long as you aren't trying to run several mutually exclusive ideas in the same novel--and sometimes, even if you are trying to run several mutually exclusive ideas into the same novel--you're good to go. Jim Butcher, and others, have proven that the quality of your ideas matters much less than what you do with them, and how much they inspire you to explore them.

Where do the ideas come from? Who knows? That is an answer that is likely unique to each and every author ever to be published. I've read of authors who got their idea from their editor or publisher (or, occasionally, from a discussion that involved far too much alcohol, and far too little common sense), I've read about authors who get the idea from seeing a cheesy science fiction movie, and I've read of authors who got their ideas because they were bored of being accountants, and wanted a bit of variety. Where you get your ideas is not important. Only two things are really important: that these ideas intrigue you enough to be worth exploring, and that you write them down.

Seriously. I've lost more ideas to not writing them down than I care to think about. I get this wonderful idea, usually on the car ride home from work, and, all too often, I just say "oh, I'll remember that later." But, of course, I never do. Thankfully, I've generally got enough ideas careening through my head at any given moment to be able to replace any that I lose to absent-mindedness, but the fact remains that I lose quite a few, and that people who are more organized than I am can quite easily take advantage of a lot more of their really good (and relevant) ideas than I can. So the biggest advice I can offer here is to write your ideas down.

Mostly, you'll come up with your ideas just in your day-to-day life, when you see something that strikes you as a little off, or somebody says something that strikes you as being cool, awesome, bizarre, or even just hilarious. Sometimes these comments will be just a sentence or two. Sometimes, they'll be longer. Sometimes, they won't. I've written at least one story based on my mother yelling at the squirrels on our bird-feeder (something which she flatly denies is possible, by the way). Other people get their ideas from other places. Typically, I would strongly suggest that you avoid picking up ideas from mass media movements or large political groups, since any idea that has spread that far will almost always have been spin-doctored and edited down the point where it is almost impossible to create a workable piece of fiction from it without creating a strawman in the process. And don't ever pick up an idea out of frustration at the people around you, either, as that will rarely come across as anything but mean, angry, or some combination of the two.

Now, on occasion you may find yourself without any good ideas to work with. Well...you know how I said that any idea that interests you enough to explore beyond the technical details could work to create a story? Well, it works in reverse--any subject that you know well enough to take it apart to the bare technical details can be used to generate an idea. It's a bit risky to do this, since you're basically forcing an engagement of your attention, and if you, the author, cannot actively engage in your work, than neither can the reader. But...like I said, you can force an idea to come to you, regardless of how odd it might seem, and it's actually relatively easy to do. I'm sure that there are lots of methods to do this, but the method I use was something that I put together for a business class where I had to come up with an original marketing campaign for something or the other (I think it was coffee, but I'm not sure).

First, take something you know. It can be anything, although if you're trying to be a marketing person, it sometimes helps if it's related to what you're trying to sell. Either way, once you've got that something, start deconstructing it—look at how it works, then break the hows down into the whys, and the whys down into the whats. Once you've got it broken down as far as it can go (and if you've practiced this a bit, it will break down an awful long way, as modern society is really pretty complex and interconnected), then you start looking for the obvious. What you're doing is looking for the basic, underlying assumption—that a horse racing track will be used to race horses on, for instance. This underlying assumption is going to be the one or two little details that makes everything else make sense, that turns the collection of details into a seamless whole, as opposed to just a bunch of people getting together to do something weird at random.

Got it? Good. Now...change that fundamental. Make it into something else entirely. Instead of horse races, for instance, we've got porpoise races. Instead of ghost hunters, you've got gerbil hunters, where brave television crews try to track down the elusive, hauntingly beautiful, and often surprisingly deadly North American Ghost Gerbil. And so on and so forth. Once you've done that, you go back, and rebuild the concept or event or whatever that you've mentally dissected around your newly changed fundamental. When you're done, you're going to have something that is just close enough to be familiar...and yet radically different enough to require a major exploration. Whether or not this is enough to engage your interest...I don't know. That will be up to you, I suppose.

P.S. If you write a story about the gerbil hunters, I want credit for the original idea, just because that kind of story would be totally awesome, and I want to bask in some of the reflected awesome.


The Plot Archetype:
Oddly enough, nearly all fiction in the English language tends to be derived in some way or another from a certain limited number of archetypical over-stories. The story of the maiden in the tower—Rapunzel--is an example of one of these, as is the story of the star-crossed lovers found in Romeo and Juliet. This seeming lack of variety seems to occur mostly because because the culture that so much of the world has inherited from that tiny island off the coast of Europe tends to center around certain concepts, and these plot archetypes are the ones that best make use of and illustrate those concepts. The concept of chivalry, of the knights in shining armor riding to the rescue is one of those concepts, as is the idea of ironic justice, and the defeat of the wicked. Other cultures often have other concepts, which can give you some interesting ideas if you're familiar enough with other cultures to pick those concepts out, but that is often quite challenging, and, honestly, I can't do it, since I don't know any non Anglo-derived cultures well enough to even try.

Regardless, there are about fifty or so of these over-stories in the English language, and almost every work of fiction written in the Anglosphere (those countries whose culture is primarily derived from that of Great Britain) will usually in some way, shape, or form fit into the description of those archetypes. It doesn't really matter which, but you need to select one now, so that you know what shape your story will take, and what kind of patterns of narrative causality will generally be required to make your story work later on.

Be aware, by the way, that there is nothing preventing you from mixing and matching plot archetypes--doing so may put more restrictions on you, long-term, but it also lets you create stories that are much more original-seeming, and keeps you from seeming like just another copycat. Likewise, don't be afraid to change details for the plot archetype you plan to use--just because the archetype is tried and tested, doesn't mean that it won't ever be improved.




