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E

ewomack

Member
Hello,

I've never gathered the gumption to sit down and write something yet. I seem to have a fear of the process, or something ineffable I can't quite fathom. As a psychic salve of sorts, I thought I'd outline how I think a novel gets written and pass it by all of you writer types. Perhaps my fear involves getting to step 675 and realizing "Awk! Between steps 345 and 360 I should have done [insert missed opportunity resulting in weeks and weeks of rework]!!" So this is my attempt to calm myself down.

Here's how I see the process of writing a novel from not having gone through it.

Phase I: Chaos
- Think of scenes, characters, settings, beginnings, endings, etc., etc., in stream of consciousness; write everything down
- Determine basic narrative structure, or at least a general "first drafty" sense of it
- Write a sprawling 1st draft with no expectations that it will meet any standards whatsoever (i.e., an edit draft)

Phase II: Organize
- Pick through first draft, remove redundancies, extraneous scenes, rationalize plot lines, characterizations
- Realize that something else might be emerging, explore new direction(s)
- Go through notes again, think a lot about the monster you've created, bat away constant self-doubt
- Create more organized, rationalized second draft as an output of Phase II; this one may actually be readable. Maybe create additional drafts depending on amount of revision

Phase III: Start to Polish and Expose
- Read latest draft all of the way through for feeling, bonehead mistakes, and entertainment value (i.e., overall worth)
- Decide whether continuing this thing is really worth it
- After polishing up another draft, find an honest reader to peruse it (assuming it's in the right state for this)
- Tinker some more based on feedback, additional thoughts, and feelings about the overall work; create another, even more polished, draft

Phase IV: Almost there
- Rewrite latest, more polished draft for all literary content
- Have additional honest readers scan this latest draft; start asking for very brutal, honest feedback such as "if you had paid $14.95 for this, would you curse the author's name?"

Phase V: Final draft
- If self-doubt and brutal feedback have not destroyed the project or your spirit by now, create final polished draft based on brutal feedback. Put draft away for about a week. Take it out and read it following the week. Revise based on elements that you now know stink.
-Have more people proof read (unless you've run out of patient friends by this point)
- Complete final draft.

I'll skip the agent/publishing part since that assumes the process has produced something publishable.

Am I warm? Ice cold? Solar prominence? Zero Kelvin? Is this sort of what I'd be in for if I actually decide to sit down and write?

Thanks! :D
 
Wow, you're putting too many obstacles in your way. Follow the old Chinese proverb: a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Get a chapter on (I was going to say paper, but we don't do that anymore, do we) your c-drive and see what you think of it.

I started my first novel on yellow legal pads. I would write several chapters over the winter, get busy in summer, then re-read and throw out what I had written. Why? I was writing in a vacuum, not knowing what GOOD writing was, and having no way to find out. Finally, I joined a writers group and began learning.

These days, forums are a pretty good replacement for writers groups. Quit asking questions and post some of your writing. You'll get plenty of constructive criticism. Ignore the ones that say, "Wow, I don't know anything about writing, but it seemed great to me." In the same vein, don't use your friends for critiquing. Use the forum. Your friends, in addition to being biased, are NOT writers and can give no valid advice.

The main thing is to start writing. You seem to think you can figure it all out beforehand and then just sit down and write a masterpiece. Doubtful. Take that first step. Here are Robert Heinleins rules of writing, with the last rule added by Robert Sawyer, the Canadian author. These are the basic rules, all else is fluff.

Rule One: You Must Write
It sounds ridiculously obvious, doesn't it? But it is a very difficult rule to apply. You can't just talk about wanting to be a writer. You can't simply take courses, or read up on the process of writing, or daydream about someday getting around to it. The only way to become a writer is to plant yourself in front of your keyboard and go to work.

And don't you dare complain that you don't have the time to write. Real writers buy the time, if they can't get it any other way. Take Toronto's Terence M. Green, a high-school English teacher. His third novel, Shadow of Ashland, just came out from Tor. Terry takes every fifth year off from teaching without pay so that he can write; most writers I know have made similar sacrifices for their art.

(Out of our hundred original aspirant writers, half will never get around to writing anything. That leaves us with fifty . . .)



