Sunday 12 February 2012

How To Write A Novel With Novel Writing Software

Software for Novelists

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Most writers of fiction learn to write through sense and intuition garnered after years and years of reading the best novels and subconsciously or consciously picking up the styles, tastes and techniques of their favorite authors, and then working it out for themselves how to write a novel. That is how I learned to write myself. But I notice these days that the reading habit has suffered seriously as most youngsters move over to television and film and multimedia for entertainment. Still, some of these will at some point want to write novels. Writing a novel still remains a popular pursuit for all that, as we can see from the fervor surrounding the Novel Writing Month in the USA. This being the information age and a time for “speed”, many will be looking for shortcuts. For writing a novel, one of these shortcuts is to use novel writing software to learn the mechanics of crafting good fiction, the other being to register for a creative writing course. This article is aimed at those beginning writers who may not have the sort of background that some of us have had but are ardent nonetheless about becoming novelists themselves with the help of novel writing software.


This article isn’t itself a tutorial on how to write a novel. Rather I will be showing you how novel writing software might help out by forcing you into the mold and showing you how to develop your story idea logically and organically as has been done by the masters over the years, regardless of your chosen genre. For this purpose I will draw on examples from Power Structure novel writing software.

Let’s start by assuming you have a good idea or premise for a story. For a beginning writer coming up with a good story idea is hard enough, but it is only the start of a BIG journey. There is still a theme or themes to work out, settings and conflicts to develop, character backstories to think out, etc. In my experience as a writer you do not know your story until you are able to visualize all these elements together in your mind, and that takes a lot of work. Book writing software enables you to do it all in one place, right at the outset.

With Power Structure novel program, the moment you type in your premise the program leads you through this journey in a direct and linear fashion, asking you to answer questions that may not even have occurred to you yet but which must be answered before you can really take your story idea further. I will elaborate what I’m saying by breaking up the story development process into parts and show how the novel writing software helps you flesh out your characters, theme, conflict and plot so you know how your story should flow before you begin the storytelling itself.

  • Character and theme: Power Structure novel writing software has a Character View where you develop your characters by answering questions like “What are my character’s faults and weaknesses?”, “How does having these weaknesses or faults affect the character and the story outcomes?”, “What will my character learn in the course of the story?”, “How will my character be changed by the end of the story?” The writing software will also give you an opportunity to define your theme or moral for the story in Story/Theme View.

When I was just starting to write fiction and knew very little myself about how to write a novel it is amazing, looking back now, the amount of detail I would skip in my haste to put words on paper. Now I know the importance of working out all these details in advance, the backstories, the character traits, the themes and conflicts. Novel writing software, by bringing up these elements of good fiction before you as you develop your story idea forces you to adopt a more efficient strategy that ultimately saves you time. This is novel writing help at the click of a mouse. You will know that your story idea is not fully formed in your mind if you find yourself groping for the answers at this design stage, and that too is a good thing! The result is you will find yourself developing solid, well-rounded characters. When you know your characters really well the storytelling stage becomes a lot easier.

  • Conflict: You may have an idea what sort of conflicts to work into the story right from the time you get a spark for your story idea. But your ideas will usually be vague at the beginning. Working in Power Structure novel writing software the program asks you to give more detail about the conflicts you define at any stage of the story, by giving them an Introduction, elaborating the Heightening and finally working out the Resolution. You are also asked to specify between which characters the conflict you define will be .All these issues, if settled early on, should pave the way for a trouble-free storytelling experience. This is another stumbling block for the beginning writer, not working out these issues beforehand. The book writing software helps out by giving you these novel writing tips at the design stage so you know what information will be required to craft a good story – in effect showing you how to write a novel.

  • Plot development: In the Chapters View the novel writing software presents you with a series of questions for defining what they call Plot Points, which are more like scenes. You will be asked to answer questions like “What is the chapter’s opening hook”, “What has to happen (events) in this chapter?”, “How does the chapter move the story forward?”, “What is the chapter’s ending hook?” etc. Each plot point will have its own conflict perhaps and these details have to be specified here. So that before you put pen to paper you know how your chapter should unfold, what needs to happen in it, and how it should end.

The novel writing software forces you to answer a lot more questions than I have mentioned. By the time you have settled all of them you should have a deeper understanding how your story will unfold, where to start it, how many characters you will need to populate it with, etc; in other words you have it structured. At this time you probably will not have your novel but you will have a carefully thought-out outline you can then use to begin the exciting journey of storytelling. Besides Power Structure book writing software there is other writer’s software you can use of course. Other writer’s software programs like NewNovelist novel writing software and StoryCraft Pro novel writing software take you through much the same story development experience, showing you how to write a novel as you go. Choose a program that suits your technique best – and good luck!

Read the article Novel Writing Ideas: How Writer's Software Can Help You that details how you can use another writer’s software tool to come up with compelling story ideas.

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