How do you write a novel?

[TadOverdon]

I think part of it is that I don't have everything worked out in my head before I begin. I never do, and I'll be surprised if I ever learn to do it that way.

When I have a premise and a particularly vivid scene or two or a character hook that appeals to me, I open a new Word file and plunk that stuff in there.

If I return to that file with additional ideas, scenes, snatches of dialogue and the like more than once or twice there's a good chance that it's going to become the next book.

This current book, that file had a lot more context, dialogue, locale and general narrative than it did sex sequences. That should have warned me that it was not going to evolve in exactly the same way that our earlier ones have.

The book's going to be what it's going to be, and it's going to market when it's finished, damn it. And then we'll see how that goes, and then there's the next one. But if it were like the last two I'd be proofing and prepping by the end of this month. This one looks like September...maybe.

 

[Erlikkhan]

The problem with writing a full description and background for each character before composing the book is that it encourages you to overwork at getting details on a character into the story that don't serve the story in any way. It's the same with some of the other research. You become a captive to "I collected it, so I have to use it" and the danger is that the readers get a flabby read with a lot irrelevant "stuff" in it that bogs the story down.

I agree, but for me, writing a first person bio gives me a good starting point and allows me to develop a personality that guides my use of the character. I don't use all the details in the bio, and occasionally will change something to fit the story. Anyway, it works for me, but may not be for everyone. I should add that I am not published for profit, only for my enjoyment of writing, and I don't use this technique for writing fuck stories on Lit. My characters don't need a personality, only an appetite for lots of big hard cocks and hot dripping pussies!

 

[TadOverdon]

I'll usually have some general biographical info for an important character, but mostly that gets made up to support the present-day behavior and motives of the character as I write.

After all, other than our families we learn who most others are by what they do and say when we meet them and get to know them, real-time, and if we associate with them for more than a brief time we may learn about where they came from and who they once were.

 

[KeithD]

I agree, but for me, writing a first person bio gives me a good starting point and allows me to develop a personality that guides my use of the character. I don't use all the details in the bio, and occasionally will change something to fit the story. Anyway, it works for me, but may not be for everyone. I should add that I am not published for profit, only for my enjoyment of writing, and I don't use this technique for writing fuck stories on Lit. My characters don't need a personality, only an appetite for lots of big hard cocks and hot dripping pussies!

It can be successfully accomplished with extensive notes and character backgrounds done up front, certainly. The "include only what's relevant when relevant (or as foreshadowing)" in the actual story just is a challenge the author has to be careful of if they'd established characters, a setting, or actions in notes that exceed what is needed for the story.

My longest novel-length one in one of my accounts here was written in parallel to an actual person's life, which meant I didn't really need a lot of outlining up front. The structure was already there for me to work with.

 

[oggbashan]

My process is too simplistic:

Start at the beginning, knowing the desired ending (I hope).

Establish the characters and let them run with it until the end is in sight. Wrap up and loose ends and edit.

 

[LAHomedog]

With the understanding that my writing on here is the first time I've written prose or fiction in a story form, and that all of my writing prior to here has been on scripts for TV or film, I still write using the tools of a screenwriter: I lay out the story beats in outline, step-by-step first.

For me to start, I must have the opening in my mind especially the first line and the closing. Once I have those I lay out the beats to the story.

I know there are different structures that people use, I write in three acts -- whether it is a short story, a longer story, or a multi-part. (With each multi-part I make them self-contained each in three acts.) An opening. Plot Point 1, where the story is established, then Act 1, a big win. Act II, a big loss. Act III, either a happy win, or a crushing loss depending upon comedy, melodrama, or tragedy.

I then let my characters tell me the story, and I follow their lead. Sometimes they follow the beats in my story outline and sometimes they go their own way. If that happens, I stop and readjust the story outline.

A place to start, and a place to end. As I use to say to my son when he was young: If you are standing in the valley of Yosemite National Park and you want to hike to Half Dome there are 1,000s of ways to do it. Your decision is to decide which route and start on it, remembering that sometimes you might want to change your path, and sometimes you may have to change your path, but if you keep heading towards Half Dome and keep it in your sights, you'll eventually get there.

