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How to Write Your First Book

January 25, 2021

Writing your first novel is a big deal. If you pardon the ridiculous metaphor, writing your first novel is not unlike the first time you slept with someone: It’s exciting, scary, fascinating, and – looking back – kind of special yet also pretty “meh”. The trick in learning how to write your first book lies in understanding what to expect.

But there’s more.

To continue the same symbolism, just as a new partner makes it feel like the very first time all over again, you might have written ten books, but you can still get the “writing my first book” experience all of a sudden. In other words, even if you have already written at least one book, this post applies to you too.

Drawing from my own long and sometimes painful experience, in this post I will give you some simple but useful tips on how to write your first book of fiction – whether it’s your literal first or the first book in a new beginning you want to be making.

How to write your first book
Learning how to write your first book is about understanding what to expect
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How to Use Beta Readers Skillfully

January 4, 2021

The term “beta readers” refers to people who read your novel before you publish it. They can be invaluable in helping you find problems in your fiction. That is, if you know how to use beta readers in the first place.

You see, most authors have a rather flawed idea of what a beta reader does. For many authors, a beta reader is someone who tells you whether your book is “good or bad”. If you don’t find that idea stupid, you really need to see my post on “good and bad” books.

Indeed, one reason why authors use beta readers is simply to get an advanced rating or review. That’s fine – as you’ll see later, getting advanced reviews for my fiction is basically the only reason I’ve personally used beta readers – but that’s not what a beta reader is there for.

In today’s post we’ll take a look at how to use beta readers skillfully. That is, how to use a beta reader to actually identify problem areas and fix them, rather than just hear “I liked it!” or get a 5-star review.

How to use beta readers
Whether you need beta readers or not depends on whether you care about your audience or not
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Announcing the Home for Fiction Patreon Page

October 26, 2020

Note: Years have passed, things regarding Home for Fiction have changed, and so the text below is irrelevant. If you discovered it accidentally, consider it purely a snapshot of history.

Quite some time ago, I posted a survey with some questions related to premium content for Home for Fiction. It took me a while to ponder on it and decide on the details, but here it is: the Home for Fiction Patreon page!

Take everything you know about the Home for Fiction blog and supercharge it. The Home for Fiction Patreon page offers premium content such as:

  • early access to blog post drafts.
  • writing resources and media (tools, checklists, tutorials, presentations, programs, etc).
  • workshop courses, where you can try my writing tips with exercises.
  • personal feedback on your own novel or short story.
  • …and more!

But there’s also an important thing to keep in mind…

home for fiction patreon
“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” — George Orwell
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