If you don’t love the book you are writing, chances are, your readers will know it too. I believe it is an author’s passion that fuels the magic of reading a book. Authors breathe life into what would otherwise just be words on a page and fictional characters. Authors should therefore be in love with their creation to keep this sense of magic alive and immerse the reader in their world. How does one fall in love with their own creation, though? I imagine it is fairly easy for most writers––our book is, after all, our baby! But we all have those moments where we lose momentum or interest in what we are working on, or certain chapters aren’t our favorite, or the writing has just become very mechanical. All I know is, my own relationship with writing books is an up and down rollercoaster. Some days, I’ve got my arms up in the air and I’m screaming with joy (all internally, of course) and I’m ready for anything. Other days, I’m holding onto my editor (and my agent, shoutout to Elaine Spencer), for dear life, because I’ve suddenly realized there’s no lap bar or end to the rollercoaster in sight. Because of these natural ups and downs in the writing process, it is so important to recognize the reasons you are writing your book in the first place. These are the reasons you can refer back to when you hit those lows. What are you hoping is the big takeaway from the story? What resonates with you in this piece of work? What did you need to write and share with the world through this novel? As an avid reader, I can instantly tell when an author is in love with their book and passionate about their characters. When you lead with passion as a writer, you are bound to create something truly magical and successful for not only the reader, but for yourself. Finding ways to stay passionate in everything you create, especially when the creative process gets hard, is an effective way to create your best novel yet. Writing with the reader in mind trains a writer to see things from a different perspective outside of their own. For those of you who don’t know, I started my career on the Wattpad platform. At just fourteen years old, I was writing full-length novels. On Wattpad, your readers are able to constantly provide feedback, writing comments line-by-line within the story itself. This unique feature and benefit to the platform is what gave me some insight as to what my readers want to read. It also made me realize how important it is for authors to write with the perspective of the reader in mind, at least to some degree––and certainly without the author changing their authentic voice and unique vision for the story! What is the reader going to get out of this scene I am writing? Is this scene interesting enough to catch the reader’s interest? Would I enjoy reading this if I were the reader? These are some more questions that I am constantly asking myself to improve my craft, and I so hope they are helpful for other authors!
|
- Ramez Naam's NEXUS, CRUX, and APEX, to Yatakhayaloon (Saudi Arabia), in a nice three-book deal, by Bassem El Kheshen at Bears Factor Literary Agency, on behalf of Lucienne Diver
