My First Novel: What I Wish I Knew

[EmilyMiller]

just not how I wanted it to end.

I had a good sense of the ending very early on. I even wrote a first draft of the ending long before the narrative was anywhere near it. It gave me a target.

The challenge was not so much to get to the ending I had written. It was more to do so in a way that suggested the path taken was inevitable and rooted in the scenario and the characters. Given I had a large cast, and many events to juggle, as well as five main locations, this was not easy.

 

[EmilyMiller]

1. It’s fucking hard
2. Plot holes breed quicker than plot bunnies
3. Maintaining continuity is tough and requires a lot of work
4. You have to have other outlets - mini-projects etc.
5. If you are stuck, there is no substitute for giving it time
6. If you can bring a few friends along for the ride, it’s less lonely
7. You need some idea of where you are going and a map of how to get there - I can’t see how a pantser writes a novel
8. You need motivations (I had a running estimate of how many more days I had to write for to get to a first draft)
9. It really helps to reread regularly - even though this takes longer and longer to do
10. Constantly question why someone does something and how it fits with their character / arc

11. Inevitably as you write you will come across ideas and events that mean you have to modify or expand what you have already written. Don’t go do that, instead keep a separate document with a list of such changes and do it in a systematic way when you reach a logical writing break (end of a chapter or scene or whatever).

 

[ThatNewGuy]

But, really, once I put my head down and committed to cranking it out (having some "deadlines" with some people offering feedback helped) it took me about six or seven months. And I'm thinking the second draft will be comparable to that, if a little quicker (hopefully).

Congrats! I hope one day to be able to post a similar progress report.

 

[ThatNewGuy]

11. Inevitably as you write you will come across ideas and events that mean you have to modify or expand what you have already written. Don’t go do that, instead keep a separate document with a list of such changes and do it in a systematic way when you reach a logical writing break (end of a chapter or scene or whatever).

Yep. The characters have taken me in directions that require significant changes to the first couple of chapters. I've made myself some notes about what I want to do, but I'm not planning to touch it until I finish the first draft and am in rewrite mode.

 

[CalBishForNow]

You need some idea of where you are going and a map of how to get there - I can’t see how a pantser writes a novel

I completed NaNoWriMo once (the goal is at least 50,000 words in a single story in 30 days) with a pantser approach.

I'm not saying it was good, especially not before the first edit a month later, but I started with a simple plot in mind and hit the word count (it was a little over 53,000, in fact) in the allotted time. Along the way I threw in details as worldbuilding and for flavor without really thinking about them too much as long as they didn't contradict the big idea. When I got to the end of the "main" plot about 42,000 words in, I followed up on the biggest of those details until I resolved that too, which got me to the recommended length.

I tried it a second time and failed. I wound up with about 47,000 words by the time I hit the deadline, with a big plot hole about halfway through I had no idea how to build a bridge over/through. Maybe I'll finish that someday but I can't be sure.

So, a 50 percent success rate isn't great, but it's possible...

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Everyone’s first draft is complete shite and shouldn’t be read by anyone ...

Stephen King and the late Isaac Asimov have entered the room.

I turned out (to my surprise) to be a pantser, but (as others have said in other threads) nobody is a complete pantser, not even refuses-to-outline Stephen King. I had key plot points and the ending in mind before I ever started the first draft of Pranked: Barbie.

Then ... you write it. It didn't feel different to me than writing shorter stuff.

The part that was different was the revisions, because I had to go back and insert foreshadowing for events and make things like speech patterns and clothes consistent from one part to another. Not hard, but somewhat time-consuming.

The really hard part was publishing it, because I was super-nervous.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Everyone’s first draft is complete shite and shouldn’t be read by anyone.

I had many people read my first complete draft. And these are people who’d say it was crap if it was crap. None did. I guess YMMV.

I tend to iteratively re-read and revise as I write. So maybe first draft is a different concept for me. I never did: let’s just get something down and finish. I was constantly making sure I was happy with I had written.

We all do things differently, right?

