8 steps for new writers to start your first Web novel

If you’re completely new to writing or just new to the web novel world and are looking to start your first web novel, this article is for you.

As a rookie writer with no prior experience in writing a web novel or any other form of published writing, two years ago I started my first web novel named Re-birth of a Genius Creator/Destroyer on The Webnovel app without any idea of how I should start and what things should I consider.

But with the experiences that I’ve gained in the past two years of my writing and interacting with fellow rookie writers who entered this domain, I managed to get a fair understanding of how to approach this problem and compiled these eight steps that would help you.

Let’s just dive right in.

Step 1: Build your storyline

The most obvious step for writing any story.

It is not essential for you to build your storyline completely. But you need to have an idea of how your story is going to progress and what kind of elements you are going to showcase. Having a better understanding of the beginning, the major conflicts, and twists along with the ending of the story gives you a better understanding of your own story.

Even though you can write and change the story a bit as you go on, figuring these major points out at the start will save you a lot of effort in the further process.

Step 2: Determine its Genre

Knowing your storyline definitely helps here.

The genres are a bit different for webnovel and a normal novel or any other type of story for that matter. For example, in the webnovel area, fantasy is divided into Magical Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Eastern Fantasy, etc.

They are essentially fantasy stories, but the audience for each group is very niche.

You don’t want to introduce your novel in the wrong genre and suffer from a lack of engagement.

Step 3: Estimate the length

Another time when having a storyline built will come in handy.

The one main difference between a normal novel and a webnovel is that you don’t have any limitations on the length of your story. You will be publishing each chapter in a serialized format, so the length of your story defines how many days, months, or even years your story goes.

So, estimating how long your story is going to be prior to publishing will help you in the further process.

Step 4: Choose your platform

There are many platforms that offer services to publish your webnovel like Webnovel, Wattpad, Royal road, Dreame, Wuxiaworld, etc.

Each platform has its own advantages and disadvantages. They also have a specific genre that retains a very loyal audience that consumes their content regularly. Visit the platforms and check the most popular novels on each one and their genres, check the reader engagement by looking at views, collections, reviews and find the best platform that is suitable for your story.

This is where knowing your Genre and Length comes in handy.

Step 5: Build your synopsis

After you chose your platform, build your synopsis properly.

This is what turns your potential reader into a reader. The competition in the webnovel space is high and there would be plenty of stories of all kinds, so you need to attract the reader with a proper synopsis from the get-go.

A proper synopsis will showcase the core of your story, but it also leaves the readers hanging so that they would crave to see what is inside.

Step 6: Make a proper book cover

The major mistake the new writers do is to not make a proper book cover.

This is the first thing that the readers see. Most readers gauge the seriousness of the writers by the effort they put into the book covers.

My recommendation would be to go through Canva and try to make a book cover yourself, but if you have some cash to spare, you can get it done professionally.

Step 7: Write your first few chapters

The first few chapters are essential to a web novel just like they are to any other story.

You cannot just upload one chapter and stay put for a long time before you upload the next. You need to upload them consistently and at a regular interval.

Readers feel more connected when proper language is used. A grammar check is strongly recommended.

Step 8: Register and Upload.

By far, this is the easiest step in the whole process. Just go to the platform and register yourself based on their terms and upload your first chapter.

All that is left is for you to have a story idea and start writing. Please do make sure you leave the link to your web novel in the comments for me. Looking forward to reading it.

This post was created with Typeshare