How to Start Writing the Book of Your Dreams

we're sisters best friends and authors on a mission to help you stoke your creative fire and live the life of your dreams we believe that purpose fuels passion and that creativity is your secret weapon for mass construction there's never been a better time to bless the world with your dream realized you're listening to the kate and abby show what's up guys welcome back to another episode of the kate and abby show we're super stoked to see you here today we're going to talk about how to start writing a book this is a perfect episode if you are thinking about writing your first book ever it's also a perfect episode if you are wondering how to start writing a new sort of book maybe you're embarking on a new adventure with a new novel with a new series something new that you haven't tried before maybe you're breaking into new genre so this is not just for people starting out for the first time ever writing a book this is for anyone beginning any kind of writing project you'll find some nuggets of gold in this podcast for you this is something that we're both familiar with in fact if i if i can say it go ahead i love how you you already know what it is abby and i just started writing a new series together boom boom so you'll be seeing that in the future hearing about that in the future but that's all i'm going to say for now spoilers yeah no spoilers but so it's interesting starting a project together i feel like this is a good time for us to sink our teeth into this topic because we're both very seasoned writers we've been writing for a long time but now we're starting something new and there are still nuances and differences new things to explore because every writing project is different right exactly whether you're writing by yourself or with somebody else um so true it's it's been an interesting process to see how writing together even though we understand each other's writing dynamics so well and they work together so well it's just a different experience than writing by yourself it's fun yeah it is it's it's really interesting um and i love trying new things especially new genres or new processes because it brings back sort of that beginner's mindset of being able to enjoy something and explore something without just treating it like oh this is old hat i've done this for a while now i'm an expert at this so i don't really need to think about what i'm doing it's it kind of brings you into a new space where you can be an explorer again yeah like for the first time again like how did that i often um see people who will read a book that they really love that becomes like their favorite book ever and they make this comment i've seen a lot of people make this comment of i wish i could go back and read it again for the first time and like have that experience again i've always found that to be a really interesting comment yeah i have too and um i i understand what that i understand that feeling and i think that with a lot of writing i feel the same way about like certain writing projects and that a certain writing project that was really great like oh i wish i could go back and like experience that euphoric feeling of writing something really awesome that i felt really proud of and experienced that again but you can actually do that through trying new things and stepping into it maybe a new genre or a new type of book that you don't necessarily feel super confident comfortable embarking on that journey it is going to be an adventure and that's part of what makes it really fun and cool it is yeah and not taking it too seriously being willing to step out of your comfort zone and know that you know hey it's okay to explore new things and it's okay to feel like you don't know exactly what you're doing that's how we learn right so i think a lot of people whether they're starting like you said a new genre that they've never written in before or if they're starting to write a book for the first time ever are going to wonder where on earth do i begin right in a practical sense and also i think a mindset sense so what are your thoughts on that like first steps if you're a first time writer first steps i would say is first make sure it matters to you and figure out why it matters to you because that's going to be what pulls you through the entire writing process it's going to be what animates you what motivates you and what gets you in front of your computer or your notebook on those slow hard days when you don't feel like writing it is going to propel you through those difficult days and that is going to be at the heart of your story it's going to be the heartbeat of your story it's probably going to be the theme of your story as well so knowing that from go i think is a very important element and i talk about that all the time on my channel um knowing why it matters to you making sure it matters to you and then from from there going into the characters really and i don't mean just like writing up sketches for them or character profiles for them but like becoming the characters in a way and really flushing them out in your mind and creating these characters that you can really sink into and see the world of your story through their eyes yeah i think is one of the most like important elements of storytelling and of course i could use all the technical language that i use to talk about all these things but i don't even want to like say it in a technical way just becoming those characters i think is the most important thing right to really feel like you're in the character's skin yeah really feeling comfortable writing that character because that's what's driving your story forward not the plot not external conflict but the internal internal conflict of your character and so if i i agree with you i think that's one of the most important aspects to concentrate on beyond structure beyond world building beyond all these other plot-oriented things to really nail that character because even if your story doesn't have a lot going on in it even if your story has other flaws if you have a strong character your readers will still fall in love with that character like i mean how many stories have you have we watched together films books we've read where some elements of the story is the story is weak but the character is strong that it's like you don't even really care that much you're like oh yeah i guess i was a little weak but you know the character's so good yeah you know i mean you fall in love with the characters and then you would read or watch anything that happens to those characters doesn't