Transcription
If you've never written a novel before, the process can seem overwhelming. I've written nine of them, and I've learned a few things along the way. Here are the most important lessons you should know before you embark on the journey of writing a novel. Because while you can go in blind, it's helpful to have a few pointers beforehand.
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One, write this book for yourself. Don't worry about what other people will think. Don't obsess over the idea of publishing it. Do it for yourself. Do it because you enjoy it. My first novel isn't great, but it is fun. It's genuinely me. One of the worst things a debut book can be is self-conscious, second-guessing itself, and worrying about what the reader might think. Don't write this way, please. It won't be fun for you, and it won't result in a good book.
Your first book will be, almost inevitably, the worst book you ever write. That doesn't mean it'll be terrible, and it doesn't mean you should put the bare minimum of effort into writing it. But it does mean you have the liberty to be fully yourself, to be daring, to put everything you want on the page. When you're writing your first novel, you don't have previous books of yours to compare it to. You probably don't have a massive fan base to please. It can be a free and unfiltered act of creative expression, perhaps more so than any subsequent book you write.
What if you want to make a career out of writing? Do everything you can to make your first book a success. This advice still applies, because if you do want to be a professional author, you'd better be certain you actually enjoy the process of writing a whole book. If you try to cater to a certain market or conform to external expectations merely as a way of maximizing your chances of commercial success, you're setting up your first attempt for failure. You'll end up contorting yourself to fit a mold before you've discovered who you naturally are as a writer.
Your first book is all about that, discovery. It's a learning process. No matter how much you prepare, no matter how many books or classes or videos on the craft you consume, there will always be an element of trial and error to writing your first book. Because you're not just getting to know the process, you're getting to know your process. On a deeper level, you're getting to know yourself.
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Writing fiction can be a surprisingly revealing process, one that stirs up deep-rooted beliefs and feelings you might never have before. Not to mention how it pushes your limits. This self-discovery, which can be one of the most profound dimensions of writing a book, can be stunted by putting external motivations and incentives over your own vision.
Two, accept that you're going to be bad at first. Your first book is probably going to suck, and there's a good chance you'll have to confront this fact as you're writing it, which is why it's so important that you enjoy the process. Learn to enjoy being an amateur. Do you know where the word amateur comes from? The Latin word amator, meaning lover. To be an amateur is to be a lover of the craft, even when you're not great at it. It's your passion that will start you on the path that eventually leads to mastery.
If you're like me, you probably want to write something great, something on par with the books that have inspired you. It's good to aim high. You probably shouldn't set out to write a bad book. I'd even go so far as to say that being delusional is an essential part of the drafting process. If you don't think that what you're actively writing is any good, if you get in your head about it, if you try to compare the words you're putting down to those penned by masters of the craft, you'll be too demoralized to keep going. The gulf between you and your inspirations will seem too large. The gap between your initial vision and the flawed first draft will look like the Grand Canyon.
So if you can, don't think at all about the objective quality of your work while you're still bringing the first draft to life. Finish it first, then worry about making it good later. This is true no matter how experienced of a writer you are, but all the more so when you're writing your first book. The most important thing is completing that first draft, proving to yourself that you can cross the finish line. So many would-be authors start writing their debut novel only to fall prey to their inner critic, letting perfectionism stand in the way of finishing the story. You can spend an eternity tinkering with your opening chapter, and it might never be everything you want it to be. I don't know about you, but I've never heard of a writer who garnered fame and acclaim for writing one perfect chapter and nothing else.
If you're ever going to finish your first book, or your 10th, I'm kind of talking to myself here, too, you have to accept that perfection is an impossible dream. When you're writing the first draft, your only job is to transpose the story in your mind onto the page. It won't be polished. It doesn't need to be. When you start editing is when your inner critic has to kick in. Continued delusional optimism will blind you to your story's faults and render you an ineffectual editor.
When it comes to editing a first draft, especially if it's your first novel, you have to learn to embrace the rough edges. This doesn't mean overlooking issues and publishing your unedited first draft. It simply means you shouldn't let those issues discourage you. On the contrary, a flawed first draft is a great problem to have, one you can be proud of. Because a messy, overlong, plot hole-ridden manuscript is infinitely better than a perfect idea of a manuscript that doesn't exist. Don't think about draft one as anything but a starting point, a rough and flawed version that you can eventually polish into a gem. Writing is an iterative process. Keep that in mind as you embark on penning the first draft, and you'll free yourself from a great deal of pressure. Your sentences don't have to come out perfect. You can use placeholders, even skip entire scenes if you feel stuck. It's normal to feel lost in the creative journey. It wouldn't be much of a journey if you couldn't get a little lost.
Three, write fearlessly. I'm so glad I wrote my first novel when I was too young to know how significant that was. The older you get, the more fear and rationality start to direct your judgment, which isn't always bad, but making art is an inherently irrational and somewhat intimidating process. You need to approach it the way a child would. If I were trying to write my first novel now, I would stand a much smaller chance of finishing it. There's so much information online about how to write a novel, the right way to structure your story, the words you should always avoid using, the story beats you need to include, on and on. It can be helpful, but it can also be overwhelming to the point of paralysis.
Writing should be like play, a free act of creative expression. Certain writers drink to lower their inhibitions to the point where they can write fluidly, Hemingway most famously, but that's not a healthy way to reach that desired end state. Instead, we need to channel our inner child and treat the creation of art as play, not work. There is a place for discipline and grit, but we're talking about storytelling here, not brain surgery. You want to lose consciousness of yourself, disappear into the story, and have fun doing it. As the painter Robert Henri put it, the object isn't to make art, it's to be in a wonderful state which makes art inevitable. You can only reach that state by opening yourself up, making space for your inner child, and for vulnerability.
