5 Guiding Lights

Finding time is not the only ingredient to writing and finishing your manuscript. As a writer, you must also pay attention to what motivates you to write word after word until that day when you have finished.  What is the aim of your book? What are you trying to accomplish by writing it? Here, we’ve put together some pieces of advice that will motivate and guide you along this journey.

It’s essential to understand what readers care about when they are researching or shopping for books. Writers whose books are respected, or whose books perform well in the marketplace, tend to have one of more of these principles as their guiding lights when they are writing. So make sure to keep these at the forefront of your mind, to inspire you to write and get your book ready for publication:

• Your book compels people to keep turning the pages: This principle is most suited to books of a “thriller” nature, e.g. mysteries, horror, and of course thrillers themselves. Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond and a hugely successful writer, offers this advice in How to Write a Thriller: “There is only one recipe for a bestseller and it is a very simple one. If you look back on the bestsellers you have read, you will find that they all have one quality: you simply have to turn the page.” He adds, “Each word must tell, and interest or titillate the reader before the action hurries on.” The principle can also be applied in moderation to books in the genres of romance (the highest-selling genre), science-fiction, and fantasy.
• Your book solves a problem: This applies especially to self-help and business books. View your finished book as a solution to a problem that many people are having, whether it is confidence, overcoming depression, starting a business, finding the next winning industry, etc. Your mission as an author is to make that solution available to your readers.
• Your book does something new: Few things are as exciting to people as sheer novelty. In the early 1800s, in literature, the novelty was the Gothic genre, and in the early 1900s it was stream-of-consciousness. Most recently, one novelty has been graphic novels. Your book can also revive a genre that had been sleeping, as with what has been done with the vampire genre (no pun intended!).
• Your book capitalizes on a very popular genre, movement, or topic: Meredith Wild’s Hardwired series piggybacked on the immense popularity of E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey, and has made Wild a millionaire. Wild seized the momentum that James had created in the erotic fiction genre. Likewise, many fantasy authors, including Terry Brooks, have used The Lord of the Rings as a springboard for launching their own careers as fantasy writers.
• Your book fulfills a personal goal. Lastly, don’t forget that writing and publishing a book is a huge milestone to achieve and to be part of your life. It is something that is yours forever, and which no one can ever take away from you. For the rest of your life, it is part of your identity: you are a published author. Envision that phrase next to your name next time you sit down to write!