I’m sure that many of you would like to write a book, whether fiction or non-fiction. I’m sure many of you have tried.
I remember my first attempt at a book – it was a Star Trek novel, and I think I was 10 or 11 years old. I’d written little stories, but never anything that was 120 pages!
So, I took a pencil or maybe a pen (it was after all a few years ago…) and some notebook paper and I dutifully wrote chapter one on the top, began to write some sentences, got stuck, put it on a shelf, and decided to try it again tomorrow.
If I knew where it was, I’d start on it again.
How many of you have written books like that? The kind of thing where you’re writing 12 years later? I’m sure most of you.
Here’s the truth about Fiction writing.
Truth #1 – It’s done in bite size tasks.
Once I took a seminar on business. It taught me a lot about getting organized, about writing business plans, etc. One of the tips we got was a three-month starter pack for Daytimer, including a cassette tape on how to get organized. One trick they recommended is this first truth about fiction writing:
When you have an overwhelming job ahead of you, use the swiss cheese method. Do one little part of it, make a hole. Keep doing that, and sooner or later the project is done.
And trust me, writing a novel when you’ve never finished one seems overwhelming.
If you’ve been paying attention and paid the $40 for Scrivener, you go and do your front matter – the cover, dedication page, about. 3 pages done. Figure 297 pages to go.
Now you populate your Scrivener Project – chapters and scenes. Set your word counts per scene. Your writing limit per day is 1667. For a 300 page novel or so, it’s going to be… three months of writing.
Three months? Yup.
Professional writers – whether Screenplay or Novelists – set goals. “Today I’m writing seven pages of script.” “Today I’m writing 1667 words.” Those literally are my goals. (2021 Update – 1667 is still my minimal, but my preferred goal is 2100)
You can set different goals – I’m given to understand my page count per day in Screenplay Writing is “Unreal”. My Producer calls me half in jest a “Writing machine”. But the idea is – if you split your novel up into bite size bits, it’s doable.
Truth #2 – you have to plan your work!
I’ve said it many times – “Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance.”
“Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail.”
"Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail." Share on X“You’ve got to know where you’re going before you can get there.”
You wouldn’t drive from Florida to Denver without looking at a map, and deciding “This is going to be a X day drive, so we’ll stop here”, etc.
So why sit down, put paper in a typewriter and type, “It was a dark and stormy night…” without stopping to say first, “It’s about a guy who…”
When you’re writing a book, you first plan it out. You should know that so and so saw or stole or discovered or killed or whatever it was, and this was the result and etc. I’ve got several articles on how to plan out and format your novel.
Chunk number one – done. Page number done… zero.
Once you know who what when where how why and who shot john, it’s time to do the easy part – and write it!
Truth #3 – you have to write every day!
If you decide you’re going to write on weekends only, it’s roughly the same as people who decide they’re going to work out on weekends only. Writing is like a muscle. You have to do it to strengthen it.
To achieve your goal of writing a book (but only on weekends) will require a phenomenal 5835 pages every Saturday and Sunday. On another post I defined snippet scenes, short scenes, medium and long scenes by wordcount. Really, you can get your word count per day by writing 4 snippet scenes!
Just write every day. Weekend writers don’t finish books.
Truth #4 – you need to love what you’re doing!
If you don’t love writing, if you don’t find yourself getting ideas for novels and books – don’t do it. Prof. K advises that if you don’t love this, and just want the writer lifestyle, then get into real estate instead. With the right drive and determination, you can make more money. If I worked as hard at getting a real estate license, getting and selling properties, going to auctions, etc… as I do to my writing, I’d probably be retired already and sitting on my boat.
Karl Iglesias takes his audience through the “lottery” dream. “If you won the lotto, and could buy everything you wanted, what would you do day one after getting your house, boat, car, etc?” If your answer is not, “Why – I’d start writing my next novel or Screenplay!”, then – this is not for you.
Truth #5 about fiction writing – you need to hide your first novel once it’s done.
I’m not kidding! Everyone’s first novel or screenplay is usually terrible. Put it in a drawer, keep your Scrivener project in your Dropbox, and don’t look at it again for 10 years. Don’t show it to anyone. Seriously!
And begin working on book number two. I made the HUGE mistake of planning on my first novel being a keeper. It’s book one of my series, and I’ve got a major headache in how to fix the time-line and structure of it! I’m tempted to simply scrap it and re-do it from scratch!
Plan on making your first novel a “novel”, not “one of a 30 part series.” And plan on it being the best novel you can write.
Then be prepared… to start book #2!
Conclusion
Writing a novel is work. You can make this really hard… or really easy. I’ve written three novels in a relatively short time using these methods. Don’t dream about writing.
Be a writer!
Have you finished more than one novel yet?
