Written by Samarjai Mitra – a grade 5 student.

Writing a book is very hard. Most people don’t even know where to start. When writing a book, you have to be aware of a few things. In this article I have included everything you need to know about writing a book.

The Plot

Before writing a book, you need to have a plot for the book. The plot is basically like the guideline of your book. You need to have a clear vision of how your book will start, and how it will end. Once you have a plot, start thinking of ways in which your plot can twist and turn. Once you have thought of ways in which your story can begin and end, chose one and follow through with it. If you can’t decide, try to merge them to form one ultimate plot.

Characters and settings

The next things you need are characters and settings. Think of heroes who will voyage through your story, think of villains who will battle against your heroes, or just think of characters who will suit your plot. Once you have a clear thought of your characters, try to draw them, or just describe them. Find a way to subtly include the description in the draft of the book. Now you have a plot and some characters, but where is the action taking place? Is on top of a castle, in your secret underground base, or high up in heaven? And remember, you can always have more than two settings. In fact, it would be better if you had at least three different settings.

Problems and solutions.

Like every Yang has a Yin, every great book has an even greater problem. Now, all the problem does is create more curiosity and interest in the reader’s mind. Like life, the plot of a good book is never a straight line. Now if want your book to be even more interesting, you can create sub-problems.

Sub-problems are basically problems for your problems. For example, your story is about a warrior who is on a mission to save a princess from an evil warlock, and on the journey, he comes across a group of farmers, who help him throughout his mission.  You can add a sub-problem here by writing that the farmers are actually the warlock’s soldiers in disguise.

Now, every problem has to have a solution. The solution for our example could be that the warrior finally defeats the warlock in battle and saves the princess. Or it could be something else. The solution is basically the way you want the book to end. Now if you are trying to write a book series then you make the solution such that in future it leads to a problem. You should always try to write the end of the book in a way that would satisfy the reader.

Drafting, re-drafting and final drafting

Congratulations! You have reached the last stage of writing a book. Now that you have a plot, some characters and a setting, you are ready to start writing the first draft. Your first draft is basically your first attempt at your book. After completing the draft, go over it. Do you like it? If you like it and you don’t have to many mistakes, you can go on to your final draft.

Your final draft is basically the word-to-word transcription of your first draft, with a few inclusions here and there. But, if you do not like the first draft you re-draft. Re-drafting is the process of rewriting your first draft, but with all the inclusions you want to add. After re-drafting you can either carry on with the final draft, or you can re-draft again. That’s basically all you need to know about writing a book.

I hope you could learn something from this article, but for now, this is the end.

Written by Samarjai Mitra
Samarjai is a young boy, all of 10 years old.  Currently in class five. He is a determined, go-getting and studious boy who always keeps his head high. He is passionate about books.

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