The 10 Most Important Things to Know Before Starting Your Novel

Writing your first novel can feel like the most exciting dream you’ve ever had…

Until it’s time to actually write it.

Suddenly all those amazing ideas you had seem silly – impossible, even. 

You stare painfully at a blank document for half an hour wondering: “What the hell am I even doing?”

This is the part where most people give up.

But if you’re like me and you can’t so easily quell that burning desire to tell the story that’s in your head, knowing these ten important facts before you get started will help you greatly when it comes to getting the ball rolling.

After reading this blog, you’ll be fully prepared to get started on the next NY Times bestseller.

1) Everybody writes differently

Every writer has a different style of writing.

Not in the sense that some people write fantasy, some people write emails, some people write soppy love poems…

What I mean is, everybody has a different method of writing that works for them.

You may hear other writers and tutors talk about Planners and Pantsers. Or, as George R.R. Martin describes it, Gardeners and Architects.

Planners like to plot out the entire novel before they write a single word; Pantsers just make everything up as they go along.

If you ask me, it’s not nearly so binary as this.

You’ll probably find most writers somewhere in the middle.

Some might write a couple sentences briefly describing what happens in each chapter before they begin their story. Others might fully flesh-out all the characters, but make the plot up as they go along.

The important thing to remember is that the best technique is simply the one that works best for you.

So how do you find out where you are on the Planner~Pantser Spectrum?

Trial and error, baby.

Like most things in writing, the only surefire way for figuring out which plotting method works best for you is to try as many as you can to see which ones fit and which ones suck.

The only shortcut that I can think of to finding your writing style would be to consider your personality.

Do you have fifty excel spreadsheets tracking all your finances?

Is your room always perfectly tidy and geometrically aligned to your satisfaction?

You’re probably on the plotting side of things.

Do you love cooking without recipes and just seeing what works?

Do none of your socks match?

Maybe you’re a Pantser like me.

What matters is you figure out what you are and you find your groove. You’ll know when you’ve found it because all the other ways will seem much harder.

2) Start with a bang!

Good stories don’t start at the start… they start in the middle.

While it’s fine to begin your draft with your main character’s origins, often this won’t be very exciting.

When it comes to revising your draft, cut to the juicy bits.

A good first chapter is all about having an irresistible hook – something that makes the reader go, “I need to find out what’s going to happen next!”

The best way to introduce your protagonist to the reader is to drop them straight into the deep end.

We learn the most about characters when we see how they behave in situations that are beyond their control.

Maybe they’ve just been dumped. Maybe they’ve accidentally killed someone. Maybe they’re a world-famous pianist, but someone has come along and broken all their fingers.

Whatever it is, make it intriguing.

And you can do this from the very first sentence.

In fact, if your first sentence contains a massive hook, you’ve already dug your writing-claws into the reader’s mind and made it far more likely they’re going to keep reading.

The trick is to keep doing this all the way through your book.

Every time you reward your reader with a bit more insight into what’s going on, keep them hanging on to your every word by dropping mystery after mystery at the same time.

But your first chapter should never be a big explanation of who the characters are or what the world is like; you can cover all that in later chapters.

The beginning of your novel is about dragging the reader in. That’s the most important thing.

And you do this by making them want to learn more.

This being said, don’t get too hung up on making your first chapter perfect. At least not until you’re onto your second or third draft, because...

3) First drafts are supposed to suck

That’s right – first drafts suck.

Unless you’re Peter S. Beagle, who apparently only needs to edit his work once and it’s perfect (seriously, this guy’s prose really is unreal), chances are your first draft is going to suck. Big time.

And guess what?

So will your second.

And your third… 

And your fourth…

My point is, don’t get hung up on the small stuff right when you’re getting started.

The most important thing to focus on when writing your first draft is actually finishing the story.

Trust me, I learned this the hard way.

It’s so easy to get bogged down with tweaking every chapter immediately after you finish it, but this is truly one of the biggest mistakes you can make as a new novelist.

Why?

Because it boxes you in and makes it harder to edit the story later.

Let me explain…

One thing all new writers have to learn at some point is that writing a novel involves A LOT of deleting your own art. You’re going to be wiping whole chapters off the face of the earth, dumping characters into a bottomless graveyard, and throwing complete plot arcs into the trash.

And this is a good thing.

Think of your novel as a fine sculpture that begins as a big block of stone.

