How to Write a Novel: How to write the first draft
“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.”
—Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
When you haven’t written a book before, you assume it’s easy enough. This is why authors commonly hear things at parties like, ‘Oh, yes, I’ll write a novel someday when I have the time.’ As if time is all you need.
I still find first drafts challenging after more than thirty books, but I have some specific processes and tools that help me get it done.
Schedule time blocks for writing — and only write in that time
Scheduling your writing time really is the secret to completing a novel. If you get your butt in the chair, or stand and dictate, for consistent periods of time, you will finish a draft.
Get out your calendar and schedule time for writing, as you would for any other important commitment. If you can’t block out hours of free time, schedule smaller chunks, or postpone other commitments until you’re finished.
Turn up for that meeting with yourself and write.
It doesn’t matter if the words aren’t great. You can clean them up in the editing process, but you need to get black on white and finish that first draft in order to edit it into something useful later.
Don’t do anything else during that time block. No email, no social media, no messaging. Just get words on the page.
“Write at the edges of the day.”
—Toni Morrison
Find a location that will help you create
Our brains get used to specific locations for specific things. If you always watch TV from the couch, you’ll sit down on it and automatically turn the TV on. If you use the home office for email or accounts, or if it’s cluttered with children’s projects, or unfinished DIY projects or artwork, you’ll find it hard to write your novel in there.
Most of the time, I write in a local café. I get there when it opens and write for a few hours. I wear noise-cancelling headphones and listen to rain and thunderstorms on repeat. I drink one black coffee per hour, leaving once it gets busy so the café can use the table for higher-paying customers.
If I’m dictating, I book a room in a local co-working space and create there. Both options cost a little money, but the act of getting out of the house and committing to a different location can make all the difference in getting words on the page.
During the pandemic, I wrote in my home office, which was a challenge at first as I use the space for so many other things. In the end, I shifted my state by listening to different orchestral movie soundtracks, which changed the tone of my writing time compared to my admin and business work.
When we lived in London, I used to write in the London Library, and when I had a day job in Australia, I would write from 5:00 a.m. before work in the spare room of our house.
Find somewhere you can focus only on your novel without distractions.
Once you are in the location at the specified time, make sure you won’t be disturbed. Turn your phone to Do Not Disturb or airplane mode. Turn off social media and email. You can even use an app like Freedom to block internet access for a limited time. If you’re working from home, put a sign on your door that you should only be disturbed in emergencies. If you are continually disrupted anyway, get out of the house next time.
Use timed writing sessions
Once you have scheduled your writing, use the time effectively. This might be heads down for the whole time or broken up by small breaks for coffee, stretching, or comfort stops. Some authors like to use the Pomodoro Technique — twenty-five minutes of writing, then a five-minute break — repeated several times per session.
I use Google Calendar to schedule time for writing and my Apple Watch reminds me to take a break if I haven’t stood up for a while. I can usually do a couple of hours with mini breaks and then I need a longer walk. Writing for hours takes practice, so go slowly at first.
Setting a timer can help you focus more intensely on the writing period, then take a break. You’ll achieve more than if you try to write for an hour or two with no scheduled breaks, especially if you haven’t yet gained the stamina for long writing sessions.
When the timer starts, don’t wait for inspiration. The Muse doesn’t arrive when you sit around wishing she would. She turns up when you start creating, so get writing.
Find some way to make writing a habit. Don’t leave it too long between writing sessions. Find ways to settle into your rhythm more quickly.
“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original on the page.”
—Gustave Flaubert
Use challenges, sprints, and community support
Some writers find it useful to write in a communal way, spurred on by the collective energy of a challenge.
You can find groups online — for example, #writingsprint on Twitter or #5amwritersclub if you’re an early bird. Writershour.com offers an online group writing experience, and there are many other online options in every time zone.
You will also find groups of writers who meet at cafés or libraries on MeetUp or Eventbrite, so you will probably be able to find something to suit you. Or start your own writing group. Just remember to write and not chat!
There are also challenges like NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, which is every November. The challenge is to write 50,000 words of a first draft in a month, and there are all kinds of virtual and in-person events you can join.
I did NaNoWriMo in November 2009 and wrote the first 20,000 words of what eventually became Stone of Fire. It helped me break through my self-doubt and just get on with writing. Technically, I didn’t ‘win’ as I only wrote 20,000 words, but that month kick-started my fiction career.
Writing groups
Some writers find groups work well for them, and others struggle with criticism or a mismatch in the type of writing style.
Some groups balance writing words with conversation and support, while others are more about a drink and a chat with creative friends.
When deciding if a writing group is right for you, make sure the members appreciate your chosen genre. Don’t expect useful, positive feedback about your horror, epic fantasy, or romance novel in a group that focuses on literary fiction, or vice versa.
If you go to a writing group, assess how it’s working for you over time. Is it a positive experience? Is it helping your writing? Do you leave excited about creating, or do you leave confused, depressed, and struggling to deal with criticism? Only you can decide what kind of group works for you, or if you need one at all. I’ve never been part of a writing group and have never felt the need for one, but I know plenty of authors who love them. It’s up to you.
Write in any order
Don’t try to write the first sentence of the first chapter first, unless you have such a detailed outline that it’s ready to go.
You can jump around and write in any order — especially if you’re a discovery writer.