Establishing the Setting:
Once you've chosen the genre, the next step is to create the setting. This is not the same thing as world-building, and should not occupy anywhere close to as much time—you should be able to establish all of the critical details within five sentences or less. Remember that every sentence you use when first establishing the setting adds further limitations to where you can go, what you can do, and what kind of a world you can put together, so, again, five sentences or less are generally to be preferred. With this in mind, it may take several attempts to chop down the setting description to the point where it can be expressed in only five sentences...but it can, and should, be done, because this is going to control everything else about your world building.

So...what's a critical detail? That's actually a bit tricky to answer, since it seems to vary from setting to setting (and from author to author). Basically, for me, they're typically the first fifteen to twenty details to pop into my mind when I look at the setting, with all fifteen to twenty boiled down until they can be fit into five sentences or so (which inevitably means that some get discarded, because they can't be boiled down easily). Generally, this is enough to let me get an image in my mind as to what the world will be like...but no more than that, because if I get more than just an image, I start to bog down in the world building stage, and don't go anywhere.

Now, all that said, the setting description can be longer—the description for Warhammer 40000 AD, for instance, stands out for being multiple paragraphs in length, and still giving plenty of room or scope to write a wide variety of stories within the same setting (it also serves as the standard intro to every WH40K book). But even here, they have stuck to a crucial basic principle: simplicity works best, and no matter how big or how small the setting description, you cannot leave the bounds of that description.


Choosing The Primary Theme(s):
Every story that lasts for more than a ten lines will always have a theme of some kind, something to allow the story to connect with the reader, and to convey a message of some kind. Sometimes, the reader will accept the theme, and sometimes they'll deny it...but the theme is always there. Written fiction is no different, and which theme you choose is very important, since it will drive so much of the story.

Themes in a novel, or any other lengthy story, tend to come as one of five flavors: the primary theme, the secondary theme, the character themes, the plotting themes, and the environmental themes. Each of these serves a different purpose, and each of them has to be portrayed in a different manner. Most of these themes are effectively invisible, if not completely unconscious, often to both readers, and to the audience—the only reason I know that they are there is because I am extremely autistic, and have had to sort of put together a kind of weird mathematical formula to get my stories to the point where they can engage my audience with any degree of success.

Of the five, the primary theme is what typically has the biggest conscious impact on your readers, because it is mostly what determines the nature of the conflict, as well as a great deal of the emotional basis for what makes the story's central conflict important. For this reason, you typically will never want to have more than two primary themes in any story you write: one primary theme will convey the action/consequences effect, while the other will be conveyed by the threat and/or the villain's actions and comments. Generally, that's about as complex as you want to get—anything more, and you run the very real risk of losing your audience--and you'll find yourself providing most of your variation on these two themes in various story arcs, character points of view, and so forth and so on by slight shifts in emphasis, methodology, and viewpoints on those two themes.

You don't actually need two themes, by the way—most authors will usually only use one primary theme (or sometimes a cluster of primary themes that follow a single central idea), and even I tend to focus primarily on one of the two, with the other sounding as a sort of muted counterpoint to the first. The reason I advocate two is almost purely technical, and may be unique to my own mind: namely, that using two themes allows one theme to modify or resonate with the other, which helps avoid becoming excessively preachy, or giving a two hundred plus page lecture in the form of a novel. This is something which I have serious trouble avoiding, as those of you who've read my posts elsewhere can attest to, so I've had to try several methods to shut down the preachiness, and this method of using twinned primary themes seems to be the one that works best. That said, there is a reason most authors use just one primary theme, as it is much, much easier to write, and it runs a much lesser risk of an editor, a publisher, or even beta reader deciding that they don't like one of the themes, and nixing the whole story, and/or forcing a major rewrite. If your editor, beta readers, or whatever, decide that one theme doesn't resonate, it is likely that your audience will as well, so it generally pays to follow their advice.




Choosing the Secondary Theme:
Almost all stories will have a secondary theme (or themes) to go with the primary. These themes are, and should be, much less important in shaping the story, and are much more important for governing how characters will interact, what the boundaries of the other themes are, how they work together, how they're expressed, and why the story actually works. Basically, while the primary theme is the story's emotional and moral message, the secondary theme is the modulation used to convey that message--basically, your primary theme says that pollution (for example) is bad, while the secondary theme tells the reader that pollution is bad because.... If you've done it right, these secondary themes should be either almost impossible to separate from the primary themes, or they should be almost invisible, simply disappearing beneath the general noise of the rest of the story. A lot of authors are so good at this, in fact, that the secondary themes only show up as an unconscious element within the story, meaning that some readers are left disliking a work, and never really knowing why (my brother falls victim to this a lot).

This is, in many ways, a behind-the-scenes decision, one that should have relatively minimal impact upon your decisions, and will only really impact your method of execution. You're going to be using this to build your fluff, make your jokes, and determine which details are important, and which are just means to convey a point...but you should never make the secondary themes easy to identify. You should also never assume that the secondary themes are any less important than the primary themes, because, among other things, they modulate and help to convey the primary themes, and serve to express the intricacies and depths that you have included in your tales. The secondary themes don't have to be complex, and they don't have to be prominent...but they do have to be there, and they have to be something that can relate to the primary themes, either reinforcing them, or simply allowing readers to focus in on one particular aspect of the primary themes, ideally allowing the readers to see cleanly and easily how the primary themes interact with other ideas or lessons.



Creating the Antagonist(s)
You would think that this would be the point where you put together your protagonist. You would, however, be wrong. The protagonist is...well...I won't say that they're unimportant. But they're not really all that important. Or, to be more precise, they are not important yet. The antagonist, on the other hand, is the last of the central elements to your story's primary conflict, and will provide one of the major elements that determines the themes that you will use in the rest of your story, as well as being the primary driving element in your story's plot. This is really important, so I'm going to repeat this: whether it is just another aspect of the protagonist's personality, an environmental obstacle, or an actual villain, the antagonist is the story's main driver. The antagonist sets the pace, determines the direction, dictates the climax, and, finally, is the one to declare your story or tale over. In a very real sense, the story you tell has little to nothing to do with the heroes. It is, first, last, and always a story about the antagonist—their success, their failure, their choices, and their decisions at a critical moment.