For your first draft, you’ll just make a rough shape of the thing you’re trying to sculpt.

Then you’ll come along on your second draft and refine it a little more.

With each new revision, the stone will slowly start to look more and more like a thing and less like a big block of featureless stone.

That’s why, when you’re writing your first draft, the most important thing is to just get through it.

Don’t worry about making every sentence beautiful and every simile rich with magical imagery until the very, very, very last draft.

Because when you spend hours making one paragraph shine like the newly risen sun, it’s just going to make it a whole lot harder for you to delete that paragraph later.

Focus on getting to the end… leave the fancy stuff to future-you.

4) Research helps – most of the time

If you’re writing about a topic you don’t know a whole lot about, it can pay to do some research first.

You’ll want to understand the jargon, learn how things work in the world of your chosen topic, know what’s realistic and what isn’t.

As a bonus, you’ll probably discover a whole bunch of awesome ideas along the way to add to your story.

And it’s good to learn the specifics so that, when someone who’s an expert in whatever it is you’re writing about comes along and reads it, they won’t get upset that you’ve got some crucial element wrong.

If you’re writing about a hospital, it’s important to know the difference between an IV drip and a stethoscope. If you’re writing about guns, you should probably know which part holds the bullets and which part fires them out.

My point is, readers are picky bastards.

They’re so busy being impressed by all the amazing words you’ve written that they’ll jump at any chance to say “Ha, WRONG! Not so smart now, are you?”

I’m not saying readers are mean… we just like feeling smart too sometimes.

But this is your novel.

You’re the smart one. You’re the one who’s supposed to know every little bit about what’s going on, which is why you have to make sure you get it all right.

That being said…

It’s very easy to spend all your time researching, and never actually get any writing done.

Do some initial research on the things you really know nothing about, but don’t go learning the anatomical make-up of a tree frog just because you want to put one on a log in your scene.

To begin with, do the bare minimal research required to write your story… then write it.

You can highlight any parts that might need to be looked up when you have your first read-through of the novel and research them later.

Writing a novel takes a very long time. It’s one of the biggest creative endeavours a person can take on.

This is why it is really important you don’t get distracted or side-tracked every fifteen minutes by doing something that isn’t actually writing.

5) Write with your right brain… Edit with your left

Here’s another reason why you should just worry about getting everything down on the page first, then deal with the editing.

According to some lazy scientists, everything we do that’s creative comes from the right side (or hemisphere) of our brain; everything we do that’s logical comes from the left.

Then these same scientists will tell you…

“Well… actually there’s three brains. You see – we’ve got the mammalian and reptilian brains, of course. But then there’s your primate brain as well. But it all comes down to one brain really: the left one. Oh, and the right…”

in perpetuum…

You don’t need to know all that; all you should care about is that we are much better at being creative when that’s all we let ourselves do. Same goes for being analytical. 

Trying to solve a tough equation whilst attempting to produce an abstract painting is unlikely to yield great results in either field. Instead, focus all your energy on one thing.

When you’re writing, keep writing.

Don’t mess around trying to find the perfect synonym or spell a difficult word accurately.

Every time you step outside that creative world of yours, it becomes more difficult to maintain a good flow state. Far more efficient would be to just push through, writing whatever crappy words you can come up with right now that will take you on to the next sentence.

In the same respect, when you’re editing – especially when you’re at the proofreading stage – you’ll want to stay in tune with the logical side of your brain.

If you let your imagination run too wild, you’ll start glazing over major errors and end up making very few edits.

Of course, if you’ve written an amazing story it will be rather difficult to keep yourself from being sucked into it every time you reread.

Such are the woes of the writer’s life, unfortunately.

6) Never stop learning

In Russian they have a saying, “Live for a century – learn for a century.”

As any good student knows, you’ll never know enough but you can always know more. This applies to writing just as much as it does to anything else in life.

It’s important to branch out and try to learn from as many different teachers as you can while you write your novel. There’s a near-infinite number of books, online lectures, podcasts, magazines, and more all full of valuable writing advice – it’s just waiting for you to find it.

So long as you keep writing (hopefully every day), you can never learn too much about the craft.

Some valuable resources I’ve found include the Writing Masterclass lessons by Neil Gaiman, Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood, and others; the Writing Excuses weekly podcast; Brandon Sanderson’s lectures (all of which are available free on YouTube); Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel Steering the Craft and Stephen King’s On Writing.

