Tianna Grace asked Megan I. Tennant:

Hey Megan! My name is Tianna. I can't wait to read your book! I am working on writing a book right now and I was wondering if you have any advice for new writers?

Megan I. Tennant Hey Tianna!

I'm so glad to hear you're writing a book. It's a beautiful journey, and I'm happy to have you along for it. There is so much advice I would love to give and not enough time. I'll be doing weekly videos on my Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClk2...) which I think you may have already subscribed to, so be sure to check those out. I also have a few posts on my blog at MeganTennant.com/blog.

In the meantime, do you have anything in particular that you're struggling with? I would love to help you out, or even do a video on a particular topic you're interested in.

As for advice off the top of my head:
One thing that's helped me a lot along the way I knowing and accepting that in writing (and all artistic careers really) self-doubt is normal, and learning to power through it is the difference between a finished novel and an unfinished one. I can guarantee there will be times when you think your writing is terrible, and you want to put your novel down and never come back (I have these feelings at least once a day on a normal week), but you have to power through. Just know that in writing, doubt is a very normal part of the process, and don't ever let it get you down.

Another piece of advice I found very helpful when starting out, is spend the time to outline everything. I know some people are pansers (I think that's spelled correctly), and when I started out I thought I was among them, but honestly, if I didn't stop and outline out my novel, Aletheia would be years from being complete. Outlining was the best decision I ever made when starting out. It saved me so much time, and I don't know what Aletheia would be without it. I hope to put a video up in the next few weeks on outline tips, so keep your eye out for that.

I will see if I can think up some more good tips, and send them your way. In the meantime, if you think of any topics you want to learn more about or have any struggle you're currently facing, don't hesitate to let me know. I would love to cover the topic, whether directly with you or in a full video. Don't hesitate to comment here, or Tweet at me, or send me an ask on my Tumblr (meganitennant.tumblr.com). I would love to help out. Writing a book is a beautiful and difficult journey, and I believe it's important for writers to share advice and support one another along the way.

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Tianna Grace Thank you so much Megan! Thank you so much for answering me with such detail! It means a lot to me! :) I do have more specific questions, quite a few ...more
Apr 10, 2017 03:00PM · flag

Megan Tennant Glad to help! I think everyone outlines a little differently, but I'd love to share how I tackle it. So generally if you have a novel idea you have an Glad to help! I think everyone outlines a little differently, but I'd love to share how I tackle it. So generally if you have a novel idea you have an idea of where you want it to start or where you want it to end, ideally both. I call my method (in my head) the Movie Scene Method, but it may very well have an official name. I sort of stumbled into the practice on my own, so I'm not really sure if it's common or not. But I'll detail my process.

Take two pages, one will represent the start of your novel, and one the end. Now write on them all the details you've already decided on (generalization is fine). For example, my starting page had things like details about my MC's character, how the novel would start with her trapped in an underground compound, and what I wanted her starting mental state to be like. Then I did the same with the ending page. Don't worry if you don't have a lot of details in the beginning, it's normal. So from here place the two pages on opposite ends of a desk, or floor (if you have a cat you may want to trap them in the bedroom at this point to prevent disruptive paws, speaking from experience) and grab a HUGE stack of note cards.

Now view the space between the two pages as the timeline in a movie. Each notecard, will represent a scene. Generally, my scenes happened to be chapter length, so in my case, this also made breaking my novel up very easy later in the process.

Now ask yourself, what needs to happen to get your MC from start to end. If you think of a scene, write out a description on a note card and a quick title you will understand (I had one titled 'The Overseer in the Lace Panties' for a while that made my boyfriend very amused and curious) and place it somewhere in the timeline. Then you can ask yourself what needs to happen to get from start to the new point. If you have some scenes in mind you know you want to include, write some quick descriptions on notecards, and lay them out in the general places along the empty space between the start and end page. Now try to fill in the gaps. For example, if you know that in the middle of your novel your MC is going to get some devastating news, but then soon after you want them to have a period of clarity, what kind of event takes them from one plot point to the next?

Writing out the scene descriptions on notecards Is helpful because you can easily rearrange things in the timeline, which I did a lot. And whenever you find arrangements you like you can write the order down or take a picture. This method works best if you already have a few major scenes you know you want to work in, because the smaller the gaps between scenes on your timeline, the easier it is to think of scenes to fill in the blanks.

If you don't have a lot of plot points in mind already, one of my absolute favorite tips, is to take a peak at the Heroe's Journey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27...). When I was just starting out, before I even learned to outline, I used the Heroe's Journey as a template, and it made my life a lot easier. I wrote the stages of the heroes journey as the titles on note cards and tried to picture the way my MC fit into them, and wrote down any scenes that came to mind. If you use this method, don't force yourself to use every stage of the Heroe's Journey, and feel free to venture beyond it. Using the Heroe's journey as a template can help you get an idea of a tried and true pattern of plot points. View it more as a hand drawn map, it will give you guidance, but ultimately, where your novel ends up will depend a lot on your interpretation of the landmarks, and don't worry if you end up somewhere completely new and unexpected.

Sorry if that was a bit long and scattered. I will probably do a more scripted video on plot mapping soon, you can also check out a blog post I wrote a while back (https://megantennant.com/3-awesome-ti...). And I'm definitely going to be doing a video on the Heroe's Journey sometime soon, because I love it! ...more
Apr 10, 2017 09:06PM · flag

Tianna Grace Thank you so much! That was perfect because it was detailed! I have a problem when it comes to something not being detailed enough because I guess I j ...more
Apr 11, 2017 07:49AM · flag