 

[ThatNewGuy]

I completed NaNoWriMo once (the goal is at least 50,000 words in a single story in 30 days) with a pantser approach.

I'm not saying it was good, especially not before the first edit a month later, but I started with a simple plot in mind and hit the word count (it was a little over 53,000, in fact) in the allotted time.

That's great that you tried it and found some success! The idea of NaNoWriMo definitely appeals to my obsessive side. When I get excited about a story, I tend to focus on it to the exclusion of a lot of other stuff. But averaging 1,600 words a day is waaay above my normal writing pace. I feel like I would just get frustrated.

 

[ThatNewGuy]

I tend to iteratively re-read and revise as I write. So maybe first draft is a different concept for me. I never did: let’s just get something down and finish. I was constantly making sure I was happy with I had written

This is always how I've written stories. For whatever reason, it hasn't worked for this novel.

Changing my approach to just getting a first draft down has been a big adjustment, but so far it's helped me to keep moving forward.

 

[EmilyMiller]

This is always how I've written stories. For whatever reason, it hasn't worked for this novel.

Changing my approach to just getting a first draft down has been a big adjustment, but so far it's helped me to keep moving forward.

There is no right and wrong way, we just do whatever it takes, right?

 

[crookedletter]

This is always how I've written stories. For whatever reason, it hasn't worked for this novel.

Changing my approach to just getting a first draft down has been a big adjustment, but so far it's helped me to keep moving forward.

I've heard from writers who have written multiple novels, who thought after writing their first that they'd figured it out, they had their process, they knew how to write a novel. Only to find out what worked for their first didn't work for their second, and what worked for their second etc. etc. etc.

No two writers are exactly the same. And, if you're doing it right, no two novels are either.

 

[ElectricBlue]

1. You need some idea of where you are going and a map of how to get there - I can’t see how a pantser writes a novel

When I started writing my take on the Arthurian myth, the only thing I knew was, I had to get a dead king and a sword to the side of a lake so a high priestess could collect him in a boat with no oars - and it was his bastard son who killed him.

At that point the king hadn't even been born yet, let alone his child. I tossed in a (non-mythical) twin sister for Mordred, got Maerlyn all mixed up with two witches, a volcano (Krakoa), a tidal wave and the Emperor of Japon.

Lancelot turned out to be gay, my Guinevere was autistic, the king got on not only with his half-sister (I went with that version of the myth) but also with his warrior princess daughter.

104,000 words, no planning other than the destination, no pre-arranged plot points. I think I described it as chutzpah at the time, to even think of doing that.

 

[EmilyMiller]

104,000 words, no planning other than the destination

That’s not purist pantsing. And you had much of your world pre-built, right? You tweaked it for sure, but the original underlay that.

 

[ElectricBlue]

That’s not purist pantsing. And you had much of your world pre-built, right? You tweaked it for sure, but the original underlay that.

Not really pre-built - I changed a lot. Subconsciously maybe, and I am English, so the myth is part of my being.

But in terms of literary construction though, actual writing, there was no prior planning or plotting. Each chapter was written the same way as I write anything else - pretty much stream of consciousness.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Not really pre-built - I changed a lot. Subconsciously maybe, and I am English, so the myth is part of my being.

But in terms of literary construction though, actual writing, there was no prior planning or plotting. Each chapter was written the same way as I write anything else - pretty much stream of consciousness.

Yeah - I understand. I just think you had more of a framework than many. Maybe I’m wrong about that.

 

[Erozetta]

Did you have someone read it and provide feedback as you went? Or did you wait until you had a complete draft before having someone read it?

I waited until I had a complete draft, gave it to my husband, and while he was reading it, I rewrote it and gave him the new version. Then while he was reading that version, I wrote two more novels. (In a few weeks while he was reading and making notes.) I barely slept and ate, just wrote. Hence the "Don't obsess"

My list is basically "Do the opposite of what I did, because what I did wasn't healthy."

