How to Write a Fiction Novel?

Steps

1. First, come up with an idea. You can try reading other books, watching movies, listening to music. Writers, like most artists, draw their inspiration from life and their own experiences.
2. Decide what you want your book to be about. Who will the main characters be and what will they try to accomplish. Write down all your ideas for characters, events, places, or anything else. One method of developing a novel is to begin with the ending in mind.
3. Create your protagonist. Remember, the protagonist is not always the "good guy," they're simply the main character. Make sure you create an original and believable character. To be believable, they need to have a past, fears, hopes, dreams, desires, family, job/family troubles, friends, associates, and a present.
4. Develop your plot. Is your protagonist trying to accomplish a goal? What steps do they need to take to get there? This is called the main conflict. What is the problem? Does trying to solve it create more problems? Plot advancement. Is your protagonist going to be a different person by the end of the book? Make sure your plot ties in with the theme of the book and leaves lots of wiggle room for things you might want to change later.
5. Create your supporting characters and antagonist. They should all have an important role in the book, or be part of the scenery. Don't include people that don't move the story along in roles with lots of action or dialogue. It's boring and weighs down the story. They need to be believable too, just like your protagonist.
6. Rewrite. Editing and rewriting is what makes the story good -- a first draft will almost always be bad. Just rewrite. There is really no limit to the amount of time spent rewriting, so just keep doing it.
7. Get feedback! Friends or family can help, as can some online communities. Consider joining a weekly or monthly creative writing group to get some more feedback.
8. Keep rewriting and getting feedback, until you get an honest opinion that your novel is something they would buy off the bookshelf.

Tips

• Read plenty of books, this can help you learn the phrases that writers commonly use and how to express yourself.
• You can use tools such as Topical (or other types of) Outlining to help you develop the story line; and logically keep track of your continuity along the way. Maintaining logical continuity in your story is highly desirable and a hallmark of professional writing; nobody wants to read a story that has no logical progression, unexplained holes or gaps along the way.
• Write a basic framework of the main plot. This will help you to see the milestones, which encourages you to get your ideas down. Importantly, it will keep you on the 'road map'; it's very easy to turn down dead-end roads - introduce unnecessary characters or events.
• It's not always the best idea to submit your manuscript in for publishing the second you finish it. Give yourself a while to consider revising, rewriting and polishing your novel. Step away from your novel for a bit, then come back and read it anew. There can be important elements that you'd wished had been included, modified or withdrawn. Let friends, colleagues and others review it; get feedback!
• Make your idea as original as possible; or make it a truly unique twist on an already-existing idea. Without realizing it, you could be taking storylines from books you've read or movies you've seen. Don't ever plagiarize!
• Different writers write differently, and fiction that appeals to one read may be boring to another. Regarding writing advice: "One size" does NOT fit all.
• Professional writers research thoroughly into the theme, issue, people, setting they write about!
• Develop your characters to be as multi-dimensional as possible - flat, boring, uninteresting characters can kill even the best story before it gets off the ground. Try to base your characters on real-life experiences. Use your imagination fully; use your interactions with others as an initial basis.

Warnings

• If you're interested in publishing your novel, EDIT it very thoroughly. Have friends look it over.
• Stay away from writing cliches and morals. Cliches are boring and not fun. Adding ironic twists and new expressions makes for an interesting book that more people will want to read.

Article adapted from wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Write a Novel. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.