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| Photo credit: dixieroadrash on Flickr |
As I’m sure most of you know, despite popular belief outside
of the publishing world, it’s common knowledge amongst writers that most times,
the first novel you write will not be the first novel you get published—that
the debut novel is very rarely the
first novel the author ever wrote, it’s just the first to hit the shelves.
With that in mind, one of you wonderful readers asked how
you choose which story to write first, especially when you know the first novel
you write will likely remain unpublished.
Now that’s a bit of a tricky question, because while it’s
true that something like 95% of the time, that first novel will end up trunked
and likely later be referred to as a practice novel, that doesn’t mean you have
to mentally doom your first novel to be just
a practice novel.
What I mean is this—yes, chances are that first novel is
going to be a practice novel and it’s not unlikely that your second and third
novels may also end up in the drawer, however, you should still believe in
every novel you write. You should still love the idea and the characters and be
passionate about your story before you commit it to paper, even if you know
it’s probably not going to get published.
I’m going to take it a step further, and you can feel free
to disagree with me here, but who cares if your story is going to get
published? Knowing that it’s probably not going to see the limelight doesn’t
mean you have to love that story any less than the ones with publishing
potential. Just because 95% of authors don’t get their first book published
doesn’t mean you should treat your first novel like a throwaway book before
you’ve even written it.
I guess what I’m saying is this: just because you’re pretty
sure your first novel isn’t going to be the one, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t treat it like it might be. Because no, most
writers don’t get their first novel published, but that doesn’t mean it never happens. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible. That doesn’t mean your first
novel is doomed before you even start.
But if you treat it like it’s doomed? Well, then you’re just
setting yourself up for a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because it won’t be nearly
as good the story you might have written had you believed in it in the first
place.
I hope this doesn’t sound harsh, because I don’t mean it to
be. All of this is just a long way of saying that if you have multiple ideas
for a first novel and you love them all enough to eventually turn into a book and
you’re worried about automatically dooming the first book into the drawer
before you even begin—don’t. Don’t worry about publishing, or what’s going to
happen to the book when you’ve finished, or if you’ll ever be able to get an
agent with it, or if it’ll sell a single copy online. Don’t worry about any of
those things, in fact; don’t even think
about those things.
Just write the book that you want to write and worry about
the rest later. For now, just enjoy the ride.
What do you think about writing the first novel? I’d love to hear your
thoughts and tips.
35 comments:
Another reason to make your first, second, ect novel as good as it can be is you can recycle it. Take an idea from it and rewrite it as a whole new novel. The new novel will have a lot of depth from reworking the ideas from your old one.
That's a fantastic point! I hadn't thought about recycling old ideas while I was writing the post, but that's a great strategy. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Darrell!
I'm finally self-publishing the third novel I've ever written. I learned a lot from my first two, but wound up trashing both because they weren't good enough. But at the time I imagined them being published and therefore put my all into writing them. It's how you have to think because until you put your all into a story, you won't learn those lessons you need to learn when you write your first novel.
I know my first novel definitely stinks! LOL Hopefully, though, it can be saved. Gonna take some major revisions and research, though.
Any novel can be trashed and rewritten. You just gotta make sure the idea is good.
Great post! I answered your call and posted my thoughts on my blog http://firefliesandlaserbeams.blogspot.com/2012/07/committing-to-that-first-novel.html
Great point, if you set yourself up for failure, you're going to fail. That is why I so severely hate it when I hear published authors say that. A few good tips are 1) don't write a novel until you're ready to write it and get a good feel for the book, and 2) practice, practice, practice before you start. Get feedback, read, get more feedback, read again. Then start. Doing that might just help (not guarantee) that you get into the 5%.
I was 15 when I tried to write my ever first novel and yes, it's not good enough :D it was funny to read but of course, I didn't have any knowledge of how to write a good book, actually I was just writing a very long dream I had XD it was a fantasy story and... well not good enough, then I got older and I didn't believe in it anymore, didn't have any other idea for a novel or any kind of book, but am still open to that possibility, I am a self-hidden writer. Good article, thank you, is the same as songs, your first songs will not be your best, it's a matter of keep on trying until you're mature enough in your writing field to do something worth of publishing.
