Writing a Novel to Get Published

Our Founder and Course Director, Booker Prize-listed and award-winning author, Louise Dean offers some writing advice for those of you thinking about writing a novel. If you want some wisdom on crucial topics in novel writing like motivation, structure, and planning and plotting a novel, then this article is for you!

Getting started writing

If you're about to start writing a novel, it's likely your fears are:

1. Motivation – seriously, am I going to do this? Because if I don't I'll feel bad.
2. Structure and plot – how the hell do I approach the storytelling and what happens when? Will I run out of material? What happens next? (And repeat.)

We know how it is, and we created our programme of coaching, courses and community for writers in search of structure and support.

Once upon a time, you told yourself you couldn't write a novel. "I’m too old, too young, too stupid, too clever, too reclusive, too sociable, too lazy, too busy... I’m nervous.”

That's the first thing a writer says to us when they take the plunge to being writing a novel. But a whole raft of other self-doubts above lurk right behind that word 'nervous'.

When you open the door and come into The Novelry, it becomes all very doable. The work you have to do is bite-sized daily. We help you forget about the mountaintop and focus on every step of the pathway to writing a novel.

Motivation

Let's cut to the chase. Motivation? Don't be too hard on yourself. See novel writing as an indulgence, not a chore. Remember, when you write a novel you give yourself the gift of a story that surprises and delights you. Potter and play.

The writer Thomas Mann said, ‘A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.’ What do we do then when we hit the hard bits? Well, understanding that it’s tough for everyone – whether you’re writing for the first time, or you’re a seasoned novelist – certainly helps. And, so too, does giving thought to the psychology behind some of our personal approaches to the process; while we might not be able to control the publishing destiny of our work, we can be in command of our own mindset as we go about it. We can give ourselves the best chance of writing the best book. Explore our blog post on the topic of Imposter Syndrome, and how important it is to be kind to one’s self through the process.

To write a novel, to see it all the way through, is to inhabit multiple selves – and to be true to each one.  We are at once the wild and free author of the first draft, permitting ourselves to dream, to make a righteous mess and enjoy the process of creation. We’re the ‘blue-collar worker’ getting the job done, ‘laying pipe,’ as Stephen King put it. We’re the desk jockey, planning our time and executing our plans with strategic control. We’re zealous enough to believe in our own fabrications, but we’re humble enough to see where we might be getting it wrong. We know that writing is an act of faith – we’ve got to believe, to dream – but we also know that if we have publishing ambitions for our work, there are aspects of reality that bear consideration.

Writing, like most halfway interesting things, is full of contradiction. Our individuality is our superpower – our ‘voice’ reflects our sensibility and our unique experience – but one of the most valuable skills we can learn as writers is the ability to appraise our work with cool detachment: to forget that we wrote it. And while objectivity is a virtue in editing, it is subjectivity that will keep us sufficiently in love with an idea that we’ll pursue it through thick and thin. So how do we make ourselves flexible yet robust? Sensitive but steely? Subjective but objective? Humble but bold? Precise yet wild?

Our approach to writing is, perhaps, as important as the writing itself.

Writers know that between the platonic ideal of the novel and the actual novel there is always the pesky self - vain, deluded, myopic, cowardly, compromised. That's why writing is the craft that defies craftsmanship: craftsmanship alone will not make a novel great.
— Zadie Smith

It is the ‘pesky self’ that can get in the way of us writing even a rotten first draft – let alone a ‘great novel.’ So, it’s self-awareness that is key: being honest with our own pesky selves. It’s important that we don’t write ourselves off before we get even started writing anything: we all know the power that that self-sabotaging inner voice can wield; how it can assume a persuasive, convincing tone and, as Elizabeth Gilbert puts it in Big Magic, ‘induce complete panic whenever I’m about to do anything interesting.’

If you think you’ve had trouble finding motivation for writing in the past, ask yourself what that belief is based on – and consider the factors. Know that none of us is defined by the commitment we’ve brought to projects previously. For just as all stories are fundamentally about change, so too are our own writing journeys.

So, let’s not ask ‘why am I not a better writer?’ or ‘why am I struggling to find time to work on my book?’ or ‘why has my manuscript been rejected?’

Instead, ask ‘what can I do to become a better writer?’ ‘What can I do to make sure I get some words down on paper every day?’ ‘What’s the story I really really want to tell?’

