Why? For what reason are you writing it? The subject is no small matter.

Freud maintained that we do things for one or more of five reasons: “honor, power, fame, riches, and the love of women.” (Let’s just say ‘love’.) None of these reasons are necessarily wrong-headed, but there are better ones. How about joy? The joy of writing and, with luck, that joy conveyed to your eventual reader? That’s a great place from which to start.

If you are writing to punish your enemies, surpass your friends, or become (above) filthy rich, then the Novel Gods probably won’t smile upon you. They might well smite you will all manner of writing torment up to and including biting flies. I’m not unserious here. Novels started with negative intent are  hardly ever finished.

Whatever your reason for writing, let it fall on the side of the positive. Am I writing this novel to contribute, clarify, add to, entertain, uplift, instruct, delight, make people laugh, or encourage them to have more sex? Those are all good reasons.

Alternately, sometimes we write to solve a personal problem. An event, an issue, a conflict in our life that just won’t go away. One that hums and buzzes in the back of our brains. That wants to be addressed. This, too, is a good reason to write a novel. But be sure to make your Problem accessible and useful to your reader. Try to write with a reader in mind who has experienced the same dilemma or life passage. Make your novel a kind of camaraderie, a conversation with an empathetic listener. Readers have radar for authors who are “inclusive,” who attend to their needs to see and feel the events of your narrative. Whatever your Problem,  there are thousands of people (potential book buyers) who have experienced it, too. And like you, they are trying to make sense of it.

Whatever your reason for writing, in the end, as the English novelist E. M. Forster famously advised, “Only connect.” If you set out in your novel to tell a story that connects with the minds and hearts of strangers–and in some way uplift them– then you’re off to a great start.