The Ultimate Key to Novel Writing

by A.C. Williams @ACW_Author

The New Year is a time for resolutions, refreshed strategies, and redirected priorities. Many people look at the start of a new year as an opportunity to try something different. Maybe it’s in business practices or marketing strategies or even budget adjustments, but how do you know what to change and what to leave the same?

Is the answer in trends and tropes? Maybe the key to success is to shift the content of our manuscripts to suit what is popular in the industry. That’s not necessarily a bad idea, but if you make chasing trends your key strategy, you’d better be able to write really fast and self-publish. Because if you write the manuscript and give it to a traditional publisher, it’s likely that by the time the book hits the shelves the trend will be over.

So, chasing trends probably isn’t the wise choice.

What about marketing strategies? Should you focus on Facebook ads? What about Amazon ads? Should you invest effort in BookTok or Instagram Reels or YouTube shorts? What about crowd-funding? What about email nurture sequences and lead magnets? (Whew. Are you tired yet?) All of those are important and useful resources. Absolutely. But where do you even start? Jumping into marketing and advertising without a plan is a recipe for an expensive disaster.

So, no, dumping a lot of financial resources into expensive advertising also may not be the best tactic to use.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were a magic formula for writing? Something that would allow you to snap your fingers in order to produce a bestseller that will top all the charts and make you a household name?

Well, sorry to disappoint, but that doesn’t exist. And anyone who tells you it does is likely selling something—a course about how to write a book or a strategy about how to utilize ghostwriters to produce manuscripts. There really isn’t an effective “get rich quick” scheme when it comes to writing books. At least, none of the financially successful authors I know achieved any of it overnight with no effort involved.

Maybe I’m old fashioned (no maybe about it) but I still believe that the time it takes to go through the process of concepting, developing, outlining, drafting, and revising (and revising and revising and revising) a novel is something we shouldn’t mess with. The writing process is a refining process, both for the story and for the author.

All that being said, I do think there is one primary key to writing a book. Through all the years that I’ve been writing and all the amazing mentors who have taught me, I have learned that there is no substitute for a good story.

Yes. That’s the key. Write a good story.

Yeah, it sounds simple, but try writing a good story, and you’ll find it’s the furthest thing from simple. 

I can hear the objections already. What is a good story? How do you define good? What standard are you using to identify a story as good or bad?

In my mind, a good story is one that captivates the imagination of your audience, communicates a well-reasoned, inspirational message, and fulfills the expectations of your genre. 

How do you identify all those things? How can you learn to find what your audience wants? How can you tap into the collective dreams of a demographic of readers? How can you understand the genre expectations?

One word: Read.

I used to think this was obvious, common sense advice, but the older I get, the more I’m beginning to realize that common sense isn’t as common as it used to be.

You have to read. If you want to write, reading is a requirement. Too many times I’ve spoken to authors who want to write in a specific genre, but they refuse to read in that genre. And that’s a mistake. A foolish choice. 

If you want to write a story that captivates the imaginations of your readers, you have to know what their imaginations have already been primed to envision by reading the books that they are reading. 

If you want to know what messages, what stories, your readers are already resonating with, you have to read the books that are on their shelves. If you don’t know the stories they already love, how can you expect to write something that will catch and keep their attention?

And if you want to understand the expectations of a genre, you must—you must—read in that genre. If you’re writing science fiction and you’ve never read a science fiction book, you’re going to make all sorts of errors along the way that will give your readers every excuse to stop reading. 

So as we move into 2024, a new year bursting with possibility and potential, keep in mind that there’s really only one question in effective storytelling: Does your audience buy it? Does it work? Because if what you’re writing doesn’t work, readers have dozens of streaming options to turn to.

Don’t stress about trends. Don’t panic about marketing tactics. Before you do anything else, write the best story you can. You accomplish that by reading books that help you understand your audience.

Trends will change. Culture will shift. Social media will reinvent itself again and again. Good stories endure no matter how the world spins around them.

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The Ultimate Key to Novel Writing from author @ACW_Author on @EdieMelson (Click to Tweet)

Award-winning author, A.C. Williams is a coffee-drinking, sushi-eating, story-telling nerd who loves cats, country living, and all things Japanese. She’d rather be barefoot, and if she isn’t, her socks won’t match. She has authored eight novels, two novellas, three devotional books, and more flash fiction than you can shake a stick at. A senior partner at the award-winning Uncommon Universes Press, she is passionate about stories and the authors who write them. Learn more about her book coaching and follow her adventures online at https://www.amycwilliams.com.