It’s about taking responsibility for every part of the process of creation. A writing diary is invaluable. It’s a space for reflection and processing and stating intent. To write a novel you will need to consider the value of momentum. At The Novelry, our novel writing course is based around the idea of writing for one hour a day during the first draft stage – no more, no less. Setting the limit of that one little hour – that infinite hour, where you can travel continents and hurtle through time – sure concentrates the mind.

But what if it doesn’t? What if you use our tools and you still can’t settle into your own writing space for that hour?

When to go from story idea to the white page?

Well, first look at when you’re writing. Are you giving yourself the best chance to focus? If it works for you, we advocate setting your alarm and getting up with the larks – even if, ordinarily, you’re no kind of an early bird. The joy of this is that first thing in the morning can be, for many of us, a quiet, private writing space. The phone isn’t pinging. The day, with whatever it decides to bring, has yet to get its clutches into us. Finding a cocoon-like writing space that feels private and quiet and uninterruptable gives most of us the best chance to focus.

Maybe it's a case of taming our wandering minds – and turning them into wondering minds instead. Getting in the right headspace for writing is one of the most beneficial things we can do, to sit down at the page feeling calm, confident, and focused. Consider your moods not from the perspective of first person, but from the third person, using a storytelling handle on them. You’re not writing any old book; you’re writing your book so you need all of you. The original true you. So just abide with yourself kindly.

Questions of self-motivation, application, and accountability, all come back to what we're writing - and why we're writing it; how deeply invested we are in our own story here, and how much we care about our characters. A strong connection to a writing project is what best focuses the wandering mind. What we write is an active choice. No one’s making us do this, are they? Of the hundreds or thousands of story avenues out there, we’ve each chosen to head down a specific one. Why? Has a particular set of life experiences led us to this point? Or did the story idea really just come, and there’s something about it that won’t let us go? Does the market seem especially buoyant for a certain sort of genre and we want to take our best shot at commerciality? If you believe in your reasons, then whatever they are, they’re valid. But pausing, taking stock, and interrogating your choices – with as much honesty as possible – will help with your motivation and commitment along the way.

Seeing the novel-writing process as an opportunity to get to know yourself better is key to embracing its challenges. Keep up the dialogue with yourself as you write. Surround yourself with people who are supportive of your endeavours (shout out to the writing community at The Novelry!) – but make yourself your own best cheerleader. And rest assured that, as writers, we’re all in it together.

A few tips:

• Be honest with yourself and your motivations – and manage yourself accordingly.
• Write what you want. Write what you find rewarding. Emotional authenticity is everything.
• The right idea will drive you. You will feel its energy and momentum.
• Care about your work and have confidence and conviction.
• Don't let self-doubt screw with you. Hear it, know it for what it is, and carry on regardless. But be self-aware enough to know the difference between self-sabotage and genuine instinct.
• Know that writing is a lifelong apprenticeship. The hard yards are rarely easy.
• Be humble. Know that sometimes you have to get it wrong to get it right.

The idea

Begin here! Philip Roth described spending six months from first putting pen to paper to find the right way to start the novel. It's very hard, which is why we race you over it at first draft. No point in dawdling there, you've got to create a book and you'll revise it many times after you know how the story ends and what it's about.

We do a lot of initial work on the novel idea itself so you can proceed with confidence. If you're short of an idea for your novel, you will find some tips here.

Our Story First Method at The Novelry ensures you are creating a book literary agents, publishers and readers will love.

Structure

I suppose we're all sick and tired of the old chestnut ‘planner or pantser'. It's not an ‘either/or' answer, it's ‘both', and fast.

The benefit of writing exercises, of a worked-out structure, a chaptered outline and a planned plot, strikes me as this; you can go ahead and proceed to write a novel any which way you like.

I like to think I wrote my novels A-Z. But of course, that's not the case. Scenes, ideas, words and phrases come to me from all sorts of parts of the book wherever I am with it in the text. Usually, I file them for later. But what if, feeling compelled, I sat down to flesh the scene out the day I started writing and was 'feeling' it? You can do that with this method, of course. It's how Elizabeth Strout says she writes:

I would write - I would write what was most urgent to me at that time, and that proved to be helpful because then I could transpose whatever was feeling most urgent to myself - into a character, and that it would be truthful. There would be something truthful there and it wouldn't be just wooden writing.

So, if you have a good amount of material, you can use this method and head back to the drawing board.

Stop. Build the shelter. Start writing again! And repeat!

