How to Write a Novel: When is the first draft finished?
“I hate writing, I love having written.”
—Dorothy Parker
I consider a first draft finished when it is a coherent story end-to-end without things like [insert action scene] or [where is the dog?] or [add more setting detail] or [zzzz, come back to this later].
To use the Michelangelo metaphor, I have created my block of marble and the finished story is inside, waiting to be released.
The story is not perfect and I won’t show it to anyone, but it is coherent with a beginning, a middle, and an end. I have answered the main story questions, the character has transformed in some way, the plot has concluded, and it feels complete. I’ve also organized the scenes into chapters so the novel progresses in a linear fashion and I can read it from start to finish.
I use flags in Scrivener to mark each chapter with a yellow flag. When all the flags are yellow, I export from Scrivener to Word and save that version with the date as usual.
I print the manuscript ready for editing with two pages per A4 page, so it is laid out like a ‘real’ book. I staple the pages together in blocks of around twenty and then put the manuscript in a folder on my desk, ready for editing.
You don’t have to print it out, but do something that shows your draft is finished and you’re moving onto the next stage.
Celebrate this milestone
Take a moment to step back and appreciate what you have achieved. A first draft is a tremendous step toward finishing a novel. Non-writers won’t understand what this means, but I do — so congratulations!
I always feel a tremendous feeling of satisfaction when I finish the first draft. I know there’s a way to go before I have a completed novel, but I’ve certainly climbed a lot of the mountain. Time for a gin and tonic or two!
How long does it take to write the first draft?
It’s impossible to say because there are so many variables — how developed your story is, your experience, the genre, the length of the book, and how much time you set aside for writing.
Many authors talk about the years it took to write the first novel, but writing often speeds up once you know how the process works, and if you have a deadline, whether contractual or self-imposed, you’ll have more boundaries on your time.
You can estimate if you set a timeline and schedule your writing blocks accordingly. Make some assumptions and adjust along the way.
Allow time for research, thinking, planning, plotting, and outlining, then decide on a specific day to start writing the draft.
If you write 1,000 words per session, and you’re aiming for a 70,000 word novel, that will be 70 writing sessions of first-draft material.
If you set aside four writing sessions per week, it will take around eighteen weeks, or four to five months, to write that first draft.
You can speed it up by allotting more time, or slow it down if you need more time to meander along the way.
For my first novel, I enrolled in a Year of the Novel course at a local library. It gave me the structure and accountability I needed to ensure I finished the draft alongside working a day job, learning the craft, and building my author business along the way.
It took around nine months to write the first draft in the early mornings before work, evenings, and weekends, then I went through an editorial process. In the end, it took about sixteen months to go from idea to book and, since then, I have improved my process and writing speed.
Remember Parkinson’s Law
Parkinson’s Law notes that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
If your goal is to finish your novel, set a deadline and schedule your writing time accordingly, otherwise you could spend years, decades, or even the rest of your life working on it.
Questions:
• What is a finished first draft? How will you know when you have achieved it?
• How will you celebrate the significant milestone of a finished first draft?
• How will you make sure that you are not still writing this novel on your deathbed? Have you set a deadline and worked out your writing schedule?
