Once in a while, budding writers ask me how they can get published. I’ve always found this to be a difficult question because it depends on so many factors. I decided to write this post partly in response to this question. The ominous title came to me because of some disturbing ads I’ve seen on […]
There’s something magical about holding a book with your story within its pages. It makes you wish all your short stories end up in anthologies you can add to your bookshelf. There are undeniable advantages to traditionally published physical books: From the writer groups I joined on social media, I discovered opportunities to get published […]
2022 was an interesting year for me. I had begun writing the first book in my African epic fantasy trilogy (a book that went through major edits stretching up to 2024). This was the first book I genuinely enjoyed writing because it didn’t feel like work. I guess I had finally found my genre and […]
My decision to write a book wasn’t this instant light bulb moment. It was an idea I toyed with for some time. Truth be told, several years before this decision, I imagined that I would write a book one day.
I had always wanted to tell a story using my dad’s weird and scary witchcraft tales as inspiration. But when I was a child, they were not just stories—I believed them.
Writing your own novel has its challenges—creating a logical plot and doing all the research yourself, struggling with self-doubt, no second pair of eyes to spot your glaring errors, and all the pitfalls of not having an automatic accountability buddy.
But working on a creative writing collaboration is a whole new ball game. Whereas, before, any extra eyes belonged to advisors, in a collaboration, they belong to story co-creators. If you had never relinquished control of your story, you would be in for an awakening.
When you put on the beta reader’s cap, your senses are sharpened. You can’t help but see all the “errors”. And the more writing experience you have, the better. And after the beta read, when you get back to your own manuscript, you’re hit by an epiphany—your novel has all the errors you were fighting so hard to stamp out of your friend’s manuscript! You were brutally honest with your friend (let’s just call it tough love); it becomes easier to be brutally honest with yourself.
A lot of us confuse plot with story. We imagine that the thing that drives us to flip the page is a dramatic plot or the twists and turns of a convoluted plot. This could not be further from the truth. The truth is more obvious, yet we totally miss it.
What compels us to keep on reading is the curiosity to find out how the external elements are going to affect the protagonist internally. Story is not about what is happening externally; it’s about how our protagonist is feeling, reacting, and changing because of external events.
