How to Write a Novel

The question I am most often asked about novel writing is 'Where do you even begin?' This brief guide to how to write a novel will hopefully point you in the right direction. More specifically, it offers a 7-step approach to writing a novel.

1. Think about why you want to write a novel

This is one of the most important steps of all, and certainly not one to be rushed. Are you writing for money or for the love of doing it? Are you going to treat it like a job or a hobby? Will you write what you want to write or what you believe will sell well?

Unless you work out at the beginning your motivation for writing a novel, what you hope to get out of it, and how long you intend to take, you could easily end up disappointed.

2. Decide which genre of fiction to write

Broadly speaking, there are two types of novels: literary fiction and popular fiction. If you decide to write a literary novel, you are free to tackle any subject in any way you choose. If you write popular fiction, you will need to decide which category in particular you intend to target - crime, horror, romance and so on - and then to stick to the conventions of that category.

The best advice here is to write what you like to read. If you write a detective novel because you love to read them, that is great. If you write a detective novel because you believe there is more money in it, you could be heading for trouble.

3. Brainstorm for novel ideas

Novel ideas are funny things. On the one hand, they are completely worthless (try getting a publisher to give you some money on the strength of a mere idea). On the other hand, they can seem like the Holy Grail when you are struggling to find one.

There is a myth among writers that one of the most difficult aspects of how to write a novel is finding an idea in the first place. But they are actually easy to find, so long as you know how to go about it the right way. In a nutshell, my method involves lots of brainstorming - for character ideas, setting ideas and so on - and then rearranging all these fragments like jigsaw pieces, until a picture emerges.

4. Plan your novel

We're getting to the business-end of novel writing now!

Some writers like to plan a book in great depth before they start writing; others arm themselves with little more than a pen and a blank sheet of paper and see where the story takes them.

There is no right or wrong when it comes to how to write a novel - you must do whatever suits you best. But if you want my advice, I would always recommend that you plan your story in some detail before you begin to write, particularly if this is your first novel.

More specifically, I would recommend that you:

• Draw up mini-biographies for each of your principal characters.
• Plot the novel, in the form of a chapter-by-chapter outline.
• Decide on the novel's theme - or what you want your book to 'say.'
• Construct the setting, by writing brief descriptions of the overall setting and the important locations within it.
• Decide which viewpoint to use - first or third person?

5. Write your novel

Like I said, whether to plan a novel just a little or a lot is up to you. Either way, you will eventually be faced with the task of turning a few hundred sheets of blank paper into a first draft.

The trick here is to take it one writing session at a time and not to look ahead. Writing 100,000 words can be scary, writing 1,000 words isn't. You will be amazed at how quickly the pages pile up.

Something else to remember is that what you are doing here is writing a first draft - and drafts, by their very nature, end up in the recycling bin. In other words, your prose doesn't have to read like Hemingway the first time around - so don't even try. In fact, if you are anything like most writers, you will probably hate what you produce in the first instance. That is normal. Making the words pretty happens during the sixth stage of the novel writing process...

6. Revise your novel

If you have the ability to write a page of prose and for that page to be perfect in every way imaginable, with not so much as a comma out of place, you are either very brilliant or very stupid. A lot of famous novelists - James Michener and John Irving, for example - have admitted that they are not great writers but excellent re-writers.

Editing a manuscript involves both looking at what you have said and how you have said it. In other words, first check the plot and the characters (and so forth) for inconsistencies, then work on the language itself. Oh, and don't stop until you have reached the end - far too many writers jeopardize their chances with too-hasty submissions.

7. Sell your novel

You have done all the hard work and it is now time to claim the prize that awaits you: seeing your novel in print.

There are two ways of getting a book published:

• First, you can sell it to a publisher (or place it with an agent who will approach a publisher on your behalf).
• Or you can go it alone and publish it yourself.

The best advice here is to always try to sell it to a conventional publisher, and to do so via a literary agent. The bad news here is that this will involve an awful lot of waiting around (agents and publishers are notoriously slow). The good news is that this will give you plenty of time to make a start on your next novel. Don't worry, it is much easier the second time around!

And that is it: a 7-step guide to how to write a novel. Of course, the novel writing process is a lot more complicated than that. But hopefully, by identifying the separate steps you need to take, the decision to start writing a novel at all will not now be quite so daunting.

Harvey Chapman is a published writer and a full-time teacher of creative writing. He founded his Novel Writing Web Site in early 2008. You will find more detailed articles on the issues raised above in the How To Write a Novel Section.
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