I'm 15 now, and I wrote my first novel about a year ago. Well, because I was only 14 at the time, it sucked. But writing novels helps tremendously with your writing, and so the one I'm writing now (A YA novel) is already 4043405349% better. I think it's important not to think of novels in terms of selling value but in terms of reading value. Also, it should contain part of you - a big reason why, as a young adult, I am writing young adult fiction.
Thanks for this post!
I'm writing my first novel now, so this is a very important topic for me. I think a writer should never treat his novels as if they don't stand a chance to be published. Sometimes I start having thoughts like "Why should I put so much effort in something that'll probably be totally unreadable?", but I try to chase these thoughts away, as we writers should love what we do and put all the effort possible in it; otherwise there's kind of no point to doing it :-)
I agree completely--there's so much to be learned from writing, but you'll miss some of those lessons if you don't put your all into your work.
Best of luck with your writing and self-publishing!
My first novel was less than the masterpiece I envisioned it to be, to say the least. :D
I agree that any novel can be ripped apart and rewritten. You just need the patience and passion to take the time to do it correctly.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Yesenia!
While I believe practicing your craft first might be helpful, I think there are some things in writing that you can really only learn by actually sitting down and writing a novel. I agree that you absolutely need to practice, but the process of writing a novel itself is practice, as is writing the second and third (etc.) novel. Just my thoughts. :)
I agree 100% with your last sentence, there, and I think it applies to just about any field. Very few people can jump into just about anything and do it perfectly the first time--it's a matter of practicing and pushing and working to improve any way you can until you've become proficient enough to create publishable work.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!
This may sound a little weird, but I don't think age has anything to do with writing ability--it's experience that often determines it. What I mean is this: a seventy year-old writer who has never before written a novel (or written much of anything) is on the exact same playing field as a fourteen year-old trying to write his or her first novel. Age doesn't matter. Experience does.
On another note, I completely agree with what you said about writing novels helping you to improve your writing. I truly believe there are some things that you can really only learn by doing, and how to write a novel is one of them.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Emily!
You're very welcome, Toria! I think sometimes we get caught up in wondering is this publishable? so much that we forget why we started writing in the first place (which hopefully wasn't just to get published). Regardless of whether or not the WIP we're working on will ever see eyes outside of immediate friends, family and beta readers, we should try to enjoy the process as much as possible and do what we love to do most--write.
Best of luck with your novel! :)
These are the kind of facts that I find hard to deal with. I'm very fatalistic and tend to take the most negative meaning of anything (but I'm very cheery in person, why is this?). So if someone told me that first novel was unpublishable I would approach it as such. Sometimes it's just better to shut myself off from the world and do what I want. It's the only way I'll ignore people.
The thing is though, it's not impossible to get your first novel published. Difficult? Absolutely. Unlikely? Sure, but not impossible.
The best thing we can do as writers is to keep doing what we love despite the odds. Sometimes ignoring the odds and statistics and facts isn't such a bad thing if it helps you keep writing.
Definitely. It's actually one negative I have since I started being more active in the writing community. There are so many posts about how you should do things, how you shouldn't do things, how this person got famous and why you aren't.... I like your posts because its more of a discussion, but in general I find the whole thing very demotivating... I worked a lot better before I started being so active on the internet as a writer. BUT it has made me aware of how I can actually publish my work otherwise I would still be trying for a big publishing house. I guess I lack self-confidence and I automatically take other peoples' advice on board so I feel swamped by all the things I 'should' be doing.
i am enjoying the ride very much, thanks for the encouragement
This article is really worth reading, it has too much details in it and yet it is so simple to understand, Thanks for sharing the series pictures they had great details in them and i really appreciate your true artistic work!
High School Diploma
I've just recently come upon your blog after a long night of frantic google-ing and mild disillusionment. Sure wish I found this site a long time ago. But no matter – it's never too late, is it.
Man, I'm having thoughts that even my fourth or fifth novel is too crappy to even consider publication!