Because of this, you will need to determine the what, the how, and sometimes the when concerning your antagonist early, because you will basically shape your entire story around him, her, it, or...non-it? Whatever. The point is, now is when you must put together your antagonist, because while the protagonist might not matter, the antagonist always matters. They are the target for the protagonist's growth, after all, and will be the bar that the protagonist must pass. It should be noted, because this is America, and we tend to think along certain lines unless we make a conscious effort not to, that the protagonist''s growth does not always mean getting stronger, more powerful, or better informed. It can also mean that they get more skilled in using what they do have, or take the time to track down an antagonist who dwells in the shadows, or even trust their gut, take a gamble, and just plain out-maneuver their opponent. The fashion, these days, is to go for brute force...but I've seen lots of very good shows, books, games, and so on, where the protagonists' power is largely useless, and their ability to get inside the antagonist's head, or just out-pace them, is what wins the day.


Creating the Central Conflict:
This is something that I rarely bother with, because, in a very real sense, I've already done it. But...it's a standard part of the normal story-writing procedure. Why? Because that's how it is done.

Which begs a question: why don't I do it?
Remember the whole Primary/Secondary Theme steps? Well...one of the first times those choices come into play is right here. The theme creates a premise. The premise creates a sort of dramatic argument, or an argument that will be acted out by the characters and other forces in the story. So by the end of the Secondary Theme selection, I already know what the conflict will be about, and what form it will take. Establishing the setting gives me the starting point of the conflict, and the plot archetype tells me the direction it will go (including whether or not the antagonist/conflict will change). Finally, by describing the antagonist, I've made note of the type of conflict, and how far the conflict can be pushed by one side or the other. Finally, the genre selection determines what kinds of powers and/or power blocs will be getting involved, and what kinds of action I should expect to see.

So by this point, I know everything except whether this will be a quest for a macguffin, or something similar. Since this kind of knowledge really isn't critical to the story at this point, I don't like to think about it until I get to Plotting.

However...writing things down is never a bad idea. Writing explicit details down rarely hurts, and will often help you recover if you find that you've painted yourself into a corner. I can get away with not doing this because I have the next best thing to a photographic memory when I actually concentrate on something. But even I forget things...so take the time, and write out all the details I've mentioned above. I don't do it...but that's because I'm sloppy, and doing things stupidly, not because it's not important.


Creating Your Mnemonic
This one is somewhat counter-intuitive, and it takes a lot of practice to be able to do it reliably...but it's also probably the single biggest factor in whether or not you'll be able to complete your stories when you get distracted. Note that I said when, not if, because you will be distracted, either by real life, by another idea, by the need for more research, or even by an unfortunate forum post and thread. It's going to happen, so you might as well plan for it.

Simply put, the Mnemonic is what you use to put yourself back into the right frame of mind to write your story. It can be a word, or a name, or a scent. I prefer to use a particular scene, or a naming convention, or sometimes just a mental image of a particular aspect of the story, but what I've learned about mnemonics says that it can be anything, as long as your brain can put together a logical chain that puts you in mind of your story on command.

As I said, this will be incredibly important, particularly if you wish your tale to be published professionally, because there will, by necessity, be a lot of stop-and-start work involved in the publishing process (this happens when you've got to work around multiple schedules). By now, the initial inspiration for this story should be growing—and, to be honest, it should be mutating, and becoming something that you did not expect. Whether or not your final story has any resemblance to your original inspiration is an open question...but your mnemonic will not change, since it's the memory key to the whole thing—if your mnemonic shifts, the tone, plot, and characterization will also frequently shift, often resulting in a different story entirely. That said, the mnemonic does not need to be relevant to the story to work...and I can't tell you how to create one, since the mnemonic is going to have to be completely unique for each story, author, and idea.

There are a number of methods you can use to create a mnemonic, but all of them revolve around one thing: it has to be something that you can remember, and easily associate with a particular subject or pattern. Which it will be depends almost entirely on you, but I will urge you to make very certain that you haven't used a particular mnemonic device before, since that can lead to embarrassing confusion. Personally, I prefer images or songs, since both are primarily oriented towards engendering a certain emotion in the viewer/listener, but other people use other methods.

For more information on mnemonics, check out these sites:

https://eastasiastudent.net/study/make-mnemonics/
https://www.coursearc.com/how-create-mnemonic-devices-help-students-remember/
https://www.learningassistance.com/2006/january/mnemonics.html



Doing the Research:
The human mind is created to find patterns, verify information, and in general learn from our environment, and process information. It is explicitly designed to sort truth from fiction, and to make absolutely sure that we know fantasy from reality. This is a major survival mechanism, which should mean that it is effectively impossible for any person on this planet to enjoy fiction of any kind, and especially not the really obviously untrue types of fiction, such as science fiction, fantasy, and so forth and so on.

In other words, the human mind exists to make suspension of disbelief impossible. Don't believe me? Try walking around with a tinfoil hat sometime. You're going to get a lot of people looking at you like you're crazy...and almost all of the ones you try to explain this to will act as if they know you're crazy. It doesn't really matter how persuasive you are, they'll know you're crazy. This is a fundamental aspect of the human brain, and it is something that authors of every kind have to find a way to work around.

The easiest way around this, in my experience, is to have something that the reader can verify, either against something you've said earlier in your story, or against something that they either already know, or that they can look up on their own with relatively little effort. This is one of the oldest tricks known to man, one that is used by salesmen, spies, authors, politicians, and all kinds of other people. If the human mind can latch on to enough details that seem to be correct, than it will automatically assign a general feel of truth to the entire story, meaning that you have started to create a suspension of disbelief.

What kinds of details you use to establish your tale's integrity is going to be an entirely personal and stylistic choice, although you will never be able to use any of your themes to accomplish this. This is all about the little details, the things the themes don't really have any relevance to. This will almost inevitably require a great deal of research, as well as a large degree of careful thought and planning. Knowing what you will likely have to research, or, failing that, at least having a good idea of where you can get your sources, is a critical part of being a good author.

