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Teach Yourself

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I just started reading a book in the Teach Yourself range. This one is called Get Started In: Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy by Adam Roberts. Honestly, it's off to a cracking start. The book contains exercises that have already led to story drafts. As I reach the halfway point of this book, the focus shifts more onto writing a novel. I'm really excited for it. There's a technique in this book that's really helped me so far. That is to set out your novel as twenty different chapters, divided into three different acts. Using this technique has really helped me to see my novel as a whole project rather than just an idea. I did not divide my novel into twenty chapters. Instead, I went for forty shorter chapters. But the spirit is the same. For the first time, I feel really confident that I can finish this novel. All I have to do is sit down and write it.
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What Is "The Pear Novel"?

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It has always been my dream to write a novel. I’ve tried to pin myself down into a genre. One week I’ll enthuse about writing a romance novel. The next week, I’ll have decided on crime or science fiction. When I pick a genre, I often don’t have a story idea in my head. I set out to find the story, and I often fail. That is why I’ve decided to start with an idea first and worry about genre later. For a while now, I’ve been working on something I call “The Pear Novel”. This might well be a literary fiction novel, but I don’t know yet. There are fantasy elements. Do I emphasise those? Who knows! The point of The Pear Novel is that I have an idea in my hands like clay. I can form it and shape it and worry about neat definitions later. I am currently in the early drafting stage of this novel, but I cannot wait to share it with you. That's the point of this blog. To keep a record of the writing of this literary fiction novel. To share my ideas and struggles with you while I h...
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