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Rule Two: Finish What Your Start
You cannot learn how to write without seeing a piece through to its conclusion. Yes, the first few pages you churn out might be weak, and you may be tempted to toss them out. Don't. Press on until you're done. Once you have an overall draft, with a beginning, middle, and end, you'll be surprised at how easy it is to see what works and what doesn't. And you'll never master such things as plot, suspense, or character growth unless you actually construct an entire piece.

On a related point: if you belong to a writers' workshop, don't let people critique your novel a chapter at a time. No one can properly judge a book by a piece lifted out of it at random, and you'll end up with all sorts of pointless advice: "This part seems irrelevant." "Well, no, actually, it's very important a hundred pages from now . . ."

(Of our fifty remaining potential writers, half will never finish anything — leaving just twenty-five still in the running . . .)



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Rule Three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order
This is the one that got Heinlein in trouble with creative-writing teachers. Perhaps a more appropriate wording would have been, "Don't tinker endlessly with your story." You can spend forever modifying, revising, and polishing. There's an old saying that stories are never finished, only abandoned — learn to abandon yours.

If you find your current revisions amount to restoring the work to the way it was at an earlier stage, then it's time to push the baby out of the nest.

And although many beginners don't believe it, Heinlein is right: if your story is close to publishable, editors will tell you what you have to do to make it salable. Some small-press magazines do this at length, but you'll also get advice from Analog, Asimov's, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

(Of our remaining twenty-five writers, twelve will fiddle endlessly, and so are now out of the game. Twelve more will finally declare a piece complete. The twenty-fifth writer, the one who got chopped in half, is now desperately looking for his legs . . .)



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Rule Four: You Must Put Your Story on the Market
This is the hardest rule of all for beginners. You can't simply declare yourself to be a professional writer. Rather, it's a title that must be conferred upon you by those willing to pay money for your words. Until you actually show your work to an editor, you can live the fantasy that you're every bit as good as Guy Gavriel Kay or William Gibson. But having to see if that fantasy has any grounding in reality is a very hard thing for most people to do.

I know one Canadian aspirant writer who managed to delay for two years sending out his story because, he said, he didn't have any American stamps for the self-addressed stamped envelope. This, despite the fact that he'd known dozens of people who went regularly to the States and could have gotten stamps for him, despite the fact that he could have driven across the border himself and picked up stamps, despite the fact that you don't even really need US stamps — you can use International Postal Reply Coupons instead, available at any large post office. [And those in Toronto can buy actual U.S. stamps at the First Toronto Post Office at 260 Adelaide Street South.]

No, it wasn't stamps he was lacking — it was backbone. He was afraid to find out whether his prose was salable. Don't be a coward: send your story out.

(Of our twelve writers left, half of them won't work up the nerve to make a submission, leaving just six . . .)



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Rule Five: You Must Keep it on the Market until it has Sold
It's a fact: work gets rejected all the time. Almost certainly your first submission will be rejected. Don't let that stop you. I've currently got 142 rejection slips in my files; every professional writer I know has stacks of them (the prolific Canadian horror writer Edo van Belkom does a great talk at SF conventions called "Thriving on Rejection" in which he reads samples from the many he's acquired over the years).

If the rejection note contains advice you think is good, revise the story and send it out again. If not, then simply turn the story around: pop it in the mail, sending it to another market. Keep at it. My own record for the maximum number of submissions before selling a story is eighteen — but the story did eventually find a good home. (And within days, I'd sold it again to a reprint-only anthology; getting a story in print the first time opens up whole new markets.)

If your story is rejected, send it out that very same day to another market.

(Still, of our six remaining writers, three will be so discouraged by that first rejection that they'll give up writing for good. But three more will keep at it . . .)



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Rule Six: Start Working on Something Else
That's my own rule. I've seen too many beginning writers labour for years over a single story or novel. As soon as you've finished one piece, start on another. Don't wait for the first story to come back from the editor you've submitted it to; get to work on your next project. (And if you find you're experiencing writer's block on your current project, begin writing something new — a real writer can always write something.) You must produce a body of work to count yourself as a real working pro. #

Of our original hundred wannabe writers, only one or two will follow all six rules. The question is: will you be one of them? I hope so, because if you have at least a modicum of talent and if you live by these six rules, you will make it.