The novelist, DBC Pierre, described a two-stage process: an initial, feverish state of expulsive abandon, followed by a 'carpentry' stage of considered whittling.

The job is better split and performed backwards; don’t build a house and furnish it but knock up some furniture on a binge and see what architecture it wants.

Knock up your novel on a hunch, whim or hearsay - to 10k at least - then when the winter of your discontent blows through the cracks of your novel build another humble shelter for story structure to keep you safe.

At The Novelry we recommend a nimble hybrid method for writing a novel. A one-page plan – so you don't get overwhelmed and heartily sick of the novel idea before you put pen to paper – and the glory of the wide-open acreage of the white pages with all their possibilities.

These two chums – the plan and the page – talk to each other. Every week, you correct the plan based on what's happened on the page (think of it as the laboratory where you've tested your theory), then you move into the mystery again with a newly tidy plan.

Over-rule a dead plan with lively mayhem. It keeps the book alive for you, the writer, and at first draft it's all about you turning the pages. The reader comes later.

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Character

Character and setting will probably come to you hand in hand when you start writing. You need to know your main character – and the pickle they're in – very well indeed. You'll want to know everything you can about them. You need to love your main character and take pity on them. Mixing and matching qualities and features of family members is a great way to bring the right degree of sympathy to your novel. After all, all stories are love stories. A writer spends time with people they love in a place they love and remember your self-indulgence is all good stuff for motivation!

With the setting, whether that's place or time, know it so you can use it, and love it so you want to spend time there. It's the stage. Once you know its corners, you can get to work.

Armed with these you can allow the story to unfold in your mind. Think of this duo as a little tealight, modest enough to provide enough of a glow to bring you back to the desk.

We'll show you how to scope out the story idea, build the world of your story, and ensure you've got to grips with your main character's problem or dilemma before you put pen to paper. Having these things in place makes for a smooth write. We will guide you to make all those important choices as to how you're going to write a novel before you start the writing process: first person, second person, or third person limited? We'll help you sketch out a rough but practical guide to your hero's life so you can write using Heningway's Iceberg Theory, the inciting incident, the main character' arc, how and when to develop characters and the part they play in the character development of your main character and as you write you will be working with a bestselling author to aggravate your hero's situation as a way to fill in any plot holes. The whole business of the plot outline becomes less of a burden, as you jump straight in to revel in the magic and mystery of the blank page, but develop story ideas on the hoof with successful novelists giving you a step by step guide to the big picture of plot.

The arc

When it comes to your main characters, keep at the front of your mind the drama of the arc of change from the moment you start writing all the way through to your completed novel. How the story unsettles and unseats our hero for better or for worse. In life, a person may not change. In fiction, your main character must. Character development is the heart and soul of the matter when you write a novel.

Some like to do a zero draft and race through the idea from A to Z to find the arc. Some writers have an inciting incident and little else in the way of plot to start writing, some writers prefer to know a midpoint (where everything changes), and other writers might work with a divine moment of understanding at about two-thirds. Many authors prefer not to know the ending.

Setting

The setting for a novel is often borne of a place to which I've been a lovestruck visitor. A temporary locus. I call it ‘vacation eyes' – when you're alert and alive to what you're seeing.

Sometimes our sight dims when we inhabit a place too long. Give that setting a little bit of rose-tinted vision! You may be creating a place with world-building, going back to a place you knew in the past, or doing location visits for your own story now. The main thing is you want to spend time there in spirit, you want to haunt it. You'll need to bring it to life with art for its charisma to shimmer and lend magic to your novel.

Description

Don't panic! With description, less is more. The artist J.M.W. Turner lived in a small house riverside on Cheyne Walk in London in the mid-19th century. Known as ‘the painter of light', Turner put things simply as artists do (and intellectuals don't as Charles Bukowski noted).

My business is to paint what I see.
— J.M.W. Turner

Turner's sketchbooks show rudimentary depictions upon which he made simple notes of mood and colour and the direction of sunlight to inform his later paintings.

Be like Turner.

Swerve grandiloquence in your novel prose, dodge embellishment and metaphor, in favour of simply saying what you see.

This is the method of most writers of the modern period from Ernest Hemingway to Sally Rooney. The job is to put the reader firmly in situ and at ease and move on smartly. Remember, modern readers don't need long descriptions and spoon-feeding. They've got Google if they're really interested. Simply say what you see.

Here's how the American artist Whistler went about note-taking for a work of art.

