How to Write a Novel

Writing a novel should be simple. Right? You just write. Write whatever you're feeling, critique it later. Your first draft will always be shitty so just at least write your shitty first draft.

I've been wanting to write a novel for several years. As a twenty-one year old college student on summer break, I figured now would be the best time to dedicate myself to this mission. And I've scoured the internet for the perfect way to outline a novel or the best way to prepare it. Some blogs say map out your plot lines, map out your characters. Some blogs say hey, fuck that. Don't plan it all!

So what the hell do you do?

I'm currently writing this "How-To" article at 2am in the middle of procrastinating on my own, but I'm completely sober. Just thought I'd give a little disclaimer before we begin.

1. PLAN Your Goals/Conflict.

There's not much of a story without these two central plot points. Your character needs to have a goal to accomplish, whether it be emotional or physical or spiritual. In We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, Cadence Sinclair's goal is to remember what happened before her accident. In Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Andersen, Lia Overbrook wants to be skinny. (It's debatable if that is her central goal).

So, there have to be obstacles from your character completing that goal. In We Were Liars, Cadence has amnesia and migraines. Her dear cousins are ignoring her when she asks what caused her accident that fateful summer. In Wintergirls, Lia's parents are monitoring her weight and her eating habits. Not to mention, the ghost of her ex-best friend is haunting her!

From a twenty-one year old college student who took one creative writing class for the first time in six years, but loves to write, loves to read, loves to critique and think - I truly do think the goals and conflict should be mapped out to an extent. Maybe you don't know the plot's full extent, but at least you have some markers to start framing your story, should you need any: here is what my character wants, here is what is preventing my character from achieving it, here is my character either getting what he/she/they want.

It's fun to write FanFiction that is pure fluff, without any angst or turmoil. I've written a few fics like that in my time. But in the grand scheme of things, we face conflict every day. We want to connect with characters who experience conflict and end up achieving their goals, because at the end of the day, isn't that why we get out of bed every day?

2. SET goals.

This doesn't necessarily help you structure your novel-planning, or figure out what you want to write, but it's much easier to write and finish your novel if there's some pressure behind the ordeal.

That's what NANOWRIMO - National Novel Writing Month - is all about. The goal is for writers to find support and write a novel in a month. Sounds impossible? The requirements for your novel is that it is at least 50,000 words. The quality of the writing doesn't matter, it's what the quantity. Sounds weird? The thought behind the process is that you write your novel, you get out your shitty first draft, you take December to catch up on all of the sleep that you have missed, and then you perfect your novel!

Decide that you want to write a novel. Decide what your conflict and goals are -- with this, your protagonist has probably begun to take some semblance of shape in your mind. Decide I want to finish this novel within six months, within a summer, or maybe within one month.

And have some pressure behind this, hold yourself to this goal. A friend from my writing class and I have put pressure on ourselves to write a novel by the end of this summer. When you have a close writing partner who can critique your work thoughtfully and support you while doing so, it makes the process a lot easier.

Join some writing groups on Facebook -- I'm on Writers Helping Writers, Writers and Authors Promotions, and Writers for Children and Young Adults. You can do some really great networking on there to find Critique Partners or gain inspiration and ideas from other writers.

3. Characters, Settings, and Timeframe

Knowing your main character is really important in developing conflicts and goals for obvious reasons. But it also helps in the sense that you will be living with this character for a long time while you write.

What are their hobbies? Hopes and dreams? What do they fear most, spiders or being murdered? What color eyes do they have? What songs do they listen to?

Mapping out your character can be extremely useful in creating a character bio. You definitely don't have to do this with every single character, but it will help with your main characters (Protagonist, Antagonist, Love Interest, Mom/Dad/Sister, etc). With my characters, I've set up a Numbers document on my computer (this works easily with Excel, or Google Sheets) and taken the majority of these questions to answer about my character.

It could also be useful in planning your character's relationships with other characters. For example, in Paper Towns, the central character is "Q," Quentin. He has several relationships with several characters throughout the novel: Margo, is most notably his love interest and his antagonist (she works against his goals of finding out what happened to her). Radar and Ben are his best friends, who support him on this wild road trip. This can help in mapping out goals and conflicts, if you know ahead of time how your character behaves with different people.

It's also a fairly good idea to know where your novel is taking place. I'm a horrible example of this, I tend to write character-driven stories without giving a damn where the novel is set. But having been to the location where your novel is set will definitely give it a more authentic feeling to your readers. If you don't have the resources to travel to London, Tokyo, New Zealand, San Francisco, etc -- Google Maps has excellent 3D images that can sort of bring you to the area you want to be in, and you can look up street names and stores that are close to central landmarks you want your character to travel through.