matter if it is something really exciting and adventurous and perilous or if it's something seemingly mundane right um and that is the magic of good character like well-written characters um that is definitely the most important part of storytelling exactly yeah because like especially when you get into action adventure type of story which is what i write science fiction action [Music] fantasy a little bit of like low fantasy stuff you start getting repetitive with some of the things that are happening i'm thinking of like star wars franchise i'm thinking of the marvel franchise here but fans of these franchises are so dedicated to these films to these stories because they've connected with the character and that's important and i totally understand that concept as someone who has watched a lot of those films and i also write in that genre is that yes repetitive things will happen if you're writing that genre of um fiction because you know okay an action sequence when it comes down to it is going to feel a little repetitive sometimes when it's like urban action sequences yeah they'll have a lot in common but if you really nail that character your reader or your viewer won't even care that they're kind of watching the same thing that they saw in the last movie or the thing that they're reading the same sort of thing that they read in the last book because they love the character right yeah and and this is something that i've spent a lot of time obviously analyzing and trying to understand and like understand what is it about certain stories that make you love the characters so much that you would watch anything that happens to them you would read anything that happens to them and throughout these sequences like you're saying it doesn't matter if it's something super action oriented you care so much about the characters themselves that you are just on the edge of your seat so it's like what is that magic element there and what we both talk about all the time on the podcast and on my channel is that element is internal conflict really it's essentially what is going on inside the character what are their motivations what is their agenda what is their desire and what is their fear what is their flaw what is their misbelief about the world knowing those things about the character and showing your reader those things is what makes your reader care about the character they now feel like this is a person that they are familiar with that they're friends with and they know things about their backstory where they come from and why they are the way they are today based on their past based on their beliefs and that is such a colorful well-developed character character that you now have this sense of connection to you know you have this like commitment to them and a loyalty to them and you care about them you don't necessarily have to like them or condone all their behavior but you do care about them and because you care about them it makes everything else that happens important because it's important to the character therefore it's important to you right i think that's such a great distinction that you just made that you don't have to like the character in order to care about the character because it's not necessary to make oh i have to make every character likable not really you just have to make us understand what their internal conflict is understand what they're dealing with what they're working with yeah one of the things i think a lot of writers starting out wonder about when they start digesting some of the information out there in the writing universe is as they embark on their their first writing journey how do they know whether they should be plotting or if they're more inclined to be a pantser and how should they go about that i've seen a lot of people who are like you know what should i do here uh people who end up being pantsers for a while then are like maybe i should be plotting maybe i should how much should i be outlining i think there's a lot of uh thoughts and questions about that yeah yeah there are for sure um that is a huge topic in the writing world for sure and my recommendation to all writers would be to outline at least somewhat so that you know generally where the story is going and that it's going in the direction of the character arc that you intend to write so it doesn't necessarily have to be a positive character arc it could be a negative character arc but there has to be some sort of transformation some sort of character journey or else if it's gonna feel lackluster it's gonna feel like what just happened a bunch of stuff happened and i don't really know why any of it mattered so if the character doesn't go on some sort of transformative journey it's gonna feel flat because it is flat there's no arc you know so being able to structure that arc ahead of time and at least see where you're going a little bit even if not in super detail just being able to see okay i know it's going to flow like this that helps so much to keep your reader focused on what matters to keep you focused on what matters when you're writing it but also to keep your reader focused and to not make to not let your plot meander all over the place you know right exactly i think that's a great point and as you start writing more i think you get a better feel for what sort of outlining or plotting or lack thereof is right for you yes yeah you definitely have to find your own process right every writer has their own process and the thing one of the things that i would say about it is it really doesn't matter anywhere near as much as you think it does when you first start out yeah um some people way overthink it and then you get into like this this procrastination instead of preparation yes because those two things can definitely be mistaken a lot and now you've just become like so focused on preparing and making sure that you have your outline prepared and everything nailed down ahead of time that you end up not either not writing the book itself or being like too overly stressed out to write it because you're thinking so much about oh what if it's not good anymore you've kind of like intimidated yourself into a corner right where you can't write because you're like so scared that you won't live up to your outline or your vision exactly yeah there there is for sure an intimidation factor yeah and when in doubt just shrug it off and be like you know what it doesn't matter that much and just start writing start writing and the thing is you can go back and change stuff but you can't edit a blank page exactly you can't edit a blank page