Whistler would suddenly see the view he sought, stop and stare. He would then turn his back on the river and chant to his companion, “The sky is lighter than the water, the houses darkest. There are eight houses, the second is the lowest, the fifth the highest; the tone of all is the same. The first has two lighted windows, one above the other; the second has four.” If his companion corrected him on the smallest detail, he would stop, turn and stare again at the view he was memorising and repeat the performance – sometimes a dozen times before it was perfectly imprinted on his memory. Then with a brisk “Good night” he would be off to bed, the scene to be painted next morning gathering shape and tone in his mind's eye... after a long pause he turned and walked back a few yards; then with his back to the scene at which I was looking, he said, ‘Now, see if I have learned it,' and repeated a full description of the scene, even as one might repeat a poem one had learned by heart... In a few days I was at the studio again, and there on the easel was the realisation of the picture.
—Tom Pocock, Chelsea Reach

The setting is your hero's world. Bring it to life, keep it lively as a way of beating writer's block and bringing a first slap of paint to the rough draft of your first novel. Make sure you record the sounds of the place. You'll want to look at nature too, and name the trees and birds to bring the place to life.

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Adding charisma

Now, to the business of adding charisma. Here's how.

What you're looking for are the inconsistencies, what we might not expect to be present so we can see a familiar place anew. For example, you can add depth and drama by paying attention to the light. To get the detail right, make notes, take photographs or record live onto your iPhone and give it some narrative to get the direction of the light and shadows at different times of the day. Light shows certain things at certain times, and the dark hides them so you'll find you have a moving canvas for your story setting.

If you're writing historical fiction or world-building for a speculative setting, you'll want to create your own mental map. Again, try to go for depth of local detail rather than breadth, it's a shortcut to creating the illusion of a wider reality.

And relax! To get the balloon up of your illusion of place, you need to bring this luminosity of detail to the opening of your novel, to when we first enter the place, and thereafter mere notes will do, we promise! Confirm geography, give details, let there be light!

Perspective

Once you have a story idea, a vague idea of a place, and a character, start thinking about who is telling the story, from what perspective, and to what purpose or for what reason.

When you write a novel, work with your own bias and preference; write a novel your way! Some writers work like movie directors and prefer to disappear from the story and simply use the camera of their prose to record story events unfolding. Make your choice based on your own comfort. Start as the director to get going if uncertain. You may find your way into ‘voice' when you get your cast speaking.

Voice

Knowing who you are is the first step to having a voice. Maybe write a list of what's bad about you, and what's good about you and see how they're linked. Bingo. That's you, bang to rights.  

Novels don't care if you're a good guy or a bad guy. You're never ugly to your novel. You're either there – the creator, the parent – or you're absent.

At The Novelry, we'll work with you to find an approach to allow you to write a novel your way. Our only mantra is ‘tools, not rules'. Being open to all approaches with a vast armoury of great writing tools means we have one that one unlock your creativity for sure. You've got writer's block? We've got the key.

Writing a novel in drafts

The recipe for confidence at The Novelry is fast-acting. Once you understand you're not expected to write a work of genius at first draft, you can get on with writing a work of genius (over several drafts).

Writing a novel to a high standard starts as PLAY, becomes CRAFT and then ART.

A first rough draft is superficial, messy and quite unfit for consumption. Knowing it's not right is most liberating.

This is not brilliant ... but it will be better.

First Draft: PLAY

The focus at first draft is on joy. God knows you need it to help manage the self-doubt. Those who have gone before cheer and applaud your progress. Before you start to write, you're held back while we establish some principles of joy - finding the place and time for that precious one hour for you, ensuring you've got an idea with energy packed into it, and that you know how and where to get support when you need it.

When you start to write you're under starters orders NOT to write too much. I ask you to write very little in the early days when you're putting the vital organs of the novel in place. We will say - just the opening line or set a word counter of 250 for today, please. You'll hit every target and within a couple of weeks - with the joy still firmly in place - you'll be on target to complete the first draft in 90 days. Daily you're in contact, working to the plan.

At this stage, it's about vision and passion; the idea, your emotional attachment to it, and being supported by our handrails until you're flying. An engrossment happens within days of joining us. Most of our writers describe the process as life-changing, like falling in love. In fact, you are just honouring your life's value, at long last, in just one hour a day for you.

