Write Your Novel Step by Step (Home Page)

Write Your Novel
Step by Step


By Melanie Anne Phillips
Creator of StoryWeaver

Click for Table of Contents

Read it free on our web site!

 Also available in Paperback
and for your Kindle

For Story

Structure

 


Home Mail: customer-service@storymind.com

For Story

Development



Write Your Novel or Screenplay Step By Step

Try it Risk-Free for 90 Days


Contact Us - About Us - Lowest Price Guarantee - Shipping - Return Policy


Copyright Melanie Anne Phillips - Owner, Storymind.com, Creator Storyweaver, Co-creator Dramatica



$29.95

StoryWeaver

$99.95


Dramatica Articles on Writing Free Online Writing Classes in Streaming Video

Follow Us

Follow Us at Storymind.com Interactive Story Engine

Novel Writing Software

Write Your Novel or Screenplay Step by Step

Thousands of writers use StoryWeaver to build their story’s world, characters, plot, theme,
and genre.

Try it Risk-Free!
Click for Details

Try it Risk-Free!
Click for Details

Thousands of writers use Dramatica to find and refine their story’s structure and to find and fix holes and missteps.

Key Features Key Features



Free Bonus Package The Writer's Survival Kit Bonus Package

Try it Risk-Free for 90 Days!

Click for Details

Free Bonus PackageThe Writer's Survival Kit Bonus Package

Try it Risk-Free for 90 Days!

Click for Details

~ Step 11 ~


Who’s There?


Congratulations!  You’ve completed the first part of your journey toward a completed novel.  It was a heck of a lot of work, but it is all about to pay off.


From here on out, we’ll be drawing on material you’ve already created.  What’s more, each step from this point forward is far less complicated, requires far less effort and is shorter to boot!


In this step, for example, we’re going to look for characters in the material you’ve already created.  You don’t have to invent anything new.  In fact, it is important that you don’t!


Read through your revised synopsis from Step 10 while asking yourself “who’s there?”  Make a list of all the characters explicitly called for in your story, as it is worded.


To be clear, don’t list any characters you have in mind but didn’t actually spell out in your work – just the ones who actually appear in the text.


You may have given some of these characters names.  Others, you may have described simply by their roles in the story, such as Mercenary, John's Wife, Village Idiot, etc.


If a character does not yet have a role, give them one as a place-holder that more or less describes what they do, who they are related to, or what their situation is.


If a character does not yet have a name, don’t hold yourself up trying to think of one now.  Well have a whole step devoted to inventing interesting character names down the line.


For now, just list the characters actually spelled out specifically in your synopsis as it stands.


Example:


John - The Mercenary

An Archeologist

Painless Pete - A Dentist

A Clown

A Freelance Birdwatcher



Do NOT include any characters you have in mind but didn’t actually mention.  Do NOT include any characters who may be inferred but aren’t actually identified.  All those other characters will be dealt with in the next few steps.


So, get on with it and answer the burning question, “Who’s There?”