How Not to Write a Novel
Here is a list of things that I do when I am writing, in order from most-common to least-common occurrence.
Re-read all of my notes and everything I’ve written so far from the beginning
Go back through my writing and catch every mistake that I’ve ever made
Google ~inspiration~ such as pictures of scenery/settings or actors that could play my characters
Create writing playlists I will literally never listen to
Get on FB/tumblr/Twitter/Youtube/Instagram “for a sec”
Start texting/start a phone call with a best friend or my mom
Put on a reality show “for background noise” and then give it 80% of my focus
Add more to my notes or planning or character development sheets
Take a nap
Pet my dog
Stare aimlessly around the room looking for an idea
Re-re-read my plan for whatever scene/chapter I’m writing for the millionth time
Delete the last few words I wrote, then un-delete them, then re-delete them
Make myself a snack
Write something
I share this both to illustrate that I’m by no means anything close to a perfect writer, and to show you that I am an authority in how not to write a novel. Here’s a fun fact: you already know how to write a novel. Sure there are some semantics – there are methods for planning, methods for keeping track of your plot and characters, methods for everything really – but, just like losing weight boils down to diet and exercise, writing a novel boils down to one actual thing, which is putting words together to write your novel. Don’t get me wrong, this whole blog exists because we understand that it often takes community and those little helpful methods and motivational pep talks and tons of support to get a girl across the finish line with her finished book. But the core concept doesn’t change that much. What I think you might not know, even on a basic level, is how not to write a novel. If you’re not really trying to write a book, make sure you do everything I outline below exactly as written. But if you’re really, seriously trying to write a book, it’s important to recognize when you do the things below and cut them out as swiftly and completely as you are able.
1. Care More about Perfection than Words on the Page
“One of the best things about being an author is that I always write things absolutely perfectly the first time around” – literally not one published author in the history of the world.
Here’s an uncomfortable truth that someone told me as I read through my first draft of my book in abject horror – the first draft of your book will never be perfect. No matter how obsessively you plan, there are going to be threads and storylines that aren’t finished as tidily as you’d hoped. There are going to be plotlines that you accidentally dropped, characters who come across a bit one-dimensional, phrases, paragraphs, sections, possibly entire chapters that are barely legible. Why? Because it would be nearly impossible to cohesively write a document that long and not have issues. Most of us couldn’t even write an essay in college without having to go back and at least tweak something, and when I wrote my thesis I had to edit each individual section and sub-section, then do a master edit to be sure each section flowed cohesively into one document. Therefore, the most important thing to do when you’re writing your first draft is to just write it. Just get the words out there. For some reason, for most women I know, including myself, this is easier said than done.
It’s hard for us to move on when we’re writing something and the words we put down don’t 100% match the idea we’re trying to convey. It’s challenging to keep writing when it feels like what we’re putting down doesn’t make any sense. And when we’re frustrated, when the words aren’t flowing, when we want to throw the computer at the wall, it’s so easy to go back and make some minor edits to what we’ve already written and pretend we’re making progress. It feels like progress. Editing, changing, pausing to try and get things absolutely right feels like progress. But as per what we all agreed on a few paragraphs ago, it’s not progress. Until you’re finished writing, the best progress you can make on your novel is actually adding words and content and ideas to your novel. Then again, if you’re trying not to write your book – go back and re-edit everything. Make every section perfect. You should have your perfect novel...eventually...
2. Allow Distractions into Your Space (Especially when You’re Struggling)
“I do my best writing when I’m watching the TV, feeding the cat, playing with my kids, and updating my Facebook status.” – Some mythical unicorn out there, or a pathological liar.
For the most part, multi-tasking is a myth. Sure, occasionally we can do 2 or 3 things at a time if none of those things needs real focus, and women are allegedly better at multi-tasking than men. I have a sneaking suspicion that teenage girls are the most successful multi-taskers in the world. But when it comes to things that require real focus, trying to do too much doesn’t just result in things getting done poorly, it also typically results in the hardest-to-do thing not getting done at all. The worst thing you can do for yourself when you’re writing is create an environment in which your brain can choose to focus on anything more than it’s focused on the writing. If you’re writing while watching a TV show, if you’re writing while interacting with other people face-to-face or electronically, if you’re writing while doing *anything* that doesn’t bring you deeper into your novel – chances are you’re not actually writing much at all.
This all gets so, so much worse if you’re struggling with writer’s block. That whole thing about the hardest-to-do thing not getting done? If you’re struggling to write, the worst way to break through and get yourself to actually write is to make it easy not to. Consciously, you might think that writing is the most important thing to you, but subconsciously your brain doesn’t want to struggle through word by word, not when it could be laughing on twitter or gasping at Scandal or doing nothing at all (read: sleeping). It takes discipline to write, as un-exciting as that sounds. The enemy of discipline is distraction. Of course, if you’re not too worried about actually writing that book, I recommend that you only ever write in front of a television in a crowded sports bar with your chattiest, closest friend.
