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If you’re like me, you have a ton of fiction novels laying around. You probably have some you liked, some you didn’t like and some you’ve read multiple times. You may also have more than a few collecting dust. The good news is that you can use those novels to jumpstart your own novel. All you have to do is pick one in your preferred genre and open it.
Get Your Novel Started with a Novel
For most writers, the biggest challenge of writing a novel is getting started, and it doesn't matter if you’ve never written a novel or if you’ve written dozens of novels. A blank page is still intimidating even if you have an idea. You have a basic idea of the flow of the novel, and you know the setting and the name of the main character. All those ideas and thoughts are fresh in your head and you are ready to slam out thousands of words, until you open your word processor. The minute you see that blank page, all your brilliant ideas just disappear just like last night’s ice cream. Having a novel on hand can help you get rid of that blank page and alleviate your anxiety over starting a new piece of fiction.
Read more: How to Use a Novel to Start and Write Your Next Novel
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Are you looking for a universal multi-platform piece of writing software so that you can work on your novel at home, while you are out and while you are on vacation or away for the weekend? If you answered yes, Wavemaker may be the right novel writing software for you because it is compatible with all operating systems, including Windows, Linux, MAC, iOS, ChromeBooks and Android.
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Third person fiction is the most common form of narrative. It’s the easiest perspective to write from, because it allows a lot of flexibility in how you craft the narrative. You can write as an omniscient observer or as a narrator limited to only the perspective of the characters in the scene. You can even stay attached to the perspective of a single character, without having to resort to using the first person. Here are some pros and cons of writing fiction in the third person.
PRO: It’s the perspective most readers are familiar and comfortable with.
Many readers don’t like first-person or second-person perspectives in fiction. Most readers prefer third person. It’s the most common perspective in fiction writing, so it’s the one most readers are comfortable reading. Some people really don’t like being forced into the perspective of a single character as in first-person fiction. Others find second-person (where you are put into the shoes of the protagonist) confusing and disorienting. Third-person fiction is the most straightforward and easiest to write. While first-person and second-person perspectives can work well when written well, most stories work well when written in third-person.
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Writing styles evolve. The novels of 50 or 60 years ago—think Agatha Christie, John Steinbeck, or Harper Lee—often look and feel different on the page than contemporary fiction. One notable shift is how authors handle internal dialogue or character thoughts.
While older novels frequently used italics to express thoughts, modern authors and editors are more divided. The question remains: Should you use italics to show what a character is thinking?
Let’s break down the pros and cons of using italics for character thoughts, how formatting trends have changed over time, and what today’s writers should consider when choosing a stylistic approach.
🔍 The Historical Use of Italics in Fiction Writing
In the mid-20th century, the use of italics to denote a character’s unspoken thoughts was standard practice. Classic writers like Agatha Christie or Ray Bradbury used italics as a visual cue, helping readers distinguish between narrative voice, dialogue, and internal musings.
In these decades, fiction writing was often more “formal” in tone, with a clear structure for punctuation, grammar, and formatting. Readers expected to see italics signaling a thought—just as they expected quotation marks around spoken dialogue.
However, modern fiction has become more fluid. With the rise of close third-person and first-person narratives, many contemporary writers have moved away from formatting thoughts in italics. Instead, they integrate thoughts seamlessly into the narrative, often without any visual markers.
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Have you ever read second-person fiction? While second-person fiction isn’t nearly as popular as third-person or first-person fiction, putting the reader in the perspective of the main character is something done on occasion. You are probably mostly familiar with second-person perspective as what is used in “Choose Your Own Adventure Books.” But, there are lots of popular books that have used this perspective.
Did you know that big-name authors such as William Faulkner and Leo Tolstoy have dabbled with it in the past? Self-help books often use the second-person perspective, too. However, it’s very hard to write from this perspective well. So, you may ask, what are the pros and cons of using second-person perspective in your own fiction?