These are just a few to get you started, but they’ve been of tremendous help to me and I’m sure they will to you as well.

7) Stick to a schedule

There are two keys to success in any craft: Practice and Consistency.

If you can, you should be writing every day – even if it’s only for an hour or less. The best way to get good at writing is to keep doing it.

There’s a reason you don’t hear of many successful teenage authors when there are so many teenagers that are successful in other artistic realms like acting, painting, and singing.

Writing takes a very long time to get good at. This is why you should write as frequently as possible, as consistently as possible.

The best way to do this is to set a schedule: stake a time out of each day in which you’ll force yourself to sit down at the computer and write.

In no time (well, in lots of time) you’ll be writing like a pro.

Before you know it, you’ll have your first draft complete and be ready for the even more painful process of revision.

It’s no easy task to be a writer, as you’ll soon learn.

But thanks to the endless amount of hours we put into our work, we get to create some of the most beautiful pieces of art on the planet. I might be biased, but I think a well-crafted, enjoyable novel may be one of the finest achievements a person can ever hope to accomplish.

There’s a reason why there are so few writers, and so many carpenters (no offence carpenters).

8) Writer’s block isn’t a disease… it’s an excuse

In the words of Philip Pullman…

“All writing is difficult. The most you can hope for is a day when it goes reasonably easily. Plumbers don’t get plumber’s block, and doctors don’t get doctor’s block; why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working, and then expects sympathy for it?”

Maybe that sounds a little harsh.

Well, it should.

Writer’s block should never be a thing that affects you if you’re a real writer.

And by “real writer” I mean someone who writes stuff. Anything.

Most of the time, when people say they have writer’s block, what they really mean is: “I’m scared to write something bad.”

You need to delete that way of thinking; it will only hinder you.

Instead, think “I’m not feeling creative enough to write anything good today, so I’ll just write something bad instead and fix it later.”

More often than not, you’ll find that by simply writing through your supposed writer’s block – putting down whatever terrible sentences you can think of – you will actually get past that lack of good ideas and return to your normal writing flow.

It’s okay to write something that absolutely sucks. It’s going to happen. Go back in time and ask Shakespeare if you can read one of his early drafts… I’m willing to bet he’ll kindly tell you to piss right back off to where you came from.

You don’t have to be perfect right away. 

You’ve got unlimited attempts at making your story sound good – nobody is expecting you to turn in Nabokov’s Pale Fire by 3pm tomorrow.

9) Be patient

This has become something of a theme throughout this blog, but it bears repeating:

Take. Your. Time.

If you were hoping to pump out an amazing first novel in a couple of weeks, you might have chosen the wrong craft.

The number one virtue any writer can possess is absolute, unbreakable patience.

It took Tolstoy 6 years to write War and Peace.

Patrick Rothfuss took 15 years to write The Name of the Wind.

The Lord of the Rings cost Tolkien 17. That’s over a fifth of his life.

Turning your oven right up to the highest temperature will not cook your cake any faster; it will just burn the outside and leave the centre all cold and gooey.

This is the wrong industry to try and sell out in. You ought not to treat your novel like some product you just want to produce as quickly as possible to get it onto the shelves.

Think instead that you are writing for you, and only you.

Would you be happy with a novel that had been rushed?

Or would you put it down after a few pages and never pick it back up again?

Luckily, once you’ve really begun to develop your characters and your story, it will no longer feel like a chore.

You’ll spend every waking minute of your day thinking about this entire world you’ve created and be forever looking forward to the time you can sit down and get back to writing it.

The longer it takes you to make, the prouder you’ll be when it’s finally done.

10) Read, read, read

It goes without saying, but to be a good writer, you’ve got to be a great reader.

Read as much as you can of your chosen genre.

Learn how the authors you love craft their sentences, shape their characters and deliver their plots. And learn how the authors you hate screw theirs up – then do the opposite.

After actually just writing, reading is the best way to improve your skills as a writer quickly.

Your subconscious mind will naturally pick up all the things that make a story great. Pretty soon, you’ll be putting together sentences that make you sit back in wonder, thinking: “Wait… did I write that? That’s impossible!”

But it is possible. You’re going to get better.

In fact, you’re going to get great.

I know you will because you’ve come this far already.

And now you’re all set to embark on the most exciting, exhausting, disparaging, and rewarding creative journey of your life.

Now get the hell off my page and go write!