How Do I Write A Novel?

The biggest mistake you can make is to start writing a novel.

That’s right, I advised you not to start writing a novel. Why? Because I want you to start writing a draft. And that isn’t just semantics.

Most beginning writers tell me they want to write a novel, which is two mistakes. First of all, they tell me about their project before they even started, and they called it a novel, instead of a draft.

A novel goes through stages:

1. There’s the planning stage. Some writers plan out the entire story and divide it in chapters, called an outline. Others, like me, just jot down ideas like rough sketches of what they want to do with the storylines.
2. Then there’s the drafting stage. This is where you write without editing. Just fill the pages and write down the story. You don’t try to write perfect or grammatically correct, you just put the stuff in your head on paper or screen. I tend to write scenes, sometimes in random order. Keep everything fresh, write every day, and never ever tell someone else what you’re writing about. Drafts are not to be shared, they are to get everything out so you can see what you’ve got.
3. After the drafting stage comes the editing stage. You’ve written down the whole story in draft, but it’s a mess. Typos and grammar abound, scenes are in random order, some scenes ramble, others are too short. Now you either print out the draft (or, what I do, you turn the draft into an e-book and upload it into your e-reader) and you take out a highlighter and a pen, and you highlight problem areas and jot down editing notes for yourself.
4. Then you get to the polishing stage. You take the list of highlights and editing notes, make a copy of your draft (so you keep the unedited draft in case you throw something away by accident) and you polish the draft — you put the scenes in the correct order, cut the superfluous stuff, pare down dialogue, add details, put the scenes into chapters, edit the beginning and ending of each chapter so the story flows smoothly.
5. Then you get to the manuscript stage. Here is where you format the text, add a front page with word count and your information, and send it out to your agent or publishers. Or, if you’re self-published, you send this to your beta-readers for feedback. If you get the manuscript back with feedback, you can see if there’s things you want to change, before you either return it to your agent, or (if you’re self-published) to your editor.
6. Then you get to the novel stage. Either your publisher sends it back and forth to you with editorial notes until you remedied all the flaws, or you go back and forth with your own editor if you’re self-published until you’re both satisfied. Then the publisher turns it into a book, or you publish the novel.

So, you can see that the idea of ‘starting to write a novel’ skips quite a few steps. Telling people you’re writing a novel is like telling people you’re running a marathon, when you’re only jogging five miles a day working towards the marathon.

Another thing: don’t tell everyone you’re writing a novel.

The last thing you want is people annoying you with questions whether the book is finished yet. Some novels take a few months, some novels take a few years. Some novels are never finished. If you try to write a draft and find that you’re unable to write a whole book-length manuscript, there’s nothing worse than people reminding you of your ‘failure’.

Also, every time you talk about your stories, you will have less and less motivation to write them down.

So write your draft first, and then — when you’re entering the editing stage — you can talk about your novel and see if you can find beta-readers to give you feedback.