Personally, I have found that it is tremendously helpful to be able to put together a list of research topics before I start any work, which can take some serious searching. Since I have a near-photographic memory for random information, and a phenomenal ability to make connections between said bits of random information, I rarely need to bother with finding sources that I already know about--but other people work differently, and you should always keep an idea of what, exactly, you'll need to know for your story so that you can convey the important details. This will never be a complete list, and you'll always find something else to use...but it gives you a good starting point, and you're going to need that to continue.


If you're writing fantasy stories, like I prefer to, check out LordSquishy's thread on potential sources, to get a good idea of where you can go to find good sources for information. Other authors have other places that they prefer to go, depending on their genre and knowledge base. Part of being a good writer is to develop your own information network, however, so never stop looking for places to find more information.

 

[Numen]

This has been a fascinating read. Thank you very much. Lots to study here.

 

[7734]

This is a fairly good start. That said, you left out the focus of conflict, which I can find to be just as or more important than themes.

 

[Partizan]

Thank you.

Now: I promised you an example, so you could see how it worked when I actually used it.

The Idea
The basic idea behind this story is that Robert Jones (usually known as Rob)(note: the name may/will change later, to give me something that sounds right, but is still easy to remember), bored with his life as a farmer in the Empyrean Confederation, has set out to see the world, and to seek his fortune. He is wildly successful in this, and, by the time he is done, he has not simply defeated the darkness that has ruled over the city of Rima, but he has also been asked to rule the city as its newly-crowned king, the first purely human king the city has ever had.

Notes:
Oddly enough, this has actually happened before, and in relatively recent memory—the James Brooke, the White Rajah of Sarawak, for instance, was one of Brunei, for instance, one such individual. His family's hereditary kingdom would later become the basis for Malaysian presence on Borneo, after the kingdom was bankrupted during the fighting in WWII, and was forced to become a Crown Colony in order to pay for the rebuilding.

As for the actual idea, I have no idea where it came from. I've been playing around with the basic setting for quite some time, and the themes are something I've been thinking about for a while, as well, but I've never really found something that really fit with either of them, until this. Somehow, the idea of somebody who went out to seek their fortune, and ended up with a kingdom instead, kind of appeals to me. In retrospect, this may have originated from an old movie from Monty Python I saw...but then again, maybe not.



The Over-plot:
Although I actually have a few plots to choose from, I think I'm going to do this roughly along the lines of the story of David: start out with a spectacular and heroic deed, which lets our hero gain prominence, followed by the loss of public standing, being forced to go underground, trying to survive as an outlaw and then an outlaw leader (with a steadily growing band of outlaws to back him up), before finally, on the king's death, taking over the rule of first part of the city, and, ultimately, the entire city.

To make this a little more original, I'm going to be altering a few things. For one thing, the MC's band, while it may number hundreds, isn't going to answer to him directly, to keep the cast size sort of vaguely under control. Instead, the MC will be relying on no more than five or six others (probably four, in point of fact), most of whom will be female, who may have their own merry bands that answer to them. As well, I'm going to try to keep the resolve not to kill the king to a minimum—the hero will have no problems with the idea, he just won't get the chance to realistically do so for a bit. Finally, I think I'll adjust the whole kingship as a reward thing to better fit the setting: the main character shouldn't want to be king, particularly not when there are so many supernatural creatures within the city. Instead, I think I will make the kingship almost something given to him as a punishment, a sort of retaliation for leaving the city unprotected (or perhaps ungoverned), if you will.

Notes:
For those of you who are only familiar with the story of David and Goliath, David, who started out as a not-very-simple shepherd boy, was not simply skilled with a sling, not to mention other weapons, but also in music (and may have had additional education besides this), and served as King Saul's harpist for several months. In point of fact, he first became known not for his skill at arms, but for his abilities as a musician, which fact was super-ceded by his killing of Goliath. After the slaying of Goliath, David became not simply a royal musician, but also a general in Saul's armies, and began to become increasingly popular throughout the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Saul, mindful of the threat this might eventually pose, began to become increasingly alarmed by this, despite the fact that David, who had become very close friends with Saul's son Jonathan, had little to no ambition for the throne. Eventually, Saul decided that he was going to have to kill David, and David skipped out of town one step ahead of the executioner, first fleeing to Nob, where he was given Goliath's sword--no word on how he could use the darned thing, given how huge and powerful Goliath was--and then to Goliath's home city, where he tried to defect to the Philistines. When he was turned away by the Philistine king, he instead fled to the wilderness via a stop in Moab, and a quick stop by the city of Keilah, where his six hundred men turned back a Philistine invasion. When Saul pursued David, David managed to sneak up to Saul and do one of a variety of things, which may or may not have led to a temporary reconciliation...but regardless, David was soon forced to flee to the Philistines again, which eventually lead to the Philistines marching on Israel (David was told to stay away, because the Philistines didn't trust him), and Saul and Jonathan's death in battle. After a brief civil war, David became king of all Israel, and led Israel into its golden age.

This has pretty much all the elements I'm looking for, and gives me a basic idea of what the plot will entail. This, in turn, gives me a feel for the city, what its environs will have to be like, and what its governing structure is probably like, as well as a vague idea of what kinds of characters I'll need, what kinds of events will be involved, and how long this process will take. A lot of this will be changed, of course, but right now I don't need to know the exact details--I just need to know vaguely what will happen.


Choosing Your Genre:
For obvious reasons, there are limited genres I can use with this kind of story. Only science fiction and fantasy really fit the bill—there are other types of story that might do the job, but...eh. Not really, not with current, modern conventions (of course, were I willing to settle for less than kingship, this would change...but I'm not, so there you are). Plus, fantasy is one of only a few genres of morality fiction, and of them, it's the only one that really lets me swap out more outrageous ideas to stand in for modern concepts. This helps negate some degree of ignorance of how these things work, letting me stretch my wings just that little bit wider. Of course, flapping said wings is a little bit more energy-intensive when they're stretched like this, but that's the price. There's no such thing as a free writing, after all.

