Welcome to this lesson of David Kummer’s writing course. That’s me, by the way. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, success stories, or just something fun to say, email me at davidkummer7@gmail.com. I’d love to talk about anything and everything, especially if that everything has to do with books, basketball, or Chinese food. I am a teenager, after all. So that’s that! Head on down and read what might be the best writing course of your life, but also might be the worst You won’t know until you try!

Section 3: How to do the Writing

A book is a challenge for everyone. But challenges can be overcome.

Constant

Writers write; authors create; you are both. Do both.

 

So you’ve published your first book.

 

You’ve written what you currently think is a masterpiece, and in a few months, you’ll look back and not like it nearly as much.

 

After you finish that first book, you either feel completely out of ideas or fully stocked on them. So what do you do now? Now that you’re a published author, what’s the next step?

Review Your Plans

 

As I said above, you have a lot of plots.

 

(If you don’t have a lot, then come back to this section when you do. A way to get plots is to use the lesson where I talked about plots, which was either #2 or #3. Anyways, you get a handful of ideas then come here and we will sift through them to find the gems. Or at least, you will. I’ll be watching from my bed.)

 

So as we go through these plots, we will decide on a few things. Using this, we will see which are good to work with, and which you should keep developing.

 

The first point of interest is the characters and the conflict. Is the conflict enough for whatever length you’re writing (an entire book, a short story, etc.)? If not, it might need some work. Are the characters complex enough to keep the reader interested for that long? If not, they might need some work.

 

If you can’t see already, most of these areas are dependent on the length of a book. For instance, the conflict in a short story doesn’t have to be as big as the one in a novel. The characters don’t have to be as complex or thought-out, the setting isn’t as big of a deal. It’s just a different work.

 

The most important question to ask of your book idea is: Could I write an entire book out of this? Could I plan 20 to 30 chapters? That’s the important thing to figure out.

Write More

Ultimately, after your first book, you should be looking to write another. And if you can’t get any great ideas for a novel, don’t worry! There are plenty of options!

 

Short stories can be a very powerful marketing tool. Sitting down for a day, chopping out a good 5,000-word story, and then editing the crap out of it before you publish can do great things for you.

 

And even if you never plan on publishing it, why not write one? You can use them for giveaways, for rewards for your newsletter fanbase (which we will discuss at the end of this course), as bonuses, and a whole bunch of other things!

 

Writers write; authors create; you are both. Do both.

Conclusion

 

As I said, you should keep writing. You must keep writing. If you want to improve, write.

 

Speaking of improving, in the next lesson we will look at a very important, crucial way how you can improve your writing skills. I’m pretty sure you could guess it, but you won’t.

 

Tune in soon for the rest of the course 🙂 We’re just about done!

 

 

If you have missed Lesson 1 or 2, you can read them here.

If you have missed Section 2 you can catch up here.