You're very welcome! Best of luck, Raelene! :)
Welcome to Writability! So glad you're enjoying my blog and I look forward to seeing you in the comments! ^_^
I had to learn this the hard way--but revision is a beautiful thing for that reason and more. :)
I think the most important thing to take away from any writing blog (or book) is that yes, advice is helpful and there are certain thing we can all do to improve, but in the end it comes down to doing whatever works best for you as a writer. There are exceptions to just about every writing rule and techniques that work for one writer don't always work for another. Try a new technique or bit of advice out, but if it doesn't work for you, don't sweat it. :)
This is such great advice! Every book we write deserves all the care we can put into crafting it. I have three shelf novels. I did not, at any point in writing those three, assume they would be shelf novels. I'd never even heard the term "shelf novel" until I had two of them. (And then I was like, "There's a NAME for this?!? I feel... better?") I wrote the best novel I could, and I took pride in the fact that I FINISHED. Cuz lots of people don't. I revised, too. Still not good enough. Eventually, I wrote the one that after major and multiple revisions, became the first novel I presented to the world, but it wasn't *written* any more lovlingly, any more wholeheartedly, than its shelf sisters. (Disclaimer: I'm self-pubbed, so *I* decided when one was good enough in the end, rather than a traditional gatekeeper. Thus, I was the guy saying, "NONE SHALL PASS," to those first three.)
I remember writing my first novel and hearing the statistics about how unlikely it is for writers to get their first novel published (and at the time, self-publishing was hardly considered a viable option) and I thought, yeah, but that won't be me. While that kind of thinking was far from realistic, it did give me the benefit of learning how to really believe in your writing and do the very best you can and put passion and hard work into your words...then move on. It wasn't an easy lesson to learn, but it was an important one, and for that I'm grateful.
Now with self-publishing, a lot of writers have to learn to become their own gatekeepers, especially if they want to pursue going indie. In my opinion, that's an even more difficult lesson because we have to try to learn to become objective enough about something that we are passionate about to be able to say, no, you still need work.
Thanks so much for stopping by and sharing your thoughts, Tammara!
Oh, yes, it is :) There are some things you absolutely cannot learn unless you go the whole nine yards. But even successful, published authors have a lot to learn ;)
Agreed! There's always something more to learn, regardless of how experienced you are in the writing field.
I wrote my first novel when I was 12-14 years old (it took me two years, but hey, it was nearly 200,000 words). It definitely was a practice book, looking back on it now it's nothing I care to share with other people, but it was a stepping stone to where I am today, just like my most recent novel is a step for where I'll be in another ten years. What you're saying is right. Though I look back on that first novel as lame, when I wrote it, it meant the world to me, and I put my passion (and plenty of my time) into it, and I doubt I would have grown as a writer if I thought of it as a mere exercise, or something no one would like. Great post! I think it's very insightful.
Forrest Lybrand
-Learning by writing/how to teach children to write at http://www.advanced-writing-resources.com
"We Kill Death" at https://www.createspace.com/3911765 or on Amazon.com
I wrote my 1st novel 4 years ago, then I wrote 2 more and started another, but it was that first manuscript that continued to haunt me. At the time, it got 3 requests but died an ugly death after 100+ queries. I tucked it away. Still, I loved the storyline and the characters moved me--I never lost faith in it, so I rewrote the whole thing, starting from scratch,
page-by-page, line-by-line. Now I am rewriting (for the umpteenth time) that dreaded query letter, starting anew. So really, this 1st novel has become my 4th! It is fresh and exciting and worlds better than its first incarnation. Hopefully, some agent will feel the same. Fingers crossed!
Thank you, Forrest! I know exactly what you mean about growing as a writer largely because of the passion and time you put into your early works. Without that passion and belief in your work, chances are it won't get very far.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!
I suspect that many first novels die an ugly death--the first WIP, in many respects, is often the hardest to let go. When you've never trunked a novel, it can sound excruciatingly painful to do so, but like anything else, it gets a little easier with time.
Your revision sounds very exciting and I wish you the best with your WIP!
Thank you, Todd!
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