by Stephanie Morrill
Okay. I’m leaving on vacation today and therefore decided you all needed a 2,000 word blog post from me to tide you over.
Kidding. What really happened is that I became frustrated with the “Steps to Writing a Novel” page that I had posted from when we started our Write Now program in 2011. It began to feel very inadequate to me, though I was regularly receiving emails from writers who said they were using it.
So I decided to improve upon it. Below is the result. You can easily find it up top there by clicking that handy “How to Write a Novel” tab:
The good news is that every writer is different. I began my writing journey as a “pantser.” A writer who writes by the seat of her pants without an outline. I wanted to be an outline type girl (After all, I love everything to be neat and orderly) but it just didn’t work for me.
The pluses of writing as a pantser, I’ve found, is the creativity. The story can wander as you see fit that day.
The bad thing is … the story can wander. Which means a lot of tightening up, trashing, and rewriting during the revision process.
After 11 years of pursuing publication, 8 years of doing it full time, and 4 years of being a published author, I’ve developed into a hybrid of pantser and plotter. I’m a plantser, you could say.
With every book I write, I learn more about the craft and more about what works for me as an author. It’s hard to write a solid “Step by Step” guide for writing a novel, but this is my process more or less. Hopefully you find it helpful:
Related Posts: Gathering story ideas: How to “get in the way” of great ideas, Making Sure Your Idea is Big Enough
Related Posts: Writing a good first paragraph, Writing a good first chapter, How to end a chapter, Writing Chapter Two
• After I’ve written my three chapters, I have a decent idea of who my characters are, what they want, and how they interact with each other. So I pause my first draft to make a book proposal. That way my agent can be shopping the idea while I keep writing. A book proposal involves:
- A title. For a series this also means a title for the series and the other books.
- My estimated word count
- My target audience
- My one-line, or “The hook” as we list it in the proposal.
- Comparitive titles, which I possibly hate even more than the one-liner. This is a handful of titles that’s similar to your book. The point is for the publishing house to get an idea of similar titles that are already on the market and how they’re selling. It’s tricky stuff because you want to show that your book will be successful, but I’ve also heard agents say to not put down books that are phenomenal best sellers. Like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. Amazon.com is a good resource for these, but I’ve actually found that my library’s website is even better.
- My author bio and a picture of me looking cute and likable and, “Don’t I look like a professional, fun person to work with?”
- Sales Hooks/Author Promotion, which is anything that will say to publishers, “I can sell some books for you!” I put endorsements here, awards my books have won, and stuff like being featured on the cover of The Kansas City Star.
- Marketing Strategies, which is what it sounds like. It’s all the fun marketing stuff I’ve come up with for this particular book or series.
- Book summaries for all books being pitched.
- Sample chapters
- Synopsis, typically 2 to 3 pages.
- Who my main character is and how they will change over the course of the story
- Where the story takes place
- Who the secondary characters are
- Who opposes my main character and why
The first draft process will deepen all these things, of course. Some things that get deepened during the first draft are:
- What’s special about my character
- Personality Facets – contradictions within my character
- Worldbuilding, which isn’t just for sci fi/fantasy writers, my friends
- A disturbance in the main character’s normal world (use link below for the “doorway” for a fuller description.)
- A “doorway” or invitation for them to begin on their journey
- Obstacles and twists in their journey, for which I like to balance with the pendulum method, where events swing from being good for the main character, to bad for the main character, and back again. It’s also good to have a ticking clock nudging them along.
- A black moment or the “whiff of death” as it’s referred to by Blake Snyder
- A doorway that leads into the final battle
- Sending in “the calvary” (with these last three, there’s no order they HAVE to go in. Usually they happen around each other, though.)
- The climax
- Satisfying wrap up
If this is early in your writing journey, you might have some unique questions and struggles with the first draft. Such as:
- Is the first novel the hardest to write?
- Should I research as I go? (Related posts: Researching Setting, Researching Characters, and Researching for Historicals)
- Concerns about time transitions and how to skip around in time
- How often should I write? What kind of place is best?
- When should I show my story to others?
- How long should my book be?
- How long should chapters be?
- How do I stay organized and keep track of all these details floating around in my head?
- I’m so overwhelmed! This story is out of control!
• Because I’m more of a bare bones writer, I aim for about 10k less then I want the book to wind up being. That gives me plenty of room for all the adding I’ll need.
- Characters (Things to check for in your characters, Developing Characters at the Right Pace, Examining their Internal and External Motivations
- Plot
- Pacing
- Themes/Symbolism – I might notice themes or symbols that have happened organically through the writing process. If I do, I look for ways to highlight them better in later drafts.
- Can I switch out dialogue tags (he said, she said) for action beats?
- Is my dialogue natural?
- Where can my POV be tightened? Am I head-hopping anywhere?
- How’s my balance of description?
- Am I using good sentences?
- Are my sentences active rather than passive?
- Can I do a better job of incorporating the 5 senses?
- Am I using “it” too often?
Related Posts: Some lessons on commas, CAPS, “Quotes” (and parentheses too)
- Scene Breakdown Spreadsheet (I made some additions to mine, which I noted here.)
- Character Chart (And again, I made some additions to mine, which I noted here.)
- Calendar of Events (This I sometimes track during my first draft. Just depends on the story.)