As writers, we have a good handle on what can set a writer back and we check these settings before take-off:

1. The character is you or too close to you therefore a distaste emerges. (We pre-plan to ensure there is a good 'figurative' distance built in from the outset.)
2. The character's flaw is clear from the outset
3. You're not going to write hell for leather and burn yourself out but learn peace and plenty pacing of your progress, a habit for life
4. You understand the ups and downs are to be accepted, and eventually welcomed - they are driven by growing ambition moderated by increasingly better judgement. You need both the exuberance and the reserve to produce fine work.
5. You won't share your precious but vulnerable first draft work with anyone but your writing coach - who knows how a first draft looks!

The completion of your first draft is a milestone that is celebrated at The Novelry. You've done it. Now take some time off and catch up on all those things you elbowed aside for the last 90 days of your life.

Why 90 days? Stephen King advises writing a novel in ninety days as a way to get the story down while it's all fresh in your mind, but it's also commonly accepted as the period of time required to establish a new habit. You may write your novel over a longer time period, such things as how long it takes one writer to write a novel are not governed by text book formulae. Knowing you have ample opportunity to take your time to work towards a final draft is a great comfort for many writers and in a recent live session with the author Kristin Chen, she remarked that all authors are equal in the book store, nobody knows!

Second draft and beyond

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We will get your story straight with our Novel Development Course where you'll work one-on-one with a bestselling author and a professional editor to write a novel to publishing standard whether you are aiming for a traditional publishing deal.

You've got the material, now you discover how to structure it virtuously. We will take you beyond the three act structure to show you how novels really work. You'll be able to honestly assess the role of other characters in the story now. You will get a better handle on the hidden theme of your book and this may surprise and delight you. So that's what I think, that's how I feel... so that's who I am, what my life means.

Once you see it, and know it, you can evaluate every single sentence on its merits as to how it services the story on which your writing depends. Choose your finest gems, and use them sparingly. Choose a maximum of three points, phrases or short and meaningful sentences to describe the setting, atmosphere, feelings. Short and meaningful makes for huge impact. The reader has the point, thank you, and goodnight.

The Novel Development Course will have help you nail the story in a sentence called 'The Hook' so you can pin it the wall and keep it in sight to judge the purpose of every chapter from here on out. Does this serve the story or detract from it? Again and again you will be asking yourself this. No more second guessing! You will be slashing and curing your novel of any overwriting. You'll be looking at the logic flow of the storyline during the editing process then working down to the paragraph level - evidence, evidence, conclusion.

Are you telling it the right way? Now is the time to change tense and perspective if you need to. Once you know what the story's about and whether it's being told fondly, retrospectively or with immediacy you can make the big decisions and consider how many words you do really need to tell the story of this novel. Most novels need a lower word count than their writer thinks! A professional editor will help you stay true to the key points of a big idea.

You'll be checking that the story is gripping, that you're using cliffhangers and that there has been a development in every chapter and that the chapter ends either overtly or covertly with something that makes it harder for the main character or protagonist to go backwards. You'll be checking that the prose which delivers this is lucid and luminous, that you are saying what he or she sees, and not over-egging what they feel. Check that it's precise and exacting and there are elements of curious dissonance which make the reader pay attention.

Final draft checklist

You'll be checking these now to deliver your reader an experience which rings true.

• continuity - dates, times, events places, does it all add up?
• consistency of voice - for all characters, does what they say ring true to their voice? A little more realism and dissonance perhaps?
• comparison - you'll play my favourite game now which is to pick any given page of your work and compare it to any randomly picked page of your hero book (chosen at first draft) and the writers you admire to see how it stacks up
• colour - you'll be looking at the DNA of your verbal coding to ensure your writing shines bright - light and shade, colour, the items and objects
• subtlety - you'll make sure the theme is underground, not exposed too openly aggressively or repeatedly, that it's not too 'on the nose'
• space - you'll want to leave space for your reader's thoughts in the way Raymond Carver or Elizabeth Strout does. This means some mystery in the interaction between people not being entirely tidy especially in the first half of the novel; things left unsaid and so on.

Reading out loud - you'll read your opening lines out loud to check the opening is warm and honest.

How will you know when you’re done?

'You've exhausted all the possibilities for this book.' Philip Roth.

'I spent all morning putting in a comma and all afternoon taking it out.' Oscar Wilde.

Only one book will change your life: yours.

Don't leave it to someone else to change your life; take the matter into your own hands. Create with mischief, be wilful. Enjoy your writing.

Twenty-five years ago, a friend told me ‘write what you need.' That advice has never got old, I pass it on in the hope that for you it turns gold.

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