You inspire me…. Any advice for writing books ?
!! I'm honored u get a little inspiration from me! That's very sweet of you.
I struggle with advice because I've only written about 5 books and published... two-ish. (An old fanfic and ABM, which as you know is basically fanfic). But I think I have some specific advice since I'm revising right now and have a lot of thoughts... Here is what works for me (!):
Outline. I know it sucks but... please try it. (Or you'll end up like GRRM).
Draft without going back to read what you wrote, or at least don't read your unfinished manuscript in full. You will want to edit it. Don't edit it. Yes it sounds bad; yes you used the same word 8 times in a paragraph by accident; yes you can see a major plot hole. Don't fix it yet, maybe write it down somewhere so you don't forget to fix it later. You need to avoid editing while drafting or you will never finish the draft. This is the biggest advice I can give anyone, especially if you haven't written your first book yet.
Give each character a strong backstory, even if it never shows up in the plot. Sounds obvious but sometimes I have to remind myself of this.
Give your characters friendships, not just romantic relationships. Include tender scenes with friends.
A lot of writing is tedious and boring. Drafting is hard, editing is hard. You have to be disciplined. But finding motivation is also hard. Don't motivate yourself using the dream of a fanbase or the dream of becoming famous. You're setting yourself up to be hurt. (Not because any of that is impossible but because achieving it in the way that you dream is virtually impossible.) Motivate yourself using something more personal, if you can.
Re-do your outline after you draft. Why? Because you probably changed things while you drafted, you probably made some stuff up on the spot, character dynamics changed, etc. A new outline is good because you can see the story you actually wrote, which is helpful for editing for plot cohesion, moving scenes, adding and removing stuff.
Your draft is going to be bad. Don't freak out. Drafts are always bad. You're going to want to analyze the hell out of it though. What did you plan, what did you write, what worked, what didnt work, what themes are on the page, what themes should you remove, what themes should you amplify.
When editing a scene isn't working, rewrite it entirely. Yes it's more work. You'll be much happier though, I promise.
The first to second revisions should be for plot and characters and pacing; these should take the longest and be the most difficult. The last third to fourth revision should be about prose. Don't focus on prose when you're trying to fix the plot.
Let characters fuck up unforgivably.
Consider your audience heavily when you edit, but don't consider them when you draft.
I've given this advice before but when it comes to plot devices/objects, you want to give each device a moment of introduction, a moment where it's recalled, and a moment of use. (Ex. A knife is introduced in chapter 1, its mentioned again casually in chapter 7, then it's used to kill someone in chapter 14.) This is mostly to give each object its own arc that feels satisfactory but ur the boss about what works best.
Kill all your characters, but not physically (unless you want to). Make them change so much that, by the end, they would barely recognize who they were at the start.
This is book advice for the type of books that I've written. Things are very different if you're writing, say, contemporary romance, but I think this list is pretty general !! I hope it helps. Good luck!!
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