I'm probably going to go for a sort of vague feel of adventure fantasy--quest-based fantasy, I think it's called. That is to say, I'll concentrate on telling the tale as the hero sees it, and pay a lot less attention to the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that he is unwittingly (perhaps) taking advantage of. I don't want the feel of an epic quest...but I will need the feel that this could have been an epic quest, if things had turned out slightly different.

Notes:
Fantasy, along with mysteries, is basically a morality play, where the good guys always have to win, and, more importantly, they have to win by being "good guys". Science fiction has elements of this, but sci-fi tends to focus much more on the idea of a projection of current trends, which are usually carefully selected to give the desired result, or upon a particular aspect of modern society, which is then amplified, and placed in a setting to make it even more obvious. This is due to the fact that one of the basic premises of science fiction is to imagine where we will, or even just where we could go in the future: where will we be twenty years from now, where will we be in fifty years, or two thousand years from now...or, alternatively, where would we be if this one thing were all that society really cared about? Science fiction asks the hard questions about us as a society that we really don't want to answer, or sometimes which we don't even wish to ask, but it does so by manipulating the setting in such a way so as to make the question (hopefully) non-obvious, or even to have already answered the question before it can be asked. This takes a certain degree of subtlety, and a certain degree of being able to read the audience's minds, and run with their expectations, something which I've never been good at. Because of this, I tend to leave the genre alone in my writing, although I do enjoy reading good science fiction.


Establishing the Setting:
This is really sort of an age of Conan, except quite a bit worse, for here the shadowy monsters and the spectres rule openly, and it mankind that huddles in the corner, hoping not to be noticed. This is a time when the dragons still reign largely unchecked, when demons and monsters rule entire cities of humans, and the mortals they hold power over can do little but cower in fear, and hope to make bargains of one sort or another to gain the strength to have some say in their destiny. This is not a time when adventurers flourish...it is a time before that, a time when even the concept of adventurers is nothing more than a fond dream of what life might be like, in the far-distant future of the mortal races, if the gods smile upon them, and they are able to somehow gather the strength to challenge their immortal overlords. Humans, in particular, have been largely helpless for thousands of years, and this helplessness has bred contempt...and that contempt has bred resentment, and even hatred. Being humans, they're starting to develop ways to fight back, to drive out the trolls, hunt down the werewolves, and to slowly but surely force the world around them to yield to human wills, instead of the other way around. A war is brewing, a war that most of the supernatural creatures in the world do not even realize is possible, a war where humans and other mortals will rise up against those who have long ruled them harshly, callously, and often painfully, and the only thing that even the most perceptive and far-seeing among the world's inhabitants can say for certain is that, whether the non-humans win or lose, they will most certainly pay a bloody, bloody price before the war can finally end.




Notes:
I think this is about a sentence longer than I said you should use, but I wanted to add that little extra bit about the coming war. In my head, the mortal races, led by the humans, simply because there are so many more humans than anything else, are slowly developing to the point where they can become a threat to the weaker supernatural creatures. The time will come, and not too many centuries into the future, when the vampires, the werewolves, and the other minor supernatural beasts will find themselves forced to serve the greater powers of the world simply to protect themselves from their former mortal prey...and I can't really see the mortals stopping there, either. Ultimately, the war will be long, it will be bloody, and the outcome will be inevitable--there are just too many mortals, and they adapt too quickly, for the outcome to be anything else.

The initial summary of the setting—which I still may use, because I kind of like how it came out—was something like three paragraphs long, including something like fifteen sentences. In a lot of ways, this is entirely too long, even if it is a bit more poetic, so I then went back and condensed, contained, and controlled the wording, so that I could have only a handful of major aspects, each of which could be covered with just a single sentence. That said, I really think the original may have conveyed the intended impression a bit better.

This a world that exists long before the rise of the mortal races to dominate the material world. Here, the mortal race live with and around monsters on a daily basis, huddled together in tiny villages and communities, praying that those who are bigger, stronger, tougher, faster, and more magically powerful and adept than they will not take offense at their meager livelihoods, and move to exterminate them. This is a world where mortals serve, not rule, where gods care little for the affairs of men or elves, and where their masters view them as little more than tools, pawns to play games with, or even as nothing more than another kind of food...and that's if the mortals are lucky. But this dominance, which so many take for granted, will not always persist, and there are signs, if you know where to look, of places where that absolute rule over the pathetic mortal races is beginning to show the strain, for there are few things as dangerous as mortals who have decided they have nothing to lose. Escaped villagers, bandit gangs, and even a handful of dominions who have managed to overthrow their lords, and establish their independence—the cracks are there, and for every human, elf, of dwarf who manages to slide through the cracks, the pressure upon those who think themselves greater than they grows.

In the meantime, for those who would be more than simple pawns (or snacks), there are ways to become powerful, ways to become more than simple pieces on the board. Scattered across the land are the Houses, humans who have sworn to serve a more powerful being unconditionally in exchange for their blessing, making them far more dangerous than the average human, and perhaps strong enough to become a minor power to be reckoned with. Other humans have sworn their souls and those of their families and friends to dark gods or ancient devils, becoming their priests or agents upon the world; and a handful of tribes have learned magics so rare and so important that even the oldest beings upon this world must treat them with respect...or, at least, acknowledge that these individuals are a little bit less expendable than is the norm.

And, of course, there are others, as well: necromancers, dark sorcerers, witches, and more, all of them men and women who have traded not their souls, but perhaps something even more precious for the power to seize dominance over their neighbors, and, in so doing, make their own name in a world that regards them as nothing more than pets...or pests. And over all of this rises the shadow of another god, one who may be of the Light, or the Dark, but who always stands aloof from all, man and demon alike, and moves mysteriously, for purposes unknown to any.

