“How to write a fiction and so on…” kind of posts are never actually helpful.

You ask whether your verses are good. You ask me that. You have asked others, before. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you worry when certain editors turn your efforts down. Now (since you have allowed me to offer you advice) let me ask you to give up all that. You are looking to the outside, and that above all you should not be doing now. Nobody can advise you and help you, nobody. There is only one way. Go into yourself. Examine the reason that bids you to write; check whether it reaches its roots into the deepest region of your heart, admit to yourself whether you would die if it should be denied you to write. This above all: ask yourself in your night’s quietest hour: must I write? Dig down into yourself for a deep answer. And if it should be affirmative, if it is given to you to respond to this serious question with a loud and simple ‘I must’, then construct your life according to this necessity…

——-Letters to a Young Poet by R.M. Rilke

I have seen in many blogs that people are posting tips and tricks for writing a good fiction.

Well, to be honest and with no intention to sound offensive, those who try to read and follow those tips and all are in search of some short-cut or easy way to write a great book. In this computer age, to have such ideas are of no surprise.

To make my point clear, those posts are mostly written by published writer from their own experiences. They have worked hard to reach that goal and you have to pass that too. There is no short-cut ‘tips’ to write a novel. It’s not a mathematics problem or a rocket science theory that you need tutorials and techniques.

You are writing or planning to write because you have felt an urge to write something and you are passionate about it. More importantly, you believe in it. So to make it the best book you can write you too have to read thousands of books, spend hours doing research on your plot  and identify your narration style and genre.

If you are writing from your heart, and if you have read enough on the same genre, your writing bound to be thrilling and enchanting. In this process, you will develop your own strategy to write your own fiction which works only for you. Hence, pour all your heart on the paper and just submit it to your editor.

And when you will become successful, maybe someday, you too can post a similar post on ‘how to write a good novel et al.’ and increase page-views of your blog.

Advertisement