Hope that helps,

JohnB
 
There is another thing - you must READ, the more books the better. Making lists can be an excuse for not getting on and writing, like making a mug of coffee or mowing the grass. When you write a technical or business report or a thesis you have to plan every step. When your write a novel it isn't the same. Getting your ducks in a row is fine, but don't over-plan. Don't aim at a target, simply aim in the general direction. You will find that when you get into your story it will start to write itself.
 
WriterJohnB said:
Wow, you're putting too many obstacles in your way. Follow the old Chinese proverb: a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Get a chapter on (I was going to say paper, but we don't do that anymore, do we) your c-drive and see what you think of it.


The main thing is to start writing.

JohnB
Click to expand...



Hey JB...don't I know you from somewhere? ;)


That's great advice, btw. Writing is where it begins. Putting down a sentence, then a paragraph, then a page. Write what moves you. Write until you can't write anymore...and when you get to the end, go back through and rewrite it again. Improve, expand, explain, express. Personally, I find that writing the scene on paper and then transfering it to the computer makes my prose flow better and my characters come out more dimensional and realistic (esp. the dialogue).

I started my first book much like John, as an idea I jotted in an old steno notebook, and after nearly 9 months of writing and 6 months spent submitting, I landed a publisher. It was a lot of work, but well worth it.


So if you have an idea that moves you...write, write, WRITE! :D
 
writing

Writing isn't difficult at all. If people can write thoughts down and post them over the internet for everyone to see; then that should be no different than writing a book you believe ( or hope ) people will read.

A page, a paragraph or a series of sentences are all the same thing.

In order for anyone to know what you're thinking; the best way to articulate it is by writing.

In my opinion though; I don't think it has to be linear or even understandable. So long as people don't ignore what you have to say; you've found an in.
 
For me, it's very much about not overthinking it. Yes, I outline. Yes I have a pretty good idea of what I want to novel to be months before putting words down. But the actual process of writing the first draft is very much about just doing it. You can't afford to allow yourself to worry too much about all the things writers' groups, classes etc tell you you should be worrying about.

Also, every writer works differently. There is no hard and fast method. We each find our own way.
 
This is a good thread. After writing fiction for nearly 20 years and being blessed with 14 published novels (R.J. Pineiro), I find it impossible to go a day without writing something. I saw some good advice here, especialy from JohnB. Keep in mind that most writers I know have varying styles in how they go about starting a novel. Some like to plot it out chapter by chapter with quite a bit of detail before they even start writing the first paragraph. What works best for me is to settle on the basic conflict of the story, how it will start (very important to define the entry point into the story), and how it will end. I also flesh out the main characters and decide whose eyes (sometimes more than one pair of eyes) I will use to see the story from beinning to end (key here is "seeing" the story, not telling it. You must see it inorder for the reader to also see it) . Then I just start writing, throwing the characters into the conflict and allowing them the opportunity to work it out. In a very strange way, the plot starts to go in unpredictable directions as the characters drive the action towards the climatic ending. I hope this helps.
 
WriterJohnB said:
Robert Heinlein's rules of writing, with the last rule added by Robert Sawyer. These are the basic rules, all else is fluff.

Rule One: You Must Write
Rule Two: You Must Finish What Your Start
Rule Three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order
Rule Four: You Must Put Your Story on the Market
Rule Five: You Must Keep it on the Market until it has Sold
Rule Six (from Sawyer): Start Working on Something Else
Click to expand...

One cannot repeat Heinlein's advice often enough. Memorize it. Live it.

Add this bit of wisdom from President Calvin Coolidge:

"Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."

As for writing advice, I subscribe to that offered by the King in Alice in Wonderland: "Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop." :flowers:
 
I started my Novel in my Gym class(Weird,I know).I got the idea about Death from one of my brother's poem his teacher assigned him for homework.I wrote on some old fashion Notebook paper,then copied the prologue in a Spiral Notebook I have kept for a while now.I haven't written anything in it for a month though.
 
I think you have a fairly good process listed out... but the advice was also good... finish something :)

All parts can be fun. Dreaming of the scenes, marking them out, getting dialogue hammered into place, filling in details. I think of writing as a sort of painting with words. Sometimes, you can just get by ... by painting scenes in broad strokes and then to get details you need to go back and fine tune some stuff.
 
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