Fiction is a place to face your fears. It's a place to confront the questions that keep you up at night, to interrogate your beliefs, to toss big ideas in the ring and see which emerges the victor. I don't say that to imply you have to write something philosophical, profound, or pretentious. Rather, to write fearlessly is to write from the heart about what most interests you, what you feel the strongest about. The result might be something classically philosophical and introspective, or it might be something purely entertaining that doesn't take itself too seriously. The point is that writing well requires letting down your guard. To write something fully authentic, you have to be willing to go to those darker places. Even if you're writing a light, frothy comedy, your richest material might come from examining your own deep-held beliefs, your most foundational memories, and your biggest questions about life.
Perhaps the biggest fear you'll have to overcome when trying to write a book is the fear of starting, or the fear of failure. These two fears are interconnected. You fear starting because you fear what might happen if you finish the book and it sucks. As a result, you end up stuck in an endless cycle of planning, researching, learning about the craft, and never actually start writing the first page. You have to take that leap. Accept that your outline may not be perfect, that the creative process won't go as planned, that you might not even be ready to write this book. When it comes to art, readiness is overrated. You have to be willing to take a risk, to fall headfirst into the unknown, if you're ever going to write something great.
Four, don't force anything. If you're trying to write a book, don't start with a particular length or outcome in mind. Attempting to write a massive novel on your first try probably won't go very well, but you also don't want to close yourself off to that possibility. Always let the story dictate its own length. More than once, I've started writing something that I thought would be a short story, only for it to turn into a novella or even a novel. Stay flexible. You never know where your writing might take you.
For instance, I started writing a story nearly 10 years ago with no definite direction in mind, just a setting, a loosely sketched protagonist, and a vibe. It ended up becoming a novel, which ended up becoming a trilogy, which ended up inspiring a prequel. That prequel, Catalyst of Control, is my ninth novel and the first I'm publishing widely. If I had forced that original story to conform to the constraints I'd originally envisioned, I never would have discovered how much potential its world and characters really had. Likewise, if I had tried to sketch out the trilogy into a seven-book series just because, I would have done the story a disservice by filling it with unnecessary padding.
The more you write, the better you'll get at intuiting how long a certain story should be. I get asked sometimes by writers how long their books should be. The truth is that while there are length conventions for different genres and audiences, there's no way to answer that question as an outside observer. Some ideas are so rich and complex that they lend themselves to longer forms of storytelling, while others appear simple enough that a short story would serve them best. But you never know for sure until you're actually writing it.
Another thing you shouldn't force is your process. Just because your favorite author gets up at dawn every morning and writes for 5 hours, doesn't mean you should. I'm all for trying out different routines and approaches, but don't lock yourself into one early on. Don't force your style to match someone else's. Often, we do this unconsciously, copying the voice of a writer we love. A certain degree of emulation is inevitable, all the more so when we're starting out. Still, there's a difference between naturally being influenced by your favorite writers and going out of your way to write like they do. Your first venture into any new creative arena is all about experimentation, learning what works for you and what doesn't. Some writing advice will resonate, some won't. Try things out, but if something's not working, don't force it.
Five, know what you're getting into. Your own expectations can make or break any creative endeavor. Calibrate them appropriately. Writing is a time-intensive process. It can be tedious at times. If you've never undertaken a project of this magnitude before, it can be quite a shock to the system, especially in today's day and age with distraction constantly at our fingertips. Staring at a blank page and willing words into existence can seem unbearably boring. You might have an expectation that the words will come easily, that you'll finish your first draft in a month or even less, that you'll begin every writing session brimming with inspiration. If those things end up true for you, congrats, but don't bet on it.
It's easy to hold a romanticized view of the writer's life in our minds. Many popular depictions of authors would have you believe our days are enchanted and carefree, penning tales with childlike joy, and consistently producing page after page of perfect prose. It's not entirely unfounded. Being a writer can be pretty awesome. But the day-to-day reality is usually more mundane, built on routine rather than divine inspiration. The other popular archetype that influences our expectations is the angsty writer, the one who spends painful hours hunched over a keyboard, who mines their own trauma for material, whose obsession with their work drives them into madness or seclusion. Yes, writing can be a lonely endeavor. Yes, it can benefit from introspection and rumination on the darker sides of life. But the idea that the ideal writer is a tortured genius, some sort of artistic masochist, is a harmful distortion. For a writer's life to be sustainable or even worth pursuing, you have to find joy in the process and not take yourself too seriously, either.
Knowing what you're getting into isn't all about lowering your expectations. It's equally about knowing why you're choosing to write a book. If you don't have a good answer to that question, you'll have a much harder time persevering when the going gets tough. When you feel adrift in the murky middle of the story or when the first draft is taking far longer than you anticipated, you need a guiding light to get through it. So, before you put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, make sure you're clear on why you're embarking on this journey. Maybe it's just for fun, a fulfillment of a long-time dream. Maybe it's an experiment to push your creative boundaries. Maybe it's your first stab at what you hope could be a career. Your motivation will inform the writing process, providing a yardstick by which to measure progress and a scale by which to weigh decisions. If you know you intend to publish this book, you'll need to make different decisions than you would if you set out to write this book purely for the joy of it. There's no right or wrong here. What's important is that you fully understand what you want to get out of the process.
If you know what you're getting into, don't force anything, write fearlessly, accept imperfection, and write for yourself, you'll be well on your way toward writing and finishing your first book. It's a challenge, for sure. It always is. I've been doing this for over 12 years now, and I'm still learning all the time. That's part of the fun. Writing a book is never easy, but I hope these lessons will make it a little easier for you.
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