Basically, the idea is that this story is set in an age when humans are seen as nothing more than cattle—vampires, werewolves, demons, succubi, incubi, dragons, angels (though these are rare), fae lords, elves, dwarfs, trolls, giants, and many, many, many more are the races who truly rule the world, and they see humans, who have few advantages, and no real strengths in battle, as beings who are not fit to do anything more than serve (and, generally, to serve poorly). Humans, being unable to directly match these races, have little choice but to accept this verdict...but make no mistake, humans are not happy about this, and there is a lot of hate building up behind the carefully subservient expressions and the purposefully obedient behavior.



Choosing The Primary Theme(s):
The story as I've created it so far suggests two primary themes, both of which I think will work very well for this story. The first, which I will try to make the more obvious theme, is the idea that personal gain, or profit, is not necessarily mutually exclusive with doing the right thing—the main character, along with his allies, are mostly doing this for their own benefit, yes, but that doesn't the fact that the monsters they've destroyed are, in fact, monsters, nor does it change their shock (and trepidation) when the main character is offered the crown. The crown was not what they sought, after all--they just sought a cash reward, not some kind of epic status known all over the world.

This leads into the second primary theme: that with great responsibility, comes great power. The heroes didn't do this to assume rule over the city—they wanted to get paid, and then go home. Essentially, they were fighting to get their property back, not to seize power. However, seeing the chaos they left the city in, they assume responsibility, and that, in the end, is what makes them worthy to rule.

Notes:
I actually have a list of themes--and it's a long list--that seem to be something that nobody else really thinks about. I suspect that this is true of most writers-, since it seems that there is something about writing that seems to induce a peculiar kind of insanity in those who partake in the craft. This might explain why it seems like every professional author I have ever heard of is, at a minimum, somewhat eccentric, and is often a bit nuts. Mind you, there is typically much more method than madness in the mind of anybody who does this seriously...but I'm pretty sure that there's a fair amount of madness involved. And yeah, I'm no exception, except for the part where I'm not really sure that the method outweighs the madness (there is a LOT of madness).


Choosing the Secondary Theme:
It took a while to figure this out, but I think that the idea of freedom, especially of what makes for freedom, will likely be a good secondary theme, perhaps along with the idea that those with great power have correspondingly less freedom (unless they wish to abuse that power, anyway).

Freedom, at its heart, boils down to three things: the right to be paid for one's labor, the right to be an asshole in public, and the right to choose when and for what one will be killed. These may seem like very minor things, comparatively speaking, but pretty much every aspect of what we consider freedom to mean originally comes from one or more of those three things. Two of these will be covered automatically, just by the bits of plot I've worked out so far—I will need to figure out how the right to be a pain in the neck will have an impact upon the primary themes, and fit into the secondary theme.

Notes:
Secondary themes are hard to choose, and I don't yet know if these two will really serve my purpose. Typically, I have found that it works best for me to have secondary themes that are only somewhat aligned to my primary themes, as this cuts down on my tendency to lecture.


Creating the Villain(s)
The villain will be Malor, the demon lord. Malor isn't a particularly powerful demon lord, which means that his fall will not be cause for widespread fighting amongst his peers, rivals, enemies, and so forth and so on. However, despite this relative lack of power, he is still ambitious, and wishes for greater power over temporal affairs. He is unable to claim it, both because he lacks the power to overwhelm potential rivals, and because, frankly, he isn't smart enough to make up the difference (although he believes that he is). He mistakes fear for respect, and silence for obedience, meaning that he is never really in control of the city, and can simply dictate that the city's elites do or not do as he wishes. As events get more and more obviously beyond his ability to control them—or even to understand them—he comes closer and closer to the edge of madness, until the heroes finally have no option but to confront and destroy him, lest he simply slaughter the city's population out of sheer ignorance of anything else to do.
Even when he is slain, however, his ghost lingers on (metaphorically speaking), and it is not until the heroes step forward to assume his position that the chaos in the city begins to linger.


Notes:
Mortals, particularly humans, are NOT respected, or valued, in this world. The typical reaction to deeds of valor committed by human, elf, or dwarf warriors is to regard them as having transcended their handicaps...for now, anyway. Though the demons, dragons, and so forth tell themselves that this is because the mortal races clearly have no real strength, value, or even wisdom, in part, this stems from fear, for even the most arrogant of the greater and lesser powers that claim to rule this land can recognize the threat that the mortal races might pose if left untended—while they do not have any true power individually, their numbers have grown exponentially over the millennia, to the point where, were they to combine, they might conceivably pose a threat to some of the races that claim to rule them. Worse, the oldest among the greater races can remember a time when this was not the case, when mortals were few, and far between, and were rightfully ignored as being completely inconsequential.
Thus, for the city to accept a mortal as its ruler—and not just any mortal, but a mortal with NO outside source of power—there must truly be no other choice. This in turn means that there cannot be any other existing power structure to fall back upon, either because the heroes have destroyed it, or because there never was one to begin with (or, even more likely, both). In either case, a certain lack of trust, respect, and a certain degree of foolishness on the part of the ruler is required. Even the smallest degree of trust, over the long term, would allow a certain degree of permanence to form, which would automatically create a sort of government/power structure, as is witnessed by the regimes of dictators all over the world. This, in turn, means that there must be a reason why the city is still ruled by such an individual. This must come down to sheer, raw, power, hence the reason why we're dealing with a demon lord. He's a lesser demon lord, because I don't (yet) want to trigger a general war when he is defeated, and because I want it to be clear why there really isn't anybody left who feels that they can hold even part of the city on their own—if he were a major demon lord, he would have drawn sufficient power to his vicinity to have dragons, djinni, and others in his service, simply because he would be powerful enough to compel their service.

Plus, I don't want this to be some great crusade, or even the start of a crusade. This is nothing more than random chance—Malor happened to meet up with somebody who could take him, who he did not take seriously because they were just simple humans, which led to his downfall. Ultimately, this DOES change everything...but it will take centuries, or even scores of centuries, for the results of those changes to start to appear.


