Welcome to this week's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. A complete transcript of this episode will be provided after these few links.
Becomes a patron today!
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Check out the podcast The Writer's Way, hosted by Laurie Wright.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-writers-way-how-to-market-your-childrens-book/id1438673311
Here is the affiliate link to today's book review of The Ivies, by Alexa Donne.
And here it complete transcript of this episode.
S1E18 Getting Started
[00:00:00] Devin Davis: And for the next few minutes, we're going to go way back before any of this was text, before any of it was paper. Before any of it was a book. And all of it was simply an idea baby. Today on Writing in the Tiny House.
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am a single father of boys living in a tiny house in Northern Utah. And I am here to talk about your idea for writing a book. [00:01:00] And I am here to show you that it is completely possible. In this episode we are going to go over the process of simply developing the idea before we even need to worry about getting into a normal writing schedule or before we know anything about writing structure or any of that, today on Writing in the Tiny House.
But first, let me tell you about a podcast I recently discovered. I discovered The Writer's Way, which was hosted by a woman named Laurie Wright. She is a best-selling author, and this entire podcast is dedicated around children's lit. So if you want to write a children's book this would be a very good resource for you. Be sure to pop over to the Writer's Way. I will have a link to that in the description of the show notes. [00:02:00] And i'm sure that will be an additional resource that all of us would enjoy.
So I want you to take just a minute and think about all of the different book ideas that you have likely had throughout your adult life, or maybe even earlier than that. Perhaps you had ideas for stories or for instruction projects or something in high school or junior high, or even earlier. I don't know, but I am sure that almost all of us has had the idea for a book at some point in time, whether it is fiction or whether it is non-fiction, whether it is a children's story, whether it is an adult story, whether it is kind of a certain activity for dummies. Who knows, but think back to that special idea that you had once upon a time. And we are going to talk about that.
We are going to talk about what it takes to develop an idea [00:03:00] and everything that you should at least have started. Before you sit down and put pen to paper or start drafting something in your word processing document. So let's first talk about nonfiction. What likely happened was you thought to yourself, I really wish that there was a book on this subject. And you looked around for it and that book didn't seem to exist. And if it did exist, perhaps it approached the problem in a way that you didn't like very much, or in a way that didn't work well for you, or it was an approach that was kind of off base.
And was just different. And you thought to yourself, you know, I bet that I could do a better job with this book, and then you thought about it and then you didn't do anything more about it with writing nonfiction. It's fine if it starts out [00:04:00] this way, in fact, with fiction, it starts out in a similar way.
If it is fiction, you likely saw a book missing. At least this is how it was for me. There wasn't a book that I wanted to read. And so I decided, or at least I read a meme online on Facebook somewhere that said, write what you want to read.
And so for me, I sat there and I thought this through and I was like, what do I want to read? I was sick of adventure novels. It seems at the time, it, especially in fantasy, there are a million adventure novels, and I wasn't interested in reading another one. I also didn't want to do first person point of view. I didn't want to read another first person point of view story. And I wanted something with a more [00:05:00] complex storyline with heroes that mattered and with bad guys that were relatable. All of these different things. I wanted that. And so this is what got me started with writing the book that I started back in December.
I just wanted that book to be available. I wanted that book to be on the shelves. I wanted to read that book. And so I decided to write that book. So once you have your idea, there are a million different ways to develop that idea. And for me, it involves talking to others. For other people, sometimes it involves research and for me, it also involves research.
So there are a lot of different parts. It can be research, it can be talking it out. It can be outlining, it can be journaling. It can be doing a [00:06:00] blog or a poll on Facebook or on your social media or whatever it is. Now that that seed is in your brain, it's time to flesh it out and see if it is worth pursuing or to see if you know how to pursue it.
So with nonfiction, It can be talking to your friends and family, talking to your mom. Most importantly, though, talking to somebody who needs it. So if you are a person writing something on baby care or on raising small children, it would be valuable to speak to mothers who need that type of information or to newlywed couples or to divorced moms or divorced dads or whatever. It wouldn't seem to be the very best to speak to grandmas or people who are no [00:07:00] longer raising children. Or teenagers. Hopefully they're not raising children either. So it's important to find at least a selection of people who would be in your target audience.
Or at least your target customer for that book. And to see if this would be something valuable and discuss it with them. There are reservations about sharing ideas with other people. Like what if somebody rips me off or if somebody tries to steal my idea? Here is the reality of that, friends. When it comes to the premise of a book. Now with the instructional books, it's different, especially since we live in a world that is constantly growing and changing and people need to have specific instruction for some of these new things. But when it comes to other genres like self-help, or just fiction in general, there are.
A million different [00:08:00] formats. There are a million different themes and all of them have been written before. You can find a million different books that have a love triangle. You can find a million different books that are adventure novels. You can find a million books of enemies to lovers or whatever.
These different themes in literature, we call them tropes. You won't be able to find one that has not been done before. And so even if you are talking about your idea in a very high concept way, odds are, you're not saying anything original quite yet. And even if you get down into the nitty gritty of what the plot would actually be.