that's so true and for myself i hardly plot at all i usually start a book and i write like i don't know 50 000 words or so before i even start making notes like okay you know this character feels like this about this and i'll write a couple notes for myself in a document but every process is different and there's no right or wrong way to do it because it's art and art has no rules like i can't emphasize that enough that it's more of an explorative process than it is like oh here's how you do it here's how you don't do it no one says that when a painter sits down at a canvas it's like do what you want yeah same thing with writing if you don't want to write any notes fine don't if you want to write a ton of notes fine do that there's really no right or wrong way to do it um but just make sure it's what fits for you and what feels right for your story and i think it will also differ from story to story because like for example this series we started writing together obviously there's a lot more plotting involved because you have two people writing one story so there's a lot of collaboration and i've written a good deal of like backstory for characters and stuff like that because suddenly now it's like well it has to not just be in my own head it has to also be in abby's head and we have to both both be on the same page about um different characters and their mindsets and what they're going through what they think about that character and what what relationship that character has with that character and how does that affect the plot moving forward so there's a lot more plotting so i think that's interesting because depending on what your writing project is your process might be different yeah so it's good to keep an open mindset about that not like oh i do it this way mm-hmm well that might change that might go out the window with the next book you know yeah i mean for sure it's it's really it's really important to be open-minded on all of this and as you were talking i was thinking about like how you said explorative um it's an explorative process and that's how i've kind of recognized your writing process to be is like very explorative and that it seems like like you were just saying how you start writing and then later on you make notes it seems like going into this world that isn't quite created yet and you're like creating it as you go and you're like getting to know these people as they come alive in front of you sort of thing exactly whereas my process is a bit more like i i feel like i kind of step aside and like create it all ahead of time and then like i step into it into the world that's already been like created and fleshed out but some things still change even like i mean this book that i'm currently writing that not our our book but the other one um the lighthouse book is almost finished and i'm like still adding details to the outline and changing things and it's it's a process that i still i still do have like that explorative element that some things are changing as i go but i do obviously a lot of a lot of outlining ahead of time because that's just what i found works best for me but i think what what ends up being the process that works best for you is the one that makes you feel the most creative and free that's a such a true statement yes because that's the goal is to feel liberated creatively yeah something that makes you want to sit down and write if you have painted yourself into a process where you are actually dreading writing your book give it up yeah or it feels like a chore yeah you know some people it's outlining feels like a chore to them for me it's like i can't wait to outline i'm like i get like so excited to go write backstory and like well it's like that imaginary that matches your personality so well that's one of the things that i think um needs to be said for it is that it will kind of depend on your personality yeah like i am not a very organized person at all and so it works for me it feels more instinctively correct to just jump into the ether and let things materialize however they need to whereas for you it's more like no i'm going to like organize this and have this battle plan going forward because that's how you do a lot of other things yeah so it makes so much sense to me that you know for someone who who isn't used to that maybe they're like you know oh i don't have much of a structure then it's going to feel weird to have like oh let's do this rigid structure you might not like it if you're someone super structured you might not like going into something without any plan so you have to really look at like what do i actually like you know what do i actually gravitate toward you know what i mean yeah 100 that's gonna affect your process so if you if you'd like tried to start writing a book and you had a bad experience because you were doing you were trying like somebody else's process trying to fit a square peg into a round hole so to speak and you wanted to make this process work for you but it didn't work for you and then you had a bad experience like oh maybe i'm not maybe i can't write a book that might not actually be true it might just be that you were you know using the wrong process you were using a process that wasn't suited to you and your personality right so i think that that's a huge huge part of it is finding your own process and finding what makes you feel free and the most creative yeah that's the most important thing is to find something that clicks for you try a bunch of different things and it's going to be the same with finding your voice in writing which is another question that i hear people ask like how do i find my voice how do i find my style how do i not feel like i'm just copying or bouncing off of springboarding off of other people's styles and like that's a tricky question to answer but how i would like try to put it into words is that the only way you're going to find your style is to just keep doing you as much as possible and then eventually you'll notice trends that surface like oh i like to write about this i like to write about this i word things like that i really like writing poetic prose or i really like being short and sharp and blunt yeah and getting to know the character too because like you're saying the voice in in my in my opinion writing style or or your writing voice should change based on what character you're writing what book you're writing and um especially like if you're switching characters within the book their points of view like they should all feel a little bit different they shouldn't all feel like you talking exactly