Creating Your Mnemonic
The Mnemonic that I have chosen is probably the second thing to pop into my head after I came up with this idea: the idea of two of the characters fighting, one with a sword, and the other with a quarterstaff. The quarterstaff's greater length is making it impossible for the sword user to get close enough without getting whacked, which is annoying her to no end, to the point where she is shouting for her opponent to stop hitting her, dammit, and stand still so she can hit him back. I have no idea why, but this seems to be indicative of the entire story, its theme, and its premise—a simple, ordinary man who struggles against foes who he should have absolutely no chance of defeating.

For me, mnemonics almost never show up during the actual story itself, so it is very unlikely that this one will show up. The idea is simply to put me in the mind that this story will require, as well as to get an idea of how the two most important heroes interact. I want simple, if possible, because it's something that I can remember quickly and easily, but I have used more complex mnemonics before. Eventually, this will probably boil down to a single phrase, but by that point I'll likely be far enough into the story that it won't matter.

On a related note, I have been known to use the mnemonic to forcibly break writers block. Heaven alone knows how this works, but somehow, I can use this to rewind the story for quite a ways, and take a look at whether or not something works, and then discard it...or not.

Edit: I had to change the mnemonic for this, both because I didn't like the tone, and because it turned out I was already using that mnemonic for something else. Oops. New mnemonic is "Catch Fire" by Jenova.


Doing the Research:
Doing the research for this will be somewhat challenging. Obviously, the tale of David will be important, as will knowing some of the Biblical history behind it. There are also a few more modern histories I will need to check out, so I can get some idea of how this kind of power consolidates, and what happens when a power vacuum emerges early.
It's too early to really get complete information on what happened in Iraq, which may be the closest modern equivalent of what I want to happen, but Ataturk's revival of Turkey might be worth checking out, as well, particularly if this story continues for long. As well, there are other takes that reflect part of this—I will have to do some more searching to find them.
The fundamental part of this will be finding out what happens when a kingdom or a population loses all traces of centralized authority, and does so very suddenly and sharply. I am guessing a sudden surge of violence, as minor gang leaders try to take over the role that government has been fulfilling until very recently, but I don't actually know this.
I will also need to research traditional weaknesses of demonic lords—I want the bad guy to fall not to some obscure and/or powerful magic, but to something simple, and, if not common, than easy to understand. Salt may be an option, but I remain unsure about this, since salt was rather expensive before we learned how to make it artificially, and using enough to even weaken a demon lord would be prohibitively expensive. Regardless, though, it needs to be something that an ordinary mortal can use, without assistance from any of the city's Powers, or even supernatural creatures.

As for the fictional part, I think I will have three races of mortals: dwarfs, elves, and humans. Of the three, dwarfs are tough, magically sophisticated (sort of), and they fortify to hell and back, meaning that taking out even a minor dwarf settlement is usually a major pain. Elves are in some way linked to the Fae, which is a problem for them, and makes it hard for them to settle outside of the forests that they call home, but they can also use magic more easily than other mortals, and there are enough of them to build some fairly large cities in the forests, where they are both hard to find, and well-defended. Agriculture remains difficult, however, so their spread has been...somewhat slowed by the realities of moving from one climate to another. Humans, on the other hand, can go anywhere, do anything, and are completely defenseless to the other races—they can't really fortify fast enough to hold off their enemies, since they live above ground, and they can't really hide, since they are big on agriculture, which limits them to cleared areas. Elves and dwarfs can get some measure of independence from their supernatural overlords, simply because noticing them is more trouble than it is worth, but humans are typically completely dominated by the supernatural beings. Neither of these three races earns any great respect from the supernatural races, although most of the latter will admit that a mortal woman can be uncommonly beautiful (succubi in particular tend to resent mortals for this, particularly humans, and especially human women, who can, on occasion, put most succubi to shame). I may include kobolds in all of this, simply because I've always been tickled by the story of Tucker's Kobolds, but I am unsure where, how, or even if they should be included. Orcs are unlikely to be included, but goblins will. However, goblins will not be the coulda-beens as they are in most fantasy tales, but the ruthless, ferocious, and very dangerous creatures they were originally believed to be—they're not strong in magic, but they are one of the more physically powerful nations in the Faerie Courts.

The top tier of the supernatural includes dragons of several varieties, demons, angels, high-ranking djinni, faerie lords, and titans. Any one of these creatures could easily wipe out an entire army of mortals on their own, and pose a serious threat to most nations of the supernatural world. Below them are creatures like succubi, imps, the Sidhe faeries, Goblin Lords, frost giants, ice trolls, ogre mages (also known as oni), and so forth and so on. Normal trolls, ogres, most giants, and other creatures of a similar level are the third tier—they'd be more dangerous if they could work together, but as it is, they can barely manage operating as a family, let alone working together as a tribe or a community (to give you an idea, a large giant can take most dragons in a stand-up physical fight...provided that they can reach the dragon, and that the dragon does not simply resort to using magic). Creatures of this level tend to pay attention to mortals, as a sufficiently large and sufficiently determined mortal army can sometimes make life sufficiently unpleasant to drive them away. Below them, on the bottom tier, are vampires, werewolves, and so forth and so on. Any of these creatures is more than a match for an average human, and is typically able to take any two or three normal humans in a fight, but a trained hunter can prove dangerous, and they don't have too many options against the bigger and badder critters themselves. Genies, faeries, giants, and a few other groups tend to run the gamut—you find stupefyingly powerful members of each group, and you find members that are no more than bottom-tier ingrates.