3. Care More about Developing your Novel than Telling It
“For every novel I write, I dedicate 99% of my energy to creating the perfect character descriptions and then with the rest of my energy I write the book.” – Nobody
Planning is an important, vital part of writing a novel – even for fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants writers. Cool, now that we’re all on the same page, let’s talk about another way we fool ourselves into thinking we’re getting work done. It is so tempting, especially if you’re a planner, to dive deep into writing your plot outline. I’m a fan of a sort of modified snowball method coupled with character descriptions that can literally take me up to a month to flesh out. Planning takes time, and the more of a planner you are the more time it takes. But there has to come a point where you pull your energy away from planning and put that energy into the actual writing. Otherwise, you’re not writing a novel. You’re just writing an outline.
This can happen in really obvious ways, like literally just editing and adding to and removing things from documents with titles like “Characters” or “Plot” or however you keep track of your notes. But this can also happen even when you think you’re writing. It happens as your novel hits a lull and you figure out that your plot might be a bit dull and instead of making a couple quick edits, you start to re-write your chapter summaries. It happens as you open your character description for a reference and then end up adding more detail to the notes about how your character has a complicated relationship with her mother’s brother’s wife. Again, it’s the progress trap – because you’re putting words down, and they’re about your novel, it feels like you’re making progress on your novel. You kind of are. But you’re mostly not. So if you’re not trying to write a novel, go ahead and re-do that Chapter 3 detailed summary for the 11th time.
4. Tell Nobody, or Only People who Don’t Believe in You
“One day I surprised all of my friends and family with my completed novel, and suddenly all of the times I blew them off for ~reasons~ made sense.” -Hopefully not you
I think there are two types of people: people who without some kind of censure would tell everyone in the world all of their business (me) and people who without a push wouldn’t tell their best friend they were dying. Obviously, those are the extremes, and most of us are nowhere near the extreme. But the truth is we probably still fall too close to one side or the other for our own good. To those of you who err on the side of over-sharing, remember that writing a novel can be discouraging enough without opening the door to criticism, disbelief, and nagging. I’m not saying guard the knowledge of your novel like a prized possession, just that before you tell someone about your book, ask yourself if their knowing will contribute positively to your experience. Keep things on a need-to-know basis. If they’re going to tell you over and over how hard it is to write or get published, give you non-constructive criticism about your book or ideas, whine that you writing takes away time you should be spending with them, nag you incessantly about your progress, or do anything else to undercut your ability to stay positive and motivated: they don’t need to know.
For those of you on the other side of the spectrum, for heaven’s sake make sure somebody knows! Writing a novel can also be very isolating. There may be times when you skip phone calls or making plans to get some writing in, or you need to talk through your writer’s block, or you’re so frustrated that you just need to hear someone tell you everything is going to be okay. If nobody knows what you’re attempting to accomplish, it’ll be that much easier to throw in the towel short-term or long-term. By letting your trusted loved ones in, you have someone else to lend some perspective when you’re stuck and to be positive and a cheerleader when you can’t. That’s why just about every book ever written has a pages long acknowledgments section – it’s almost impossible to bring a novel to life by yourself. Your support network is huge, and if you don’t tell even one person what you’re trying to do, you’re making it harder on yourself. Which, if you’re trying not to write a novel, sounds like a pretty great way to start.
5. Wait Until You’re Truly Inspired
“I only write when I’m passionately consumed with excitement and creativity, and those times always coincide perfectly with the times that I’m free to write a novel.” - A jobless, unmarried heiress
One of the most romantic ideas I held about writing a book, until I’d actually finished writing a few books, was that I would wait until the inspiration struck. I would summon my muse and then the words would pour out of me. After all, I have always been a creative, an idea girl, and a real writer. If this is you, I’m not even going to be funny about this: this is not how you write a novel. Inspiration comes in bursts. It ebbs and flows. For short projects, waiting on inspiration makes sense. But to complete a project the length of a novel? It doesn’t work that way. You cannot rely on short bursts and passion alone to complete your novel. It takes dedication and a fair amount of consistency. It takes writing even when you don’t feel like it. It takes pushing through sentence by sentence, word by word when you’re stuck. It takes turning your passion about Chapter 4 into motivation to just keep writing Chapter 3, or riding your excitement from Chapter 13 through the much less exciting Chapter 14. If that sounds like a lot of work, you’re right. Writing a novel is work, and just like every other thing that takes work, what you get out of it at the end depends on what you’re willing to put into it.
Some of you looked at those words above and saw “writing a novel isn’t fun” and I’d like to nip that in the bud right here. Writing a novel is probably the most fun thing I’ve ever done in my life, and now that I’m working on a project that I actually plan to attempt to publish, I’m having even more fun. But mixed in with the fun is a whole spectrum of negative feelings from boredom to absolute despair (which might just be me, I can be a bit dramatic) that you’ll have to push through to get back to the passion and the triumph and the excitement and yes, the fun. But if you’re not willing to do that, if you’re not willing to push forward whenever you hit a rough spot, then you didn’t even need my help. You know how not to write a novel all by yourself.
All of this being said, nobody is perfect and I am less than perfect by a longshot and then some. All 14 of the things that I listed at the beginning before “Write Something” are real things that I do, almost every time, despite knowing better. But I don’t sweat being imperfect, either. Instead, when I’m ready to get serious, I put my dog in her kennel, turn off the TV, disconnect from the internet (I’m weak), put my phone on silent, and I write. I write and write and write. Which, incidentally, is absolutely not what you should do when you are not trying to write a novel.
