In this blog post we talk to the author of the young adult novel Ten Steps to Us, Attiya Khan. She gives us the insights on how to make your passion for writing a novel a reality. So far, the novel has gained great success as a coming of age book about the life of a teenage Muslim girl. To us it was really hard to put this book down, we found it thought-provoking and entertaining in the best way. If you are passionate about writing, continue reading to find out Attiya’s five key pieces of advice writers need to know. 

Plan before writing

It’s completely normal to have ideas but to not know exactly how to put them down on paper. This is one of the most common reasons books end up unfinished, but don’t panic there are ways around it. Planning is a fantastic way to visualise where your narrative is going and can really help you achieve your goals. Many think of planning as the first step in the process, but remember that you can continue to adapt and re-plan parts of your work as you go along. 

When writing her novel, Attiya used planning to help her overcome difficulties writing, as she says, “I had written the beginning and had written the end but got stuck in the middle. I didn’t know what was going to happen. Being stuck meant I stopped writing for quite a long time.” To get over this issue she created a chapter plan, from beginning to end, and made sure she knew what was going to happen in each chapter before writing it. “Once I knew what was going to happen I was able to write again.” 

Create a strong protagonist 

Deciding the point of view of the story is one of the most important decisions for an author. Different perspectives carry different assumptions and experiences and so significantly impact and influence the narrative. The first person is a great way to connect the reader to the emotions and opinions of the protagonist, while the third person enables the author to tell a more complete story, not being limited to only show one point of view. 

Attiya wrote in the first person, meaning that everything rested on her protagonist. This didn’t necessarily mean that she needed to have a particularly likeable main character, but what they did need to have is a strong and authentic voice so that the reader is carried along with the character's journey, and wants to keep turning those pages.  

Write with a purpose 

Attiya explains that her book covers sensitive topics in religion and faith, but that she doesn’t try to push a certain point of view as being correct, instead she wants the reader to make up their own mind. A strength of the book is that she uses her own personal experience to really foster an engaging narrative with respect to these topics. Although it can be hard to keep everyone happy, as she points out, “I tried to be as sensitive as I could but you can’t please everyone and inevitably there are some people that may be offended when emotive topics are covered in a book.”

As you can see, an essential part to making your book more engaging is to introduce difficult questions and topics. It's important to make your message clear, although you don’t have to present an opinion, your goal should simply be to force the reader to think. 

Rewrite, and rewrite again

So you’ve written a first draft? That’s great, you’ve done the initial steps and the majority of the hard work. Now it’s useful to redraft and refine, every time you do you’ll see improvements in your work. 

Attiya agrees that rewrites are necessary, and explains how many she had to undergo, “ I must have written the first chapter at least 14 times and before I submitted it to the publisher I had already redrafted it three times.” It’s also important to get a second opinion, in Attiya’s case this was with her publisher, “we went through four rounds of edits, some of them very close to the deadline for going to print. It’s all part of the process, but you want the book to be as good as it possibly can be before going out into the world.”

Listen to criticism constructively 

Since publishing Ten Steps to Us, Attiya has realised the vital role criticism plays in writing. Listening to others, whether they are your publisher, a friend or teachers, enables you to constantly improve your work, letting it reach its potential. Some people may love your book, others may not and others may misunderstand the message, but taking on board their suggestions really enables you to believe in your work. 

As Attiya says, “I really believe in my book and in my vision so I feel I can pretty much take anything because I believe in the truth of what I have created. When  people give me feedback whether it's positive or negative I really appreciate that someone has taken the time to read my book, and when people have strong opinions it makes me happy because it means they really got into the story. I have had some really amazing reviews and they have meant a lot to me.”

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Check out Attiya’s novel, Ten Steps to Us, here, here and here.