Written by Author Samantha C Sinclair

Your writing at a glance.

1 What you are writing must have a beginning, same for your writing process. 

This will look different for everyone. 

For me, the first thing I need and want to do is pray over my project. I need to let God lead, and keep me out of the way. I have learned this from experience. Secondly, decide if you are pantsing or planning? Are you just going to let the story flow, or do you need a partial or full plot. If you need to plot, what does that look like? Do you  just need to write down some basics about your story? Maybe you need to plan out a rough draft for each chapter. What about your research? Even in fiction, it’s good to do research. Is your story based in a certain area, learn about it. Does the story involve medical or environmental issues? Your reader still will most likely appreciate the facts hidden or presented in your story.

2 Start writing.

That first blank page can seem pretty intimidating at times. Find a way to make it your second home. It may take spending some time with your fictional folks. Yes, make them your invisible friends. This takes a lot of prayer for me. You need to get in their head, their culture, their everything. Your reader needs to feel like they know them. This starts with you. You can write down what you know about them. Not everything you know about them will always end up in the hands of your reader. Some things may be unspoken, but helpful to you as the author. Do not include every peace of information on the first pages. Lay it out, if you can, in fitting parts of the story.

3 Now that you have started writing

In your first pages, introduce important people in the story, or places, as soon as you can. Get the ball rolling on the important stuff as quickly as your story permits. Set the feeling, surrounding, and etc as the story unfolds. You do not have to right out say it is raining. Show that in something your fictional folk says or does. As you go into the middle of your story, you may need a time filler. Don’t let the action end to quickly. But if you need, bring in a new problem. Make sure it is related some how to previous parts of the story. What I mean by a time filler is taking a break from extreme action. Possibly give a look into how previous troubles have impacted your fictional friends. How has it changed their daily life, etc? Also, you could make it appear everything is back to normal for a short period. But soon pull in the excitement and suspense once again. Working toward the end, do not slack. Keep the twists coming. Pause for a moment. Does everything need to be tied up in a nice little bow, or do you want the reader to pick up the next book? Make sure you leave your reader wanting answers, or more if you want them to pick up the next book. It is important to put yourself in the position of your reader at all points in your writing journey.

4 Study

Think about it this way. If you are attending classes to become a doctor, or business professional, what kind of material do you need to study? It works that way for a writer also. If you want to write Christian Romance, you might read Karen Kingsbury books. Pay attention to her style. Not that it has to be like her’s. Your style should be you. But, pay attention to how her books flow. Watch how she starts, bridges, and ends her stories. Lynnette Eason is a good author to learn from for suspense. I could give you several more ideas. But the point is, read the types of books you feel you have a desire to write.

5 Things to remember 

First when you write the last word, you are not finished. It is important to author edit. Read back through your entire story. Read with an author’s eye. Find things such as certain misspellings of names, a sentence or word in the wrong place, or other things only you as the writer would know. Second, read with the eye of an editor. While it is important to have someone else look over your work, you need to do the same. Find repetition. Try to avoid over using words such as but, the, and, and that. Also, up, down, and open, let’s talk about these. If Sally walks into a room, unless told otherwise we know there was an open door. If she walks in, she is standing. She walks over to sit down next to Tim. To shorten that, you might say this. “Sally walked in, and sat next to Tim.” Do you see how that cleans up?

To learn more look into Jerry Jenkins check list.

6 Relax, it is not as hard as it sounds. Not easy, but remember to enjoy the journey. Again, at least for me, prayer is critical before, while doing, and after every step.

7 Now comes the next fun part. 

Before you release your book, no matter how that is happening, you need to be advertising. Word of mouth, flyers, and social media, in that order. Note, fliers are optional but good if possible. Word of mouth is crucial. On social media, try to tie advertising of your book into holidays or current happenings. Promoting your book is just as important as writing. I wish someone would have made this known to me right up front. While you can toss a lot of money into advertising, if you have it to toss, there are free ways of promoting. Again I remind you word of mouth will be your best friend.

8 Publishing 

Now for the million dollar question? Publishing company, or self publish? I have done both.

Let’s start with the most affordable method. There are several platforms, such as Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, where you can publish for free. While this is grand for those of us scraping quarters, remember you need an advertising plan.

Positives of having a publisher is they help you with promotions. They have people to help you from creating a eye catching cover, to distribution.

9 On topic of a cover…

You need a good cover. People do pay attention to a book’s cover. Think of it like this. If a swimmer is wearing jeans in the pool, what is the eye catching focus. If your book is about a dog, are you going to place a cat on it’s cover? Simple, but important. Amazon KDP does have a cover creator to choose from, or it does have an option to upload your own.

10 Celebrate 

Celebrate for starting, and celebrate every step after that. You don’t have to wait until your book has hit the NYT best seller list. Chances are slim.But if your story was written for the right reason, and impacts one person, that is what counts. If that one person is you, it was worth every minute. You are going to have times when you wonder if any of your efforts are helping. Just remember this, and keep on writing.

I would love to hear from you, and read your work.

Email me anytime. Samantha.christianfiction@Gmail.com

Thanks for your time. God bless.