I am aiming at writing a novel in 10 weeks and I know that if I am going to get this done in such a short time I am going to have to be disciplined. My plan is to follow Joanne Reid's module, "How to Write A Novel in 10 Weeks" inside the "Write Your Way To Freedom" course. Having read what she teaches I found that first and foremost I needed to decide on the theme for the story of my book. I really needed to think exactly what was my novel going to be about? What was to be the theme of my fictional work to be? This module warns me that this is not the plot I am dealing with here, but the approach or the idea that the author is going to use. In other words, I have to think 'what is the heart of my novel going to be about?' Like many other amateur authors, writers like me can confuse theme with the story idea. But, as Joanne Reid shows, they are simply not the same.

If, as in my case, you want to write a novel then she advises that firstly you should have an idea for the story that is good, strong and sharply defined. If you do not have one that matches this criterion, you will more than likely end up getting writer's block and drying up round about page 29 to 30 of the manuscript. In order to complete the work you need to be excited by the novel that you have planned inside your head. The story has to matter to you and you need to remember that the age old adage of "writing about what you know" may be some of the best advice that you could take. So now I need to think about what it is I know that could be crafted into a novel?

As Joanne advises, I could look at: - My own personal experience - What-if personal experience - Philosophical conclusions based on experience - History - Something that we had heard - Some chance incident - Suggestions made by a friend - Strong feelings for or against something - Current events - Desire for adventure - Strong interest in a business - A new invention - Social upheavals

Setting up Basic Conflict Having looked at Joanne's list I then went on to consider the basic conflict. All works of fiction need to have some basic conflict. In order to establish this conflict, the author must have two things. These are: a protagonist (or protagonists) and an environment. In the Write a Novel in 10 Days part of this course I learnt that the environment may be the result of the physical setting or settings, or the atmosphere caused by the social situation, or it could even be from the emotional mood.

Setting the Stage: The novelist, I learnt, should put the protagonist(s) in conflict with either his or her own environment, or with the environment of others. We are handily given ten principles for placing the protagonist in conflict and these are:

1.Moving the protagonist from one environment to another.

2.Something changes in the protagonist's environment.

3.The protagonist is put in an environment which is in conflict with other environments.

4.We give the protagonist an environment to conquer.

5.The protagonist is placed in an environment he or she wants to change.

6.We put them into an environment they want to escape from.

7.We put the protagonist into an environment where he or she is not wanted.

8.The protagonist gets put into an environment for which he or she is unsuited.

9.The protagonist status quo in his or her environment is changed.

10.We change the status quo of the environment itself.

Joanne explains to her students that we should give our protagonist a chief motivating force with a tangible object. It is the response of the protagonist to the environment which will bring a determination to do something about it so that they may achieve some tangible goal. This, then, will be the chief motivating force in the novel. It may also help if the novelist exaggerates the reaction of their protagonist to the environment round them. It is essential to have an idea of what the conflict is to be before we start to plot our novel.

Theme: There are many places in which to search out ideas to use in our novels. Once we have an idea, I have learnt, we should then concentrate on the overriding subject matter of the idea. We should also strive to understand our own attitude towards it and this attitude needs to be clear and strong. For example: I am considering writing a novel about Admiral Lord Nelson. My subject had been an ordinary young man who had joined the Royal Navy as a lad and who suffered sea-sickness almost every time that he set out to sea. Not withstanding this, he was to become a master of military tactics and a hero for the British nation. Even to this day he captures the imagination of millions of people.

I want, in my novel, to show that people need a hero for their own personal reasons. This then, is to be my attitude in the book that I shall write. My next stage will be to come up with the approach that I shall take. In other words, the reason why I want to write this book. For this I shall need a statement of purpose to make clear my approach to the subject.

My purpose in writing about Admiral Nelson will be to prove that we all need heroes so much so that we are willing to overlook any of our hero's flaws. The theme is to be: fame and my approach to fame is that, in our society, people need fame so much that they like to put certain people on a pedestal disregarding any failures that the hero may have had. In the Admiral Nelson's case it is, quite literally a statute on a column in London's Trafalgar square. Now Horatio Nelson was undoubtedly a great man, but like us all he still had some negative character traits.

I am following the Write Your Way To Freedom module on Writing a Novel in 10 Weeks to help me achieve this aim (htp://www.WriteYourWayToFreedom.com). So I shall firstly be assessing my idea to see if it is strong, next I will consider what the basic conflict is to be before setting the stage and lastly working on the theme.

About the Author

Want to read Write a Novel in 10 Weeks? Take a look at Write Your Way To Freedom ! from Nick Thorne, a bookseller of 19 years experience who also enjoys writing novels.