How do you begin your first novel.
Easy. Start writing.
There are many different guidelines, tips and tools to guide the new author. The collection of them is ubiquitous on the web and can be overwhelming. I’ve been writing novels for almost twenty years now, and I have amassed collections of these tools and tips.
So, let’s ignore them all for a few minutes.
Literary agents, acquisition editors, influencers have ideas. Let’s set them aside as well.
Let’s not focus on appurtenances but get to the soul of writing. If you want to be a writer, then write. We will worry through how to become a good writer later, but for right now, take out a piece of paper, fire up your laptop, open you tablet, or blow the dust off of that big ole PC in your home office and start writing.
You learn how to write by writing.
Let’s say that there is someone who wants to learn a new language – say Chinese. How do they learn it? Well, they could stay home and listen to audio tapes all day, and, who knows, maybe you learn something from listening, such as voice mimicry.
But the only real way to learn what the language means and what it is communicating–is to inject yourself into a conversation and try to speak it.
Now, your first performance will be painful to the ear of a native Chinese speaker, and you will be humbled and embarrassed, but so what? This consistent effort engages you. It opens your mind using a strength you didn’t know that you had, the inquisitive energy that is the key to learning. And, what started as slow drudgery is now a joy to practice, because you want to learn and are learning. You keep it up. Whatever it takes. However it feels.
Think about someone who wants to learn basketball. Do they first read books on how to be a good basketball player? How to set a pick and roll? How to give and go?
Of course not. They spend hours at a hoop just practicing dribbling and shooting. They make silly mistakes, but those mistakes don’t damage because they are learning what they wanted to learn. Same with football, soccer, tennis, golf. The saving grace of these mistakes is that by making them, the player learns. The sophistication comes later. The only way to play is to play. The only way to write is to, well, write.
There are many strategic principles (e.g., perfect first chapter, arcs) and tactics (remove all adverbs) but in the end, its boots on the ground, characters on the page.
Put these characters on the page. Right now.
You have a story in your heart that is fighting its way to the outside. Get it out. Put those ideas down Hold nothing back. Be absolutely free spirited. You’re not writing Shakespeare, you are writing you. Don’t concern yourself about organization. Don’t worry about paragraph sequencing. Just fill it with emotion for as long as it takes. Let your creative eagle soar as high as it can. –It’s fulfilling. Wonderful.
This is your idea you’ve had it for a long time. And finally, at long last, you are, writing it. This is what I call my draft zero. My cathartic. Written without any distractions about word count or sequencing.–There are many parts of writing books that are fun. This is one of the best. Now, what you have experienced is creative freedom, but what you have in front of you is a jumbled mess – a heap of a quasi-story that only you understand. We’ll get to what to do next, but first you have to make a decision.
Write to sell, or write to tell?
Why am I writing? There are only two reasons to write. To begin a lucrative career as a writer, or to get your story out. Essentially, to write to sell, or write to tell
One of the best conversations I had about writing was with the editor who agreed to work with me on Face with Katrina Survivors . He said, “Lem. Don’t take this personally, but never write a book to make money.” I was surprised to hear this and actually, a little hurt. Was he impugning my writing? Telling me nicely to get out of the business?
I said, sitting forward on the sofa, “Well, Richard, I thought that’s what we were both doing here, to write a book and to make money.”
“No,” he said. “You write a book to get your story out. You have either a concept of events for a nonfiction book, or a story for fiction. But your obligation is to get that story out as cleanly, as crisply as accurately, as possible, providing a solid emotional kick. Once you’ve done that, your job is over. Now, if people want to buy the book, then so much the better. But don’t write a book just to make money. Write to get your story out.”
It took me a while to get this message but I accepted it and made my choice. My selection freed me from worry about metrics such as likes/dislikes and copies sold, These are performance metrics. I don’t write for them. I write to service my own soul. To get the story out. Better for me to accept with approval that my audience will likely be small, but those that do read it will be powerfully moved.
Evolution. We think about writers as either being bad or good. (some are unfortunately still born because they were told “they would never be a good writer”). This is at best misleading and at worse a misrepresentation of the process of writing itself.
Each of us as writers are on our own path, the path to becoming a “good writer”. You will never reach its end. Don’t worry though because you have a lot of company. There is not a single writer whose writing cannot be improved. The name of the game is not reaching the goal, but marking your progress.
I look at my writing fifteen years ago, and I am torn. I remember how proud I was of it then, but can’t ignore how shocked I am now. “What?” I think. “Did I really say that?” Also, while I feel better that my writing has improved up, I must admit that ten years from now, when I return to a tract in my novel I am writing now, of which I am so proud of now. I will say, “My goodness, how could I have said that?”
It must be this way. Looking back at past writing and seeing hidden weakness is a signal that your writing has progressed. It’s a sign that you are walking the path. That your continued writing efforts are paying handsome dividends. For that reason, you should both be proud and critical of your past work. Your past writings, flawed as they may seem now, were necessary for you to make the progress that you have now. So when someone tells me, ‘Lem, your present novel is way better than your first” I smile. Both were good and both can be improved. So the issue is not whether you are a good or a bad writer. The question is, “how can I make my writing better?” This is where strategies and tactics come into play. Because you want to make your writing more effective, gripping the reader so they can’t let go, you must work to make it powerful. and to make your writing even more consuming.
Think about it. You are fighting for the reader’s time. You are asking the reader to essentially suspend attention on their own life’s concerns, media, and television to absorb what you are telling them. To put their investment in their own life on hold to read your novel. Given the time consuming forces that confront us all, your book has to fight its way in to grab hold of the reader. It must give the reader what they are commonly missing in their own life – a powerful emotional experience