 

[XerXesXu]

Aim for 200k words and edit down. Your first line may be in Ch4. Rearrange the chapters accordingly. Slow chapters, reduce to one line, or one paragraph: insert into another chapter. Make the plot and sub-plots line up in order and in parallel, this should bring it down to 120/130k. Line-editing should bring it down to ~100K words.

 

[anthrodisiac]

You need some idea of where you are going and a map of how to get there - I can’t see how a pantser writes a novel

I've written a couple with little more than an incredibly basic premise and nothing else. Sometimes a starting point, sometimes a middle point, sometimes an end point, but all you have is one, maybe two actual plot points, not necessarily anywhere near each other, sometimes not even that. I wrote an entire book off of a single question, no idea what was going to happen, who anyone was going to be, about as abstract a concept as you could get. It wound up being the best thing I've ever written, and probably ever will write.

Admittedly, it's not an approach that works for very many people. And I'll usually have at least some idea what's going to happen and who the people are when I start writing. Basic connective tissue, some nodes, brittle bones, a couple neurons (which are the only two neurons I have left), and the force of will of the characters, the world, and the story.

I've done incredibly detailed outlines and find they tend not to survive more than three or four bullet points before I realize the story was something else entirely, so I don't bother anymore. Chronic pantser, me, have been for... 18, 19 years?

Probably not very useful for a first-time writer, to be honest. I only got to that point because I'd written quite a lot prior to those specific projects and was able to write on pure narrative and character instinct. Damn, do I miss that...

But there is tons of great advice by other people in this thread.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I've written a couple with little more than an incredibly basic premise and nothing else. Sometimes a starting point, sometimes a middle point, sometimes an end point, but all you have is one, maybe two actual plot points, not necessarily anywhere near each other, sometimes not even that. I wrote an entire book off of a single question, no idea what was going to happen, who anyone was going to be, about as abstract a concept as you could get. It wound up being the best thing I've ever written, and probably ever will write.

Admittedly, it's not an approach that works for very many people. And I'll usually have at least some idea what's going to happen and who the people are when I start writing. Basic connective tissue, some nodes, brittle bones, a couple neurons (which are the only two neurons I have left), and the force of will of the characters, the world, and the story.

I've done incredibly detailed outlines and find they tend not to survive more than three or four bullet points before I realize the story was something else entirely, so I don't bother anymore. Chronic pantser, me, have been for... 18, 19 years?

Probably not very useful for a first-time writer, to be honest. I only got to that point because I'd written quite a lot prior to those specific projects and was able to write on pure narrative and character instinct. Damn, do I miss that...

But there is tons of great advice by other people in this thread.

Yeah - I couldn’t do that. I adapt my outlines, but I seldom totally circumvent them.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Yeah - I couldn’t do that. I adapt my outlines, but I seldom totally circumvent them.

The problem is, my structural brain writes terrible stories. My pantser brain robbed it at knifepoint of all creativity.

You get to your fifth or sixth book and spend 20+ hours working on an outline that is completely, and I mean utterly, useless by the third bullet point, and you just have to realize there's no point anymore. Why bother spending all that time trying to meticulously plan when it's: A) Really not that good, B) The picture next to the word "pointless" in the dictionary.

I will write post-lines, though, so I can keep track of everything that happened up to that point. Basically an outline after the fact, during the creation process. It's useful for stories where I do a lot of lore and world-building (which is most of them), so I know what century Prince Dingbat was festooned by the kreptoids.

 

[EmilyMiller]

The problem is, my structural brain writes terrible stories. My pantser brain robbed it at knifepoint of all creativity.

I really am a hybrid. What I typically do is have a scene, or a theme, or and ending in mind. Then I write 2,000 words. It’s mostly the beginning, but it could be the middle or end. That’s normally stream of consciousness stuff.

Then I assess. Some other ideas may have occurred to me while writing. I’ve maybe discovered something about my characters, or introduced a new one. Perhaps there is a hint of other things going on behind the scenes. I sit down and try to work out what the story is. If it’s something I think can be done in less than 10k words, I might just write. Anything longer, I compose an outline or write a 1,000 word treatment of the story.