See originality comes in the execution of that idea. The originality comes when you write it and you yourself tell the story or explain the thought or develop the [00:09:00] concept.
It is not very probable that somebody is going to steal your ideas just because writing is such a hard job to do. It's such a big deal that I personally wouldn't worry about somebody stealing my ideas, just because then they would have to draft your book and then they would have to edit your book and then they would have to do the beta readers for your book.
And the list goes on and on. So we don't really worry too much about people stealing our ideas, especially when it is such a new idea. So you make sure that the ideas appear to be thought out enough for you to get started. It is absolutely. Okay. . If the concept of approaching your book gives you hives that having the entire book planned out is not a good idea.
That is how I am with my books. I don't plan out everything. I simply know where I need to get in each section of my book. I do not plan out the dialogue. I [00:10:00] don't plan out the other things. This is some people call it "pantsing." Flying by the seat of your pants when it comes to writing. Other people call it discovery writing.
And I actually prefer that term, though I think that both terms are kind of dumb, but this is when you simply know where you need to go. And so you sit down and let that organically happen. You let that spill out of your brain onto your word processor. And you get there, you know the bare minimum of where your story is headed and you discover everything along the way.
You don't need to have the entire novel mapped out from start to finish. And I would imagine for most big projects you don't have to, that is why it's possible to revise stuff. I would imagine that even with non-fiction work, if you sit down and start, it is possible that other things will come up; additional research or another point of view or another application to whatever you are trying to do. [00:11:00] Different things will come up and you'll want to include that in your manuscript.
And that would require you to go back and add it in. And so revision is an integral part of every big project like this. So it's okay to just kind of get started. It's okay to be at a place where you think that you have enough pieces to put together those first few pages. And I'm not going to go over the actual writing in this episode, but I will say the first few pages of your manuscript are going to be the ones that you revise the very most, and they are the ones that you will want to revise once you are started. Once you don't have any more than six pages written, you're going to want to go back and revise and revise and revise until those six pages are perfect.
I'm going to tell you that it is not time for that. [00:12:00] Let the future you worry about revising that first chapter or that prologue or whatever you're doing for your book, just because the future you, after you have finished this first draft, knows your story better or knows the content of your non-fiction book better than you do now.
And they will be in a better way to write that really important introductory first chapter or prologue or whatever it is for you. So it's kind of a shorter episode today, but this is what I did for my book. I shared with you guys last week, that for the book I'm currently writing, I wrote the prologue probably two or three years ago.
I had the idea bubbling around in my brain. I alluded to the fact that I wanted this type of a book to be on the bookshelves and I couldn't see where that book was yet. So it was up to me to [00:13:00] write it. But I had these six pages written. I had the premise kind of figured out, how the narrator fit into the story.
It was structured differently and it was fun and it was entertaining. And the people that I brought in and read that first prologue to really liked what I had written. And they really liked the premise of my ideas, how it was all starting and where it was all going. It seemed to be a promising thing.
But it wasn't until last December that I finally decided to tackle it. And the way that I did it, the way that I chose to develop my storyline enough so that I could get started with writing, I went over to my friend's house. And. I brought over scraps of paper and we wrote down names and we wrote down events and we just started to piece together the way that this complicated timeline would work out.
And then other nights I [00:14:00] came over and I brought over my watercolor set and my friend went on Pinterest and started a Pinterest board so that we could get the visuals of what things looked like of what the colors were like, of what the textures were like. And so she was putting together a Pinterest board while I was watercoloring what a green house would look like and what this woman wearing a gray dress could look like and whatever else.
And I had those things, I've kept those things. And then I felt that I had prepared enough to get started. Like I said, I am not the person who will sit down and plan out every little bit of my book from beginning to end and then start drafting. I am the person who will prepare just enough so that I have something to write right now.
And there is a certain [00:15:00] amount of joy and excitement that comes with discovering the book along the way. So that is how I have approached my first drafts. That is how I have approached my story ideas. And that is how I would do it if I were writing a non-fiction book. So let me know what your ideas are.
Be sure to message me. You can direct message me on Instagram. My handle is @authordevindavis.
And very quickly just to wrap things up, I do want to do a very short book review. The book that I want to mention on today's episode is The Ivies, by Alexa Donne. This book is a young adult boarding school thriller of people trying to get into college into the Ivy league colleges. And it is fun. It is a wild [00:16:00] ride. It has wonderful memorable characters. Everything in it was completely believable. It had a nice, fast pace. And for a YA boarding school thriller I definitely give it four out of five stars. Go ahead and check it out, guys. Thank you for tuning in to this episode.
Again, don't forget to check out the podcast The Writer's Way, hosted by Lori Wright. It is a podcast dedicated towards uh, children's authors so if you are hoping to write a children's book this should be a good resource for you. If you wish to support this podcast and help me out with producing it in that way, by offering money, go to. patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and become a patron.
Otherwise be sure to join the Facebook group [00:17:00] of Writing in the Tiny House . It's a pretty small group right now, but it will get bigger the more people join. So thanks again. Guys, and we will see you next week on Writing in the Tiny House.
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