 

[gordo12]

I have several stories in the novella range. But I'll use a short one I know you've read. The Bet.

It started as a woman struggling up the stairs with bags of groceries, the elevator out of order and hubby not answering the buzzer. That was it.

That's the way all my stories start. I do a lot of research to make sure the things I add make sense. IE, does Chicago have heatwaves in the fall? It turns out they do. Those details can take me in directions I hadn't originally planned.

But at heart, I'm a pantzer. I write, and it flows (hopefully). Then I go back to embellish and polish. I fall asleep with the plot and dialogue running through my head. I wake up with the plot and dialogue running through my head. I go for naps with the plot...! In the shower, I...! (Yeah, plot and dialogue you dirty minded people)

I can't imagine spending the time plotting it out ahead of time. I'd be bored.

 

[TadOverdon]

I feel like I'm on firm ground when the final sentences of a book come into my head and I type them into the end of a document. Sometimes that's a few days after I start writing. It usually happens well before the end of the process.

This time the last scene has already morphed into the closing of the penultimate chapter, so my final paragraph ain't my final paragraph no more.

 

[MillieDynamite]

As a writer who must create the story from other peoples outlines, notes, and characters descriptions and their outlined Character, (meaning the type of person they are), I find I have to work hard to make their story enough of my story for me to productive and write well.

So, when I write my own drivel, I don't bother with outlines, character development before hand, or must include scenes. I have enough of that when I get paid to write. But in my case, quite literally, writing is my life, and my livelihood

Therefore, when I write for me, the last thing I want to know is where the road is taking me. I write all over the map genre wise and try to make each story as unique as I can. Sometimes I have twist, sometimes I resist the twist.

In Erotica, the most difficult part is finding different ways to write the kiss, the seduction, the force, or the act. I'm describing scissoring isn't going to change. Therefore, the change is how it is preformed, as in loving, violent, teasingly, I must always find new ways to say the same things. But I don't just write lesbian sex. LOL I only practice girl girl sex, but I can write other kinds.

 

[SamScribble]

Last year, pre-Covid, a friend of mine started teaching an adult evening class on How to Write Fiction. (When Covid struck, she took the class online.)

At the start of the year, she asked each of the participants to write one page on how they were going to approach their task. She told me that there were four or five main approaches. She also told me that, over the course of the year, not one participant stuck to their plan.

 

[TadOverdon]

Have I mentioned Jenga yet? Because I meant to, the other day. It's been on my mind.

I've started revising a book that's three-quarters complete in rough, from the beginning. I rebel at that. What I want to do and usually do is to push on through the final chapters until I have a complete draft, no matter how unsatisfactory, and only then do a thorough revision (I revise paragraphs and scenes here and there all the time as I go along).

Because the book is reminding me of Jenga. I'm trying to build upward - forward - and in the process I've been pulling pieces out of earlier parts of the book, moving them around, redirecting characters to the point that the whole thing has become so shaky that I feel like it might collapse in pieces. The foundations of entire characters have disappeared as they've morphed from what I thought they were into who they needed to be.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

I feel Blind_Justice's pain about "how do I write a story that's LESS than novel or novella-length?" But it wasn't always that way. I first came to Lit with the goal of teaching myself how to write longer format stories. After a short career writing first-person stories and magazine articles that typically maxed out at around 3000 words (usually half that!), all my longer works were technical or operation manuals.

First stumbling block: working with a canvas big as a novel or novella. It seemed to require a bigger story rather than exposing a little slice of life.

Second stumbling block: Timing and pacing of plot points change. It's not as easy as just adding more words to your beginning, middle, and end. You need to have more things happening - good things - important things - not oodles of minutia.

Along the way, I learned that making notes can be important, too. They're not always needed, but they sure can help with maintaining the canon of your story, even if it's not a sci-fi/fantasy story.

The third-person perspective still feels novel to me (pun? what pun?), especially 3rd person omnipresent. Switching perspectives still feels clunky. If you're bopping between this person and that one, you need to have a good sense of rhythm that I'm still figuring out. Most of my stories still turn out to be all from one person's POV, even if it's told in a 3rd person voice.

