WRITING TIPS: JUST HOW MANY CHAPTERS SHOULD A NOVEL HAVE?

This is perhaps one of the questions that young writers ask themselves time and again. When writing a book, some young writers are tempted to divide it into same length chapters in search of far fetched unity of form. Is this right? Of course not.

A chapter must have a unifying factor, it must be based on a particular Idea that holds the sentence and paragraphs that make it one. Do not force your chapters to have the same length or structure. Focus instead on the ideas that make up your work. Divide your set of ideas into book sections and further subdivide these into smaller sets of ideas that can cover less than ten pages.
Having very long chapters upwards of 20 pages is actually detrimental for an average reader tires quickly and may not want to hold onto the book longer. What does that mean? He or she will never buy a novel or book written by you again, the last thing you need.
It is better to have 100 chapters of three pages each rather than 3 chapters of 100 pages each or 6 chapters of 50 pages each. The more the chapters your book contains the better, but for goodness sake, keep them short!

WRITING TIPS: SUSPENSE IS THE KEY TO READER INVOLVEMENT

Fiction writing hugely depends on suspense to hold the reader until the end. Suspense is what makes a reader hang on to read through one hundred, one thousand or even ten thousand pages of fiction. How can you ensure that your reader is kept suspended?

Its as simple as throwing challenges at the main character. You must make your hero suffer, but he or she shouldn't suffer for too long before resolving the conflict pinning him or her down. To keep the reader interested, throw one conflict after the other into the mix. Resolve these smaller conflicts while making sure that a larger conflict runs through the entire novel until the end.
Suspense is the key and if well handled will keep your reader sleepless until he or she turns the last page.
Not only will your reader finish your latest work but he or she will go in search of the rest from the market. Ask the likes of Danielle Steel, Sidney Sheldon and Dean Koontz. The all dwell on suspense and nothing else.

WRITING TIPS: WHO IS YOUR HERO OR HEROINE?

Are you writing a novel or play without a hero or heroine in mind? Wrong. Many inexperienced writers make this mistake and bunch together a group of lackluster characters with similar dimension who can not keep the reader interested. To keep your reader interested, you need to pick on an interesting human being, not a robot or yo-yo, not even a superior man or woman with the best qualities but no weakness, no, he or she must be three dimensional.
paint him or her favorably but present some hidden weaknesses to the reader. Remember the mighty and all strong Samson and how Delilah took him down, remember the all powerful King David and how lust could not keep him focused. If the bible can have such three dimensional characters, why should you present superior beings with no flaws? if your character is too good to be true, your reader will lose interest, but if he or she commits terrible mistakes every time like a real human being does, then the reader sympathizes with him or her and stays around to know how he or she handles the mistakes. Bad news is always good news for good news repeated time and again makes everyone lose interest in the news!

WRITING TIPS: WRITING THE BEGINNING OF YOUR NOVEL CAN COME AT THE END!

Yes, you got me right. Writing the beginning of your novel need to come when you are starting the novel. Many a times, we have a great story to tell but don't know how to start. Great writers will start at any point and then when the novel has matured, when it has gained some flesh, they go back and look at how it started. This beginning can be changed many times over until it is as great as it should be.
As a writer, you know better than worry over that start, for worrying often delays an otherwise very important project. I know of a friend, a literature professor who kept working on his novel for 20 years because he couldn't get that magical start. Wrong! None of us is perfect. Start whichever way and write on and when you feel you have that magical touch that is needed, go back and take a fresher look at where you started. However, brooding over the beginning of your novel will delay you for nothing and contribute to what most writers dread, a writers block!
All the best in your novel writing but remember, that great beginning was not always written at the start. Read other writers and you will understand.