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My social feeds are full of “How to Write Your First Novel” blog posts and courses and podcasts teaching story structure, writing craft, plotting, and how to make sure your book will sell. It very quickly gets overwhelming.
How are you ever going to find the time to write a book if you’ve got to get all of this stuff right to make sure your novel is any good? And yes, all of this is stuff you need to be aware of if you’re serious about becoming a self-published author who makes money from your books.
However, there’s something very important to remember about a first draft that sets it apart from the process of writing a successful novel.
You’re not going to sell your first draft. It’s not for the book-hungry public. It’s not even for the eyes of beta readers, editors, and probably not even critique partners.
It’s allowed to be messy and have scenes in the wrong order, characters who don’t know who they are quite yet, and words that don’t mean exactly what they’re meant to. All of that stuff can be edited and revised in the second, third, or fourth drafts.
So, repeat after me, “My first draft is not a finished novel,” and keep reading for some actionable tips for getting your first draft – not your novel – finished.
Your first draft is purely for you. So you can turn the ideas that have been living in your head into a story – or something resembling a story.
Even for writers who outline their fiction books, the first draft is still all about discovery. For example, you might know your characters’ backstories and the events that will happen to them during the course of the plot. But as you’re filling in the gaps between the points on your outline, you’ll discover their habits and quirks and dig deeper into how they react to the world around them.
As you write, you might decide that some plot points don’t make sense anymore, or wonder what might happen if you throw your characters into a different situation than the one you planned.
Your first draft is your chance to explore all your different ideas and purely be creative.
In the spirit of creativity, no idea is too stupid or too random. You never know if a brief paragraph or two – or even a single sentence – will be the inspiration for a major plot point later along the writing or revision process. Write every idea that you have, even if it’s in a side character’s POV or you don’t know how it will fit into the story. Even if they never end up in the finished book, little snippets like this will help you write a story with fully rounded characters and a strong, well-structured plot.
Whether you keep a physical notebook or a document on your phone, make sure you have a way of recording all of your random ideas wherever you are. There’s nothing worse than having a flash of inspiration that you’ve completely forgotten by the time you next get a chance to sit down to write.
Your first draft is about discovery and exploration and keeping the ideas flowing, and therefore it’s best to try not to edit as you write. First, you don’t want to delete something that might have sparked another idea had you kept it, and second, the action of editing is an analytical process that will pull you out of the creative flow of writing.
If you can’t resist editing, I suggest keeping any blocks of text you delete in case you change your mind about their usefulness at a later date or want to refer back to them for information that may become relevant as you revise your novel.
I think this might be one of the most important things to remember as you write the first draft of your novel. Be prepared to follow your ideas in all sorts of unexpected directions. Deviate from your outline if a different idea comes to mind. But at the same time, be prepared to abandon the new ideas if they don't work out and return to your original plans. Remember this is a process of creative discovery.
Flexibility isn't just important when it comes to what you're writing. Allow yourself some slack when it comes to self-imposed deadlines, word counts, or sticking to a writing routine as well. Especially if this is your first first draft, it will take you some time to figure out what your regular writing practice looks like. Be prepared for some things to not work out like you thought they would. And don't worry if you find that's the case. All writers are individuals and forcing yourself to write in a way that doesn't work for you won't help your creativity.
It's your first draft. You're allowed to get things wrong. The important thing is to not let things going wrong stop you from reaching The End.
Notice this doesn't say create a rigid writing routine. A routine might work for you; many writers find that choosing a specific time of day for writing and sitting down every day at that time helps them be more productive. But other writers will find that rigidity overwhelming or restrictive.
However, you do need to make the effort to make time for writing. You might start by aiming for half an hour a day, or an hour every other day, or maybe even three hours on a Saturday. The important thing is not when you write, but that you show up regularly to write until it becomes a habit that is ingrained into your life.
Remember that the point of your first draft is to discover your story and explore all the different ideas that you come up with. To keep your creativity – and the words – flowing, resist the temptation to do anything but write.
I’ve already mentioned avoiding editing, but this advice also extends to hopping online to research something, searching the thesaurus for the exact right word, or spending hours struggling over one scene.
Embrace the “comment to your future self.” If something needs more research, write yourself a note in brackets so you can sort it later. You could also highlight it so it’s easy to see. Do the same for troublesome scenes or phrasing. Future you can review all these problems in later drafts. Current you needs to get the words out or there won’t be a completed first draft.
Your first draft won’t finish itself, but sometimes it’s hard to find the motivation to do the work. If “just sit down and write” isn’t working for you, there are other ways to help you get more done.
As you're developing a writing habit that works for you, take the time to test out the various options for improving your productivity to see which ones work best.
A sprint is when you set a timer and sit down to write as many words as you can within that time. Choose an amount of time that is short enough that you feel the pressure to work fast, such as thirty minutes. Daily writing sprints are an excellent way to start developing that writing habit I talked about, and you might find them easier to stick to if you do them at the same time every day.
An accountability partner makes sure you do what you’ve said you’ll do. You tell them your plans, they make sure you take action, and often, you’ll do the same for them. Your accountability partner might be someone you meet up with in real life so you can write together, or you could join an online accountability group. Complete your daily writing sprints with your accountability partner to make sure you don’t procrastinate your way out of doing them.
Some writers appreciate complete silence as they work, others love a coffee shop because they like the background noise. Figure out what works best for you, and if you can find a way to write somewhere that aids your productivity, then take advantage of it as much as you can.
Music is scientifically proven to affect your mood and energy levels, and the right music can improve your motivation and productivity. Create your own playlist or look for motivational playlists on YouTube or services such as Spotify. Or you could go for something more scientific, like the advanced music from brain.fm, which blends into the background to help you focus and also stimulates your brain.
Sometimes, when you’re in the middle of a hard project – like writing the first draft of your novel – it can be useful to remind yourself of why you started it in the first place. Imagine what it will feel like when you’ve finished your novel and are working towards achieving your author goals. Imagine how proud of yourself you’ll be.
It might help to create a vision board or write your goals down, then keep these visual representations somewhere you’ll see them regularly, like as the background on your phone, or on a post-it note on your laptop.
Writing a novel is a massive achievement. I bet you know loads of people that have been planning to write a book for years, but never actually have. When you finish your first draft, celebrate it. Shout about it to your writing buddies or in your favourite Facebook writing group, have a drink, and treat yourself to cake.
It doesn’t matter how long it took, or that the resulting draft is a mess. The important point is you have a story: the solid foundation for a fully fledged, publishable novel.
So now you’ve eaten your celebratory cake, what comes next? It’s time to move on to your second draft and start revising and self-editing your story.
This blog post, Story Editing for Fiction Authors, shares the things you need to review during your story edit, and I’ll be diving deeper into the self-editing and revision process next month here on the blog.
Story Evaluation: Get a detailed review of your story and an in-depth, author-friendly report and action plan that dives deep into what works and what could be improved in your manuscript. This is for you if you want help figuring out where and how you can improve things like your plot and character development or big-picture readability issues like POV and show, don't tell. Find out more about story evaluations here.
Editing Evaluation: Get a thorough line and copy edit of the first 10,000 words of your novel plus a detailed, actionable report to help you find and correct recurring editing issues in your manuscript. An editing evaluation is for you if you need help getting unstuck with your sentence-level self editing or just want some personalised guidance on improving your writing skills. Find out more about story evaluations here.
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