I might also write down some things I think the story is about, or a list of problems I need to address, or some scenes I want to work toward.

Then back to writing. But not always linearly. I’ve mentioned above that I sometimes write the end early on (of course I may adapt this later). But also if there is some complicated plot point on which the story hinges, I might write that early on. Not least as there is no story if I don’t address the issue.

As I write sections, I cross out the relevant bits in the outline / treatment. I might add things to the outline or make changes at this point. Then back to writing.

If while I’m writing I have some major idea that might change / extend the whole story, then I’ll try to finish the section. Then go back to the outline and see what needs to change, or assess whether it even a good idea or not.

So my outline keeps the same shape, but it also evolves organically. It’s like symbiosis. The writing needs structure, but the writing can change the structure.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

The advice of starting small and build yourself up to larger stuff holds true with an asterisk. If you really want to write a novel for the first time, and are having many doubts, remember: Andrzej Sapkowski begun with anthological novels. The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny are collections of short stories with recurring characters that all take place in the same universe, and have Geralt of Rivia as the hero. If you really want to have something interconnected, go with an episodic novel then. Treasure Island is the best example of one. It still feels like a collection of short stories, but they are all connected through one thread; they lead up to something.

Novels aren't a wild beast that should be tamed. That's just a bunch of authors too afraid of words on paper talking. Novels can be hacked. There's plenty of structures to work with. Find one, and stick to it for a while. Study one structure deeply before modifying the recipe.

A novel has a minimum of 50K words. Don't let other people tell you you need to make a million word epic to have a novel. 50K is enough, and if they don't like it, tell them to read the Argosy Stories Weekly. Hell, some people consider Story of the Eye as a novel, and I believe it's less than half of 50K. I know I have the total wordcount somewhere.

Have a fucking budget. It boils my blood to see people extending stories over and over and over because "they need more room to breath." No, that just means you want more time with characters who want to break up with you. If you say your work will have 65K, you better make it 65K or less. If it goes over, streamline it. If the story needs more words, it means you are the one responsible for thinking that. I say this by experience: the NaNoWriMo I wrote in 2024 I thought it exploded and I needed to expand it because I restrained it too much. False. I went over the manuscript again and realized I needed to cut most of the manuscript, and the ideas that I thought were necessary were actually born from what needed to be cut, which was like 50% of the manuscript. It took me until finishing my NaNoWriMo last year to realize of my mistakes.

Speaking of it, prepare to cut a lot of material. Don't delete what's cut, just put it on another document. This could be the seed for something from a follow-up to another project.

Don't use wordcount goals. Just write for an hour or less. 30 minutes minimum. Can't do 30? Do 15. Can't do 15? Do 10. 5. 1. 30 seconds. A paragraph. A sentence. A word. Anything is better than zero progress. Remember Chandler's advice: when in doubt, have two guys coming through the door with guns. Write first, fix later.

Have deadlines. Plural. "By day X, I'll have 4 chapters done." That type of deadline. Turn the project into smaller projects. A novel is a matrioshka doll of projects. Write those deadlines somewhere you can see them, and tick those off once you meet each.

Figure out if you're a pantser, a plotter, or a plantser. Maybe you are all three, as I feel sometimes. My unfinished work The Woman at the Speakeasy was pantsing. No Heroes in Love (a nanonovel; that's a novel cosplaying as a novella, a novelette, or even a short story because it's written upwards instead of outwards) had some plotting that turned into plantsing by around Chapter XVII. All projects are different.

If you're excited about an idea, write that, but also put a deadline that feels really close. If you are always bombarded with ideas, it's better to have a close deadline because that way you don't abandon projects that are half cooked.

Don't be a coward and fucking do NaNoWriMo. I did it for the first time like ten years ago, and it's what taught me almost everything that I put here. I was afraid and felt a lot of pressure the first time, but every year became easier. You don't need to publish what you've done, just write.

