I’m one of those I’d-rather-have-written-than-actually-write type of writers. Oh, yes, I write. A lot. Mostly blog posts and client stuff. But – my dream of becoming a traditionally published novelist has been pushed to the side for too long. I have no fewer than five novel drafts in various stages of completion – from a mere outline with some character sketches to a fully plotted piece with several chapters written.
It’s not that I don’t know “how” to write fiction. I’ve studied the craft of fiction writing for over a decade. I could probably teach a how-to-write-a-novel course (lol). And I’ve actually finished a novel. (It was written BEFORE I started learning about fiction writing, and I published it on Kindle – you can download it for free if you have Kindle Unlimited. It’s not horrible, but it’s not ready-for-prime-time, either.)
Because I didn’t HAVE to write fiction, I always allowed something else to get in the way – a website to build, a video course to produce, client work, blogging, social media management, etc. Then there’s “life” – family, friends, church activities, sickness, health, chores – you know, because you’ve got that going on, too.
But this year, I FINALLY finished a decent draft of one of those stories that had been gathering virtual dust on my computer’s hard drive (for, dare I say, years!).
Why now?
I’d promised myself a few years back that I could no longer justify paying to attend the American Christian Fiction Writers conference each year if I wasn’t going to write fiction. I love novelists! I love hanging out with them. I love talking about writing fiction. I love reading and learning about how to write fiction. I just didn’t write fiction. But I went to the conference nearly every year, and enjoyed re-connecting with friends. It was like a family reunion.
This year, I wanted to go. I couldn’t afford it, and then there was the issue about the promise I’d made. But I really wanted to go. I talked to my daughter about how much I missed going, and she issued me a challenge – finish a good first draft by July 15, and she’d pay the registration fee. I took her up on that challenge, made the deadline, and now I’m going through that draft with the editing/revision process.
So, how does an I-don’t-really-write-fiction-but-I’d-like-to person go from zero to novel in a few short months? (The challenge was issued in mid-May.)
Here’s the process I used (each of these topics will be expounded upon in a future post in this series) – and if you’re planning to give NaNoWriMo a try this November, maybe this system can help you succeed:
(1) Characters – since this is a mystery novel, I focused initially on the sleuth and the villain. Then, I added some suspects and supporting characters
(2) Plot – I once submitted a novel to a contest, and, among the judge’s comments were the words “Plot flawed.” This made me plot paranoid, and possibly contributed to my lack of novel-writing progress. I read a few books on novel structure/plotting, and made a set of scene cards. I use the program Scrivener to write with, so the “cards” I made were actually done using the cork board function. (When I go further into this series of how-to-get-your-novel-written, I’ll discuss how I used Scrivener to help me.)
(3) First draft – I set a daily word count goal (actually, Scrivener did that – I punched in my total word count goal and put in my deadline, and it set the daily goal for me). My writing schedule was haphazard. I help my aging parents as much as possible, I have clients that pay me to work, and I have household chores, church activities, etc., to take care of. So, I wrote when I could, but I wrote (nearly) every day. I love hearing the little “ding” from Scrivener that lets me know I hit that day’s goal. My first draft was about 50,000 words. It’s SUPER HARD for me to not edit while writing, but this time I just let ‘er rip, without any concern about mistakes.
(4) Timeline – Some authors start with the timeline. I think it helped me to actually get the draft done first, because things happened in the story during the actual writing that weren’t in my scene cards. I wound up rearranging some of my scenes, making a list of scenes to write to make the story flow. As I made the timeline, I realized some story days were crammed with way too much activity for one day and that there were a few gaps of several days that nothing happened in the story. So, this step helped me even it out.
(5) Second draft – This is the part where I went through each scene and made sure everything made sense. I also added my new scenes from the list created during the timeline stage. This brought my word count up to the 70,000 mark, and I finished this step August 15. Some of the newer scenes weren’t much more than a bunch of talking heads dialogue, but that will be corrected in the next draft.
(6) Read-through – I did a read-through in one day, taking notes only about inconsistencies that I noticed. I did NOT check for typos, grammatical and spelling errors, or other issues during this read. I changed any glaring errors and exported the document, then saved it as a PDF to prepare for the next step.
(7) Beta Readers – I asked for volunteers (from Facebook friends) who wanted to read through the story and share thoughts about it. I didn’t ask these volunteers for a line edit – just for input about story flow, things that pulled them out of the story, etc. About 12 people volunteered, and about five submitted feedback by my requested deadline (August 31).
(8) Third draft – This is the step I’m currently working on. The word count for this genre is typically 75,000-80,000 words. I need to cut the fluff and add good words – description, characterization, dialogue tags/beats, etc. My goal is to finish this stage by September 12. I’m also checking to make sure each scene has a goal, motivation, conflict, and ends with a disaster that will propel the story into the next scene. Another thing I’m looking for in this step is “no-no” words – such as excessive prepositions, conjunctions, adjectives, overuse of pronouns, etc. As I go through the scenes in this draft, I’m also checking for balance within the scenes – do I have dialogue, description, conflict, action, emotions, as well as some (but not too much) internalization (the story is written in first person point of view)? Another question for this stage – Do my characters all act/sound/look within their character parameters, or do they all sound alike?
(9) Polish – I’m cutting it close to get through this step before the conference, but I hope to complete at least another run through the entire manuscript before I leave September 17, and do a final check on spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc.
At the conference, I hope to meet with a couple of agents who have stated they’re seeking mysteries. In the meantime, I’m going to keep plugging away at my third draft/polish stages.
This post has given an overview of my process. In the next post, I’ll talk about how I worked on character development.