As I'm writing my Young Adult Fantasy series, I wish I had the resources (cough money cough) to purchase an App that could design the world I want my characters to be living in. I've settled for simple sketches and copying and pasting images from Google onto Scrivener, to give myself an idea of what I'm working with. But should you have the funds and the means, Inkarnate is a great tool for bringing your fantasy worlds to life on maps on the internet.

It's also a good idea to know when your novel is taking place, because the political and social climate will play a huge role in how your characters think, behave, dress, and interact with other characters. A classmate of mine in a writing class chose to set her story in a very specific time period, but clearly didn't do too much research into that time period. We wondered why in 1880s Missouri (Southern United States), there wasn't any mention of race, gender, or class when regarding an educational recreational activity.

If you were to reread The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) by Rick Riordan, you'll notice that during a conversation between major characters - Percy, Thalia, Grover, Zoe, and Bianca - King Riordan does not explicitly say what the time period is. Zoe (I believe? Or maybe Thalia/Grover) ask Bianca if she knows who the president is. It's narrated that Bianca simply gives the correct name of the president, but that the last president she remembers is Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Yes, we have some idea that this story takes place within 2000-2010, but to choose a specific year would raise questions about what kind of climate we were living in at that time. A specific decade just lets us know that yes, modern methods of transportation existed and certain slang terms were used then. King Riordan cleverly avoids confining himself within a time period that has very specific connotations, say for example, 1880s Missouri.

4. Sugar and Spice, Short and Concise.

I am the first to admit that when I start writing, I want my work to sound pretty. I want people to praise how beautiful my prose is, so I ended up writing lines and lines of poetry that ends up distracting the reader and throwing us off the point.

Start by writing what you want to say. Character A goes to the market. Character A buys a carton of eggs. Character A sees Character B and drops the carton of eggs. Character B is a blast from the past, a former flame. Character B was supposed to have died three years ago in a car accident.

Then when you at least have your shitty idea out there on a piece of notebook paper, or on a Word/Google/Pages/Scrivener document, you can go back and edit it. Sally took a stroll through her neighborhood on Tuesday afternoon, after her mind felt weighed down by all of the papers she had left to grade for the upcoming end of term. She found herself walking into a suprermarket, aimlessly walking through the frozen produce aisle. She was inspecting a carton of eggs when a familiar hand touched her shoulder and a familiar voice called out, "Sally? Is that you?" In complete and utter shock, Sally dropped the carton of eggs to her feet, drawing back as if she'd seen a ghost. In some ways she had - her ex-boyfriend, John Dickens, died in a car accident three years ago. She attended his funeral, yet here he was, standing right in front of her and a carton of spilled eggs.

Of course, you don't have to do Example A verbatim. Example B could be considered your shitty first draft, where you're just trying to get your ideas out onto paper so you can start writing. Don't be concerned at this stage about making "Character A goes to the market"/"Sally took a stroll...found herself walking in a supermarket" sound pretty. Make sure it gets your idea across -- in this scene, Sally runs into John, who is supposed to have died.

(My former writing professor taught me about this -- every scene needs to have a purpose. If you're a stickler, like me, about outlining your scenes before you write, make sure you outline the purpose of your scene. Each chapter/scene needs to have something driving the plot forward or putting your character in motion.)

5. OUTTAKES

Keep a folder of all of your outtakes! You will definitely write a scene one night at 2am that you'll read over 2 days later and be like, the fuck is this? Delete.

But don't delete it forever! Keep it in a special folder or document where all of your old ideas go to wait for their moment to shine in the future. Come back to them when you find yourself in the middle of writer's block and need some inspiration to get back on the writing road again.

If there comes a day on your journey, where you have no idea what to write or where to take your story, go back to these outtakes and expand on that idea, even if you never use it. It can be kept in the back of your mind as a moment of productivity and maybe you'll use a certain line of prose you wrote, or a certain dialogue from a certain character. At least you've written something, is the most important thing to take away from this step.

✨ This should not be taken as the Writer's Bible in any way, shape, or form, but if you do find this helpful, please let me know what you found helpful! ✨

This is just a very short list of some ideas to help you get your gears started on this crazy ride of writing a novel :) I hope it helps, teaches you something new that you didn't know before, or gets you interested in starting to write your novel!