they should sound like their own person in a way right so that's that's one of the fun elements i think of writing is that explorative process of of getting to know the characters and becoming them like i was saying in the beginning and that definitely carries over into your writing voice yeah yeah i think the the voice is something that changes a lot and it should change it should be an ebb and flow process especially if you're writing like you were saying first person multiple point of views or maybe one book you're writing this person here and then the next book it's a completely different type of character then they're gonna sound different right you know like uh my the last book in my series the blood race i wrote from four separate point of views and each one was like stepping into a new skin i use different words to describe things i describe things in different ways you experience the same thing writing westin versus tessa in 100 days of sunlight talk about two vastly different voices hugely different backgrounds hugely different personalities kind of polar opposite in some ways but that's what that's part of what makes it fun is you get to be whoever you want yeah you know it is that's that's what definitely attracted me to writing in the first place and uh one of the many things and that's part of what makes the job so fun yeah it really is because it's it's limitless it's completely limitless and to wrap it up i think if you're starting a new book for the first time you can sometimes be intimidated by this idea of like how do i stick with it how do i have the grit to be a writer um and i think that's a big thing even for people who have written multiple books and it's a present reality all the time when you're writing how do you endure through days that are tougher than others or parts of the process that are trickier than just the creative writing aspect editing um rewriting all that stuff and i think it roots back to remembering why it matters yes for sure yeah back to the beginning again back to the beginning full circle the why it matters and and why it matters to you specifically like you always say what's the truth you want to scream from the rooftops why does this story matter to you why is it important and also recognizing that hey not every day is going to be this blissfully perfect writing day and it doesn't need to be yeah a lot of a lot of dream jobs i like to say a lot of dream jobs are boring because they um they require doing the same thing over and over again so if you ever feel like oh this is boring this is tedious i shouldn't feel this way about my writing i must not be a real writer because i'm bored with writing no every real writer is bored with writing at some point because boredom is a side effect of mastery and if you're gonna do something over and over and over again to get really good at it you're gonna get bored with it too like that's just a given it's true for a professional figure skaters it's true for doctors it's true for writers it's true for anybody who does something a lot and has to practice and work at it to get really really good it doesn't mean you don't love it but it is going to be tedious and so that's where the grit comes in yeah you have to remind yourself what is the dream what is the impact i want to have on the world with this book what is the where is who is the person out there that needs to read this because chances are you were that person once and there's probably somebody out there like you who needs to read that and it's going to really impact their life in a positive way so stick with it and make some sort of vision board for yourself if you're someone who likes visuals have a vision board have a written little sign on your desk talking about why you're doing this and why it's important to you and try to imagine what it will feel like when this book is finished or whatever the ultimate thing you're working towards is whether it's someone who needs to read the book reading it and it impacts them positively whether it's you at a book signing have some sort of visual in your mind that will help on days when it's a little slower or a little more boring you can call on that imagery and be like you know what this is worth it this is worth the tough days this is worth the slow days and every writer experiences them it's not exclusive to you and it doesn't mean oh i shouldn't be doing this because this feels boring welcome to being a writer everybody feels that way sometimes and it's part of the process it's all part of the process yeah it is but yeah i think we kind of went over a lot of different things to uh get you started on either writing your first book successfully or writing a new book different genre whatever new projects are always fun yes they are huge topic but i think we did tackle um some of the first concerns that stop new writers from taking that first step yeah exactly and we have a bunch of other great episodes for new writers such as tackling how to have grit how to uh you know plotting versus panting all that stuff we have tons of episodes we have over 50 something episodes of this show so if you haven't watched any of those back episodes go to my channel click on my channel go to the playlist and start listening to some of those episodes because we go through a lot and it's just going to inspire the heck out of you to write a book and stick with it and be happy and inspired that's really what this show is all about is inspiring you and propelling you forward in your own respective writing journey yeah to wrap it up with a quote that i came across be willing to be a beginner every single morning and that's by meister eckhart and i thought it was perfect because even if you're a seasoned writer it doesn't hurt to start your writing day with a beginner's mindset yeah i love that that's such a good mindset to have and it means you're always learning and you're always exploring and you're always getting better very true so boom thank you guys so much for listening if you liked this episode hit the like button if you're not on kate's youtube channel check out the video version of this podcast that is at youtube.com ka evans and thank you to our wonderful patrons who make this show possible if you enjoy this show and you get value out of it go to patreon.com the kate and abby show and help us keep this podcast alive and free of interruptions until next week stay stoked and rock on

Channel: K.A. Emmons

Views: 20,368

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Id: 6WS0pMPPC8g

Length: 28min 59sec (1739 seconds)

Published: Mon May 10 2021