You will find ideas for other scenes as you go, so note down those thoughts and carry on. You can always re-order everything later. You just want to get it all down in the first draft phase.
Track your progress
Writing a novel can be a daunting prospect, especially if the words are hard to produce and you manage little in some sessions.
But when you break it down, writing a novel is just a series of words arranged in sentences, gathered together into chapters and collected into book form. If you have managed a sentence, a paragraph, or a page, you have taken another step on the journey.
Tracking your progress can help you feel you’re achieving something, however small. Some authors use spreadsheets to track time writing and/or number of words. Or you can just write them on a wall chart, or note them in an app.
I keep a day book by my desk where I write a few lines on what happened each day. When I’m writing a first draft, I add my word count and a colored sticker for each writing session. My inner creative child loves stickers!
Scrivener has a Project Targets section where you can set and track word count per session and it turns green if you achieve your goal. I also use colored flags, turning the chapters yellow when I have finished the first draft. I turn them blue after editing, and green when they are finished and ready to publish. This makes a manuscript more visually manageable, and if I can turn one flag yellow by the end of a writing session, I feel like I have won the day. More on writing tools in chapter 4.7.
Focus and shiny object syndrome
“You must finish what you start.”
—Robert A. Heinlein, Heinlein’s Rules
Writing is simple, but it’s not easy.
There will always be distractions, and finishing a project has a lot to do with your ability to focus over a period of time and avoid shiny object syndrome.
“Ooh look, a new story idea! That is so cool, much more interesting than this old idea I’m working on over here. Why don’t I just spend a bit of time on that new, shiny story and leave the old one in the corner? I’ll go back to it later.”
If you feel this urge and give into it every time, you will never finish your novel.
You will always have other ideas as you write. It’s part of the creative process, and many of those ideas won’t fit into the story you’re currently writing.
It’s a wonderful thing to have new ideas all the time, but if you keep following them in different directions, they will derail you.
So, if you’re struck by a new shiny idea in the middle of your novel, write it down in a couple of sentences wherever you keep your idea lists, then turn back to your work in progress.
Beware trying to write multiple books at the same time, as you may not finish any of them. Some advanced writers manage this, but if you’re just starting out, focus on one. Don’t start another book if you haven’t finished the one you’ve committed to.
How much do you want this?
If you’re struggling to find the time to write, then revisit the reason you’re writing. Does this novel really mean that much to you?
We all make time for the things we value. If you’re not making time for writing, then it’s not high enough on your list.
That’s okay, because life is difficult enough without writing a novel! The only person who can decide whether it’s worth the time is you.
My turning point came when I fully committed to the writing path. I stuck at my consulting job for many years, thinking that it was just what I had to do to get by. It was only when I started crying at work most days, wondering what the hell I was doing with my life, that my motivation became significant enough to make a change.
I got up at 5:00 a.m. to write, learn the craft, and build my author platform. When I returned home after work, I didn’t watch TV. I read books on writing, creative business, and online marketing. At the weekends, I ducked out of social arrangements in order to have a whole day to work on my writing. I made the time by giving up other things.
Writing is simple, but it’s not easy. Getting black on white can sometimes seem like the hardest thing in the world, and yet your novel will be nothing without words on a page.
Getting them down takes time, and setting aside time takes discipline until we develop a creative habit. Even then, there are tough days.
Here’s an excerpt from my journal in 2014:
Today has been a difficult day. I procrastinated when I should have been writing. I emailed instead of creating things. I did busywork and admin that didn’t achieve much. I spent time on Twitter instead of writing. I bet Stephen King wouldn’t behave like this. He would sit at his desk and write something new. Today I am a tired, disillusioned misery. But tomorrow I will be an author again. I promise.
The challenge to find writing time is a daily struggle, no matter where you are in your career, but ultimately, writers write, they don’t just talk (or tweet or blog or Facebook or Instagram) about writing.
If you don’t make time to work on your novel, you are the only one who suffers, as I did in the journal excerpt above.
You can find more tips in my book Productivity for Writers.
“What people say they want and what they’re willing to work their ass off to get are two different things.”
—Hugh MacLeod, Evil Plans
Questions:
• Have you scheduled time blocks for writing in your calendar, not just in your head? Have you actually written them down?
• Have you found a location where you can write without being disturbed?
• Have you found ways to stop yourself from being distracted when you write?
• Are you going to use timed writing sessions? How will you break these up?
• How will you track your progress through the book?
• How will you know when the first draft is finished?
• Do you suffer from shiny object syndrome? Do you have lots of unfinished projects on the go? How will you structure your time so you finish this book? How will you keep yourself focused and on track?
• How much do you want this? What will you say to yourself if you struggle with writing?
Resources:
• Google Calendar for scheduling time blocks: www.google.com/calendar
• BOSE QuietComfort noise-cancelling headphones. Pricey but worth it. I wear them every time I write now, even when dictating. My link: www.TheCreativePenn.com/silence
• Freedom app: www.freedom.to
• Scrivener software for organizing research, planning, writing and formatting — www.TheCreativePenn.com/scrivenersoftware
• Evil Plans: Having Fun on the Road to World Domination — Hugh MacLeod
• Heinlein’s Rules: Five Simple Business Rules for Writing — Dean Wesley Smith
• Productivity for Authors: Find Time to Write, Organize Your Author Life, and Decide What Really Matters — Joanna Penn
