How To Write a Novel

Or at least how I plan to write my novels. Right now I'm tweaking a novel for release (aka Fine Drafting it). No matter how essential this step is, fine drafting a book doesn't feel like real writing, so I thought I would flex my writing muscles by trying to recapture what it took to bring this book into existence. What burbled up from the morass seemed about as wiry as Jeffy's run through gangland in the Family Circus cartoon that never made it to print (ask your parents kids). So. I decided to iron the process out and streamline the steps into what you might call “Ikea Instructions for Writing a Novel” a short simple guide to the mechanical side of bringing a book together.

One word of warning though, some of this is untested advice. It is a combination of the way I did it as well as the way I now see that I should have done it. Whether or not it actually works I won't know until after I write the next book. So take what you read here with a grain of salt.

Brainstorming

Focus: Generate random ideas to be used in the story.

Technique: On your hard drive, in a folder full of other brainstorm files, create a new file (Title_Brainstorm.doc) and dump into it anything related to the story, splatting ideas down in any old fashion. This step may take a day or it may take years.

Visibility: Brainstorms are for your eyes only.

Goal: When you sincerely feel like this story is something you want to write – and not just dream about writing - move on to the next step.

Story Boarding

Focus: Take an eagle-eyed perspective on the story, emphasizing shape over substance.

Technique: Create a folder using the working title of the book and move your brainstorm into it. Create another file in this folder for your storyboards (Title_Storyboard1.doc).

Using your brainstorm for inspiration, group thoughts into scenes. Give each a working title and list related items beneath them.

Don't bother with florid descriptions or dialog unless they are coming to you naturally. Even then - try to keep your story boards small and tight – most of what you write here will be tossed out and never seen by anyone anyway.

Rearrange these scenes into an approximation of what the reader will be presented with by the book.

Visibility: Don't show your storyboards to anyone.

Goal: Create crude thumbnail sketches of the story. The step is finished when you have a basic idea of its beginning, middle, and end.

Rough Drafting

Focus: Discover the story for yourself by diving into the thick of it.

Technique: Create a new document in the folder (Title_RoughDraft1.doc). Using your storyboard as a guide, turn the scene titles into chapter titles and write your way through the story as quickly and crudely as possible. Write as if sitting at a typewriter with no correction ribbon. If you make a mistake or need to do some research or fact checking, lay down some brackets and note it to yourself [like so]. Whatever you do – do not start backing up and correcting things!

This is where you write with mad passion and wild abandon. If the story wanders away from your storyboard then let it. Shoot along the tangent. Have fun with it. See where it leads. This is the exploratory part of your writing.

If the tangent leads to a dead-end, reel back to a chapter where a different turn could have been made and write from there.

If you get to the middle of the book and find that you simply cannot continue because of all the changes that need to be made to the way it begins (which happens far too often) create a new document (Title_RoughDraft2.doc) and start writing from the top. You might even want to create a new storyboard (Title_StoryBoard2.doc) or rearrange the old one. Fine. This is the reason why these files are numbered, short, and crudely written.

Be lenient with yourself. Novels are not like short stories or poems. If you expend too much energy trying to make your rough draft seem like a final draft you will burn up your enthusiasm and the book will disintegrate. Try chanting this mantra as you write, “Rough drafts are supposed to be rough.”

Visibility: Do not show your rough drafts to anyone – they're not done yet!

Goal: Write a complete draft that roughly depicts the entire story (not just the first half of the story followed by an outline of how it will end).

Plain Drafting

Focus: Be a tour guide to the story you have discovered.

Technique: Read though the rough draft and focus on the chapters. Chapters should generally be 10 to 30 pages in length. Break apart overly long chapters and provide them with new working titles.

Think about how the reader will receive the story and shuffle about the chapters to provide a dramatic opening, rising tension and a climactic ending. Strike out those chapters that don't need to be there and crudely write in the missing ones that do.

Use Find/Replace to track down your bracketed notes [remember these?] and consider what you left for yourself. Do research if necessary. List important notes for the rewriting of a chapter just beneath the chapter title.

Create a new document (Title_PlainDraft1.doc) and write out the plain draft using your rough draft as a guide. Read a chapter in the rough draft and then write a chapter in the plain draft. Even if the writing is extremely good, do not simply cut/paste text from the rough draft to the plain draft. Yes, you need to rewrite everything.

Unlike the rough draft, let yourself make large error fixes, such as erasing whole paragraphs that just don't work. Avoid making smaller error fixes such as fixing misspellings, changing sentence structure, or hitting the thesaurus to find just the right word. The plain draft should not be as fast and crude as the rough draft, but it should still move at a quick pace.

On the rare chance that your plain draft falls to pieces - just as with the rough draft – create a new document (Title_PlainDraft2.doc) and start over from the top.

Visibility: Finished plain drafts can be workshopped with other writers who are talented in their craft. Here is where you could use some critical feedback.

Goal: When you get to THE END of the plain draft you're done.

Fine Drafting

Focus: Finely tune the story at hand.

Technique: If you haven't done so already, you might want to shift this project to the side burner and go work on something else, perhaps the start or finish of some other project slid off to the side burner long ago (but not the “back burner” only hopeless projects get pushed to the back burner). Purge your thoughts of the current story so you can return to it with a fresh eye.

Read through the plain draft (try not to vomit), write notes on each chapter below the chapter headings, create a new document (Title_FineDraft1.doc) and rewrite the plain draft in the same way you rewrote the rough draft: read a chapter - write a chapter. Don't be surprised if you find yourself relying less and less on the previous draft for guidance as the story will probably be quite firmly entrenched in your imagination.

Give yourself the leeway to fix errors but still be wary of cyclical writing (which will screw you up every time). Hopefully you won't need to write more than one fine draft, but if the story is still not to your liking then create a new file, number it and rewrite it.

Visibility: Fine drafts you can safely show to your friends but not the general public.

Goal: When you feel confident showing the fine draft to your confidants then you are done.

The Final Draft

Focus: Make your story the greatest thing ever written.

Technique: Thankfully, this is not an actual draft (listen to your fingertips rejoice). Make a copy of the last fine draft you wrote and rename it (Title_TheFinalDraft.doc).

Now read it through, from beginning to end, whispering the text to yourself and making a point of exaggerating the movement of your lips and tongue as if enunciating each word out loud. This will slow you down and hopefully draw your attention to all those little demonic words – articles, prepositions, conjunctions, etc. - that so easily get out of whack.

Focus on each paragraph as a separate entity. Every time you make a change to a paragraph return to its beginning and start reading it again. Continue cycling through this paragraph until you can enunciate the entire thing without a hitch - then move on to the next paragraph.

Correct grammar is good, but being able to read your work aloud without embarrassing yourself is so much better.

Visibility: The final draft is the one you want the world to see.

Goal: The book you want!

Final File Rundown

Aside from all the support files you'll probably accumulate (image files, maps, bits of text, character profiles, etc.) here is what you'll probably end up with in your project folder. Ultimately only the final draft truly matters, but it doesn't hurt to keep the old stuff around too.

Title_Brainstorm.doc

Title_Storyboard1.doc

Title_Storyboard2.doc

Title_RoughDraft1.doc

Title_RoughDraft2.doc

Title_RoughDraft3.doc

Title_PlainDraft1.doc

Title_FineDraft1.doc

Title_TheFinalDraft.doc