Certain humans (other mortals do it to, but humans are known for it) have somehow sworn allegiance to particularly powerful beings or groups, and have gained some kind of blessing as a result. These humans are divided into Houses, each of which is sworn to the service of one being or group. Each House's blessings vary, depending on the House, but most include extended life, and some kind of enhanced physical performance, as well as increased access to that Power's magical arts. Humans and elves don't really have their own magical arts, as yet, although the dwarfs have created a strange kind of runic magic that seems to be able to enchant objects and items more easily than is normally the case...either that, or the dwarfs are putting substantially more effort into the process than most races would normally bother with.
Humans in particular are also becoming increasingly numerous, and at this point probably comprise over half the population of the known world, but they are absolutely an under-class. Killing a human is considered to be about as serious a crime as killing a cow—it's a problem if it was somebody else's human, but otherwise, it's nobody's business but yours (and in some circumstances, you'll actually get a reward for doing so). This has gotten to the point where it has attracted the attention of a few gods, nature/land spirits, or other beings, all of whom really don't care how powerful their worshipers/agents are, so long as they're willing to devote themselves fully to their patron's cause. By and large, the gods, spirits, etc are playing mostly the same game as those supernatural beings on Earth, but with higher stakes, over a longer term, and with a great deal more in the way of resources and (presumably) intellect.

Research is not just about getting factual information, although that is a requirement as well. It is also about knowing the conventions of the genre, and looking at other authors who have tried similar ideas, and so forth and so on. Research is basically about two things: making sure that your story rings true on the little details, and making sure that you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Don't get me wrong—reinventing the wheel can improve in a slightly or even vastly improved wheel (sometimes literally). But that's not the sort of thing you want to do unless you really, really have to do it—readers expect your story to follow certain conventions, and to use certain ideas. Knowing what those conventions and ideas are, and how other authors use them, can be and often is the key to making sure that your story holds your audience's attention. Ignoring them will almost certainly result in your losing their attention, or never getting it in the first place.

Because of this, research is going to take place in your own head as much as it does in the real world, particularly in fantasy and science fiction. You're trying to nail down how things work, and pick out the important details of your society, here, so you're going to have to do a fair bit of imagining now, before you start world-building, since this is what will define your world-building. Also, for those who haven't caught it, the imagination has revealed another area where I will have to do some research: the lives and status of Jews, Gypsies, and other minorities in Medieval Europe, since they shared something of the same status as humans will in this story.

 

[Partizan]

This is a fairly good start. That said, you left out the focus of conflict, which I can find to be just as or more important than themes.

Click to shrink...

Personally, I normally break this up--the over-plot will have some elements of the focus of the conflict, as will the idea, the setting, and especially the villain. Generally, by the time I've reached the end of the basics, I know pretty darned well what the focus of the conflict is, even if I haven't written it down anywhere. Doing so will almost certainly save time, and make your life easier in the long run...however, I haven't progressed to the point where it has become necessary. Or, for that matter, possible.

As I've mentioned, there is a lot of madness to my method, and as a result of that, I haven't really ever figured out a good way to define the focus of the conflict so that others can follow my reasoning clearly. While I will STRONGLY suggest that any potential writer do as 7734 suggests, I've never really been sure of where, when, or how to do so. Mostly, I just...know what the conflict is, and I don't really know how I know.

If you or anybody else can offer any advice on the subject, or even ask some pertinent questions that will help me figure it out, both I and probably the entire forum (or at least those members who read these threads) would greatly appreciate it. I am NOT too proud to admit that there is a lot that I don't know. The only reason I presume to post this at all is because I've never found anything to address the question beyond "7 steps to write a novel" or something equally silly that really doesn't help unless you already know how to do so. I want this to be here for others to use--whether or not it's my method is irrelevant, so long as others can see it, and make use of it.

 

[7734]

If you or anybody else can offer any advice on the subject, or even ask some pertinent questions that will help me figure it out, both I and probably the entire forum (or at least those members who read these threads) would greatly appreciate it. I am NOT too proud to admit that there is a lot that I don't know. The only reason I presume to post this at all is because I've never found anything to address the question beyond "7 steps to write a novel" or something equally silly that really doesn't help unless you already know how to do so. I want this to be here for others to use--whether or not it's my method is irrelevant, so long as others can see it, and make use of it.

Click to shrink...

See, the way I write, themes are the why of the things. They're ideals, they're motivations, they're the driving force. Conversely, the conflict is what the contrast is. Conflict, to me, is the soul of the novel, wherin everything squares up. You mention developing the villian, but in my mind that's premature because the type of conflict defines the villain. A villain is a discrete entity, whether it is another character, an organization, or even a force ike nature or disease. Without knowing the conflict, you're villain is undefined, and therefore must be coerced into working with the conflict as needed.

Note however that conflict doesn't have to be constant like themes. Because a story starts as the conflict between man and nature does not need to remain bound by man and nature; if a character becomes comfortable in his surroundings, it opens the oportunty for him to introspect and become interned in the conflict of man versus himself or for misfortune to strike and for man to rage against the heavens of his gods.

 

[Partizan]

See, the way I write, themes are the why of the things. They're ideals, they're motivations, they're the driving force. Conversely, the conflict is what the contrast is. Conflict, to me, is the soul of the novel, wherin everything squares up. You mention developing the villian, but in my mind that's premature because the type of conflict defines the villain. A villain is a discrete entity, whether it is another character, an organization, or even a force ike nature or disease. Without knowing the conflict, you're villain is undefined, and therefore must be coerced into working with the conflict as needed.

Note however that conflict doesn't have to be constant like themes. Because a story starts as the conflict between man and nature does not need to remain bound by man and nature; if a character becomes comfortable in his surroundings, it opens the oportunty for him to introspect and become interned in the conflict of man versus himself or for misfortune to strike and for man to rage against the heavens of his gods.

Click to shrink...

That does make sense, yes. It's not the way I write, but it does make sense, and I can see how it would make things easier for a lot of people.

Alright. I'll include it, and attribute it to you.

 

[sunandshadow]

I PMed you, asking for more detail about the kind of feedback you want. In the meanwhile, my first suggestion is that you copy and paste all this into a google doc and share the link here for ease of responding to different parts of what you've written.