 

[TadOverdon]

I struggle with omniscient, but really don't want to write in another way.

I probably get briefly into the heads of most characters, but in a short novel most of the lift will be done by one or two. Most of the men are NPCs with dicks. LOL

 

[MillieDynamite]

My favorite way to write is Epistolary Narrative, but it doesn't work for short works. The story is revealed through newspaper articles, news reports, diaries, journals from several different individuals' first-person points of view.

One example of this type of writing is the book Dracula. If I write from several people's points of view in a modern setting, where diaries and journals aren't used so much, the story switches who's point-of-view, indicating the change with a note at the point of transition which individual is now telling the story.

While this is my favorite way to write, it can be complicated to keep everything straight. However, different people see things differently from their perspective than others see the same event. So when you cover the same scene from two of the characters' points of view, you can have wildly different interpretations of the same scene. In fact, they should be different.

This style can lend a more realistic feel to a story.

I have used the style a few times on short stories, but mostly I use Epistolary Narrative in my ghostwriting for one client.

 

[TadOverdon]

My favorite way to write is Epistolary Narrative, but it doesn't work for short works. The story is revealed through newspaper articles, news reports, diaries, journals from several different individuals' first-person points of view.

One example of this type of writing is the book Dracula. If I write from several people's points of view in a modern setting, where diaries and journals aren't used so much, the story switches who's point-of-view, indicating the change with a note at the point of transition which individual is now telling the story.

I agree, this is perfect when it works. I remember what an effect the technique had on me when I first read Dracula. I haven't been able to work up the ambition to try it myself.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I agree, this is perfect when it works. I remember what an effect the technique had on me when I first read Dracula. I haven't been able to work up the ambition to try it myself.

News Reports (whether they are print, radio, or TV) are the easy part. Writing two or more first person narratives and having those voices distinct and different is the hard part.

I think Dracula is a masterpiece of literature. I don't think any of Stokers subsequent works lived up to the prose of Dracula. Still, all of his work (with the exception of Lair of the White Worm) were great works. Lair of the White Worm suffered from a dying man trying to make money for his wife to live on after he was gone. He didn't do a rewrite, he didn't participate in the editing, and barely finished the story.

 

[TadOverdon]

News Reports (whether they are print, radio, or TV) are the easy part. Writing two or more first person narratives and having those voices distinct and different is the hard part.

I think Dracula is a masterpiece of literature. I don't think any of Stokers subsequent works lived up to the prose of Dracula. Still, all of his work (with the exception of Lair of the White Worm) were great works. Lair of the White Worm suffered from a dying man trying to make money for his wife to live on after he was gone. He didn't do a rewrite, he didn't participate in the editing, and barely finished the story.

Yes to all of that. I don't think anyone's bested Stoker since.

The book we're doing now has a TV feature news piece in the middle of the first chapter that sets up much of the framework of the book. It's kind of a fine line to walk - would a presenter really say this bit, or am I jamming too much exposition in? Is the piece running too long for what it would be during a newscast, etc. And then there's the temptation to parody the cant and cadence of talking heads to no good point, rather than aim for complete verisimilitude.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Yes to all of that. I don't think anyone's bested Stoker since.

The book we're doing now has a TV feature news piece in the middle of the first chapter that sets up much of the framework of the book. It's kind of a fine line to walk - would a presenter really say this bit, or am I jamming too much exposition in? Is the piece running too long for what it would be during a newscast, etc. And then there's the temptation to parody the cant and cadence of talking heads to no good point, rather than aim for complete verisimilitude.

Well don't overthink the thing. Write the scene, read it, rewrite if you need to, and some point be satisfied and move on. That's easy to say, not so easy to do .

 

[TadOverdon]

Well don't overthink the thing. Write the scene, read it, rewrite if you need to, and some point be satisfied and move on. That's easy to say, not so easy to do .

Yeah, that's what I'm doing, almost as we speak. Some stuff I thought it was worthwhile for readers to know when I wrote the first version of it isn't even true in the story any more, and there are a few new bits that are.