You can start editing a novel once it's finished from the first draft. Sometimes all you need is to wait a few hours or a day. Not every single time you need to wait a long time. This could be the worst example from my experience, but when I wrote my first novel, I immediately started scripting/editing it for a graphic novel because that was my intention. I drafted it in like two weeks. The project fizzled out while storyboarding it because I got lazy, but I'm glad it did because now I can pretty much grab the story and turn it into an actual novel with my current maturity, because I mean... I'm not 21 years old, trapped in an egg I didn't see, until writing that novel cracked the egg. On the other hand, my first nanonovel I did it in 30 days, and No Heroes in Love was finished in like three weeks or so, considering I had to start over my editing because my equipment broke.

Not all stories begin in the start or the end. You can always write from the middle. Actually, that's what I did in 2023. My NaNoWriMo for 2023 was my attempt at doing mosaic storytelling through an anthology. It was difficult, but I loved the result, and how the story unfolds. It doesn't need to be mosaic storytelling, but if you start from the middle, your work might look like that. James Scott Bell has a book called Write Your Novel From the Middle, which explores this concept better.

Every project yields a lesson. It's best to spend some time answering one question: what did I learn from writing this?

 

[AlinaX]

If you're comfortable sharing, in what sense? That it was over? That it didn't meet your expectations? Something else?

Writing a novel is like a relationship. You create these people and live with them every day for months. You even sleep with them, sometimes getting up in the middle of the night because you’ve written this fantastic scene in your head and it needs to be written on paper.

And then it’s done. Finished. But the characters still exist for you. They’re still living in your head. You feel their emotions, and you’re still thinking up scenes… but the story is done, and maybe you’ll try to write a sequel but it doesn’t really go anywhere and -

Well. At some point you have to let go, but it’s heartbreaking.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Writing a novel is like a relationship. You create these people and live with them every day for months. You even sleep with them, sometimes getting up in the middle of the night because you’ve written this fantastic scene in your head and it needs to be written on paper.

And then it’s done. Finished. But the characters still exist for you. They’re still living in your head. You feel their emotions, and you’re still thinking up scenes… but the story is done, and maybe you’ll try to write a sequel but it doesn’t really go anywhere and -

Well. At some point you have to let go, but it’s heartbreaking.

I've considered this a couple times, but have never done it. Funeral pyre for your book. Give it the send off it truly deserves. Okay, so maybe it doesn't have to be a pyre, but some sort of honorary ceremony, a wake of some sort if you will. Acknowledge what you put into the world, and let it go. Pyre's just the most dramatic, and as a writer, it's hard to resist the allure of drama and metaphor combining into a way to move on.

It's the only time I'll condone book burning.

Admittedly, it works better if you have a physical copy. I wouldn't recommend setting your laptop on fire, but if it brings you catharsis, who am I to judge?

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I have written 23 novels, eleven of which are published on Literotica, including my first one.

When I get inspired to write, the only planning that I do is the creation of an Excel sheet to use as a story board. Here, I will generally start with my ideas for the main characters, locations, and the timeline of events. The timeline is typically a critical tool for me because it allows me to accurately 'age' the characters and events that I envision for the story as they occur to me.

I have always been patient with my writing. Even with my first novel, it wasn't the only work in progress that I was dealing with. I had other paying writing assignments or ideas for stories that I was able to hop to when a distraction from the novel required it. From start to finish, the first one took me about six months. I've averaged two new novels a year since.

Now, some things that I learned from the first experience were:

1. Just write. Get the thoughts down and worry about sorting them out later.
2. Focus on the tale and not the structure. Things like section and chapter breaks can be determined once the story is complete.
3. Have a loyal and trusting group of alpha readers and feed them properly. Don't give them the latest bunch of pages without including previous pages, especially if something has changed.

Something that I already knew, which I have always followed, is to finish the damn story before publishing any part of it. I can't tell you how many times ideas that appeared in later portions of the story required changes to something in earlier sections in order to maintain continuity and clarity for them to fit in. Each chapter should end as an enticement for the readers to continue reading. This is where waiting until the story is complete to determine the best spot for breaks can play a major part in how the story eventually flows throughout.