But then you pare back, and back. Figure you're the producer cutting the piece to fit it into the show schedule.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

There's usually a point at which I have to jot down ages and a few physical characteristics for most characters. Ages in particular tend to become slippery when they remember or talk about events earlier in their lives and relationships. I'll forget things like eye color for many characters, from chapter to chapter. And it has come up more than once in a book a couple of times.

Of course, I'm forever changing names. Bit of a proofreader's nightmare. You'd think search-and-replace would solve it, but no.

I create a new sheet in my trusty Excel file for each story. I like keeping the timelines, character details, plot twists, and pertinent facts in a single file, so adding sheets to an Excel file works best for me.

Each sheet becomes a digital storyboard where I can track and move things around as the story develops, and previous sheets keep me aligned with characters and events that may overlap from something already completed. This all helps with the continuity, both within a single story as well as within separate inter-related stories.

 

[gunhilltrain]

She gets paid by the publisher but yes, I keep her supplied with work. So far, she has only rejected two of my novels and one of those got reworked to fit what they had in mind. I've worked for three different divisions of the same publishing house but only had the one editor.

As a side note: Writing for Lit is fun. Writing for pay is a J.O.B. They have standards and what they want, they get. It has to fit the division you are writing for. I have to come up with the ideas and the story but it has to fit their criteria.

Just curious, you seem to be saying that you were getting paid to write fiction. Was it for print or online? Could you tell us in a general way who was paying you?

The anecdotal evidence I've heard is that fiction is less in demand than non-fiction, and the latter is often about some specialized topic. I've also heard that the market for erotic fiction is pretty much saturated right now.

 

[TxRad]

Just curious, you seem to be saying that you were getting paid to write fiction. Was it for print or online? Could you tell us in a general way who was paying you?

The anecdotal evidence I've heard is that fiction is less in demand than non-fiction, and the latter is often about some specialized topic. I've also heard that the market for erotic fiction is pretty much saturated right now.

I write Young Adult fiction for a mainstream publisher under three different pen names. There is no erotica per-say in any of it. Maybe a tease or two. Almost a dozen in print as of last month. I have two more coming out next month and the earliest one published will be out on a mini disk CD.

I also have five novels in print, none of which ever even came close to the NY Times lists. The first one came about from a Non-erotic story I posted here on Lit. It was one of those friend of a friend thing from a reader. The topic was the catch. It was something the publisher was looking for on short notice. Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good or is that to be in the right place at the write time.

Fiction has its place if you can get your foot in the door and then deliver what is needed. Sometimes that window is very short as markets shift quickly.

 

[SimonDoom]

I will let you know when I write one!

 

[PennameWombat]

Just curious, you seem to be saying that you were getting paid to write fiction. Was it for print or online? Could you tell us in a general way who was paying you?

The anecdotal evidence I've heard is that fiction is less in demand than non-fiction, and the latter is often about some specialized topic. I've also heard that the market for erotic fiction is pretty much saturated right now.

Well, these articles Global Non-fiction Market and Global Fiction Market[1] indicate that the former is around $13.5 billion, with a CAGR of around 5.7%, and the latter at $10.5 billion and a CAGR of around 4.5% (both are all formats, print, ebooks and audiobooks). But they predict the CAGR for both will drop through 2026, as people continue to further adopt other forms of entertainment (gaming, streaming video, etc.)

So there’s plenty of books being bought out there, but I guess you could say fiction is less in demand. But this all somewhat breaks down when it comes to any one book. Plenty of new fiction titles are being published regularly (not to mention self-published), but a key issue isn’t what’s going out but the overfilled pipelines of works trying to get IN to the pipeline. And I’ve seen plenty of stats that around 4,000 books (of all types) are self-published per day, every day, via Amazon KDP.

[1] I’m going by the posted synopsis of each article, as they cost $4000 each for the full reports

 

[ChloeTzang]

I've done a couple. I usually start with chapter headings and a one or two sentence summary for each chapter, and take it from there. I generally write the first and last chapters first,to give me a starting point, and a target to shoot for. Sometimes that changes as I write, sometimes it doesn't, but it gives me an outline and a skeleton to build on.