Writing a Novel in 15 Steps: From Initial Idea to Querying

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It occurred to me that while I’ve written several posts about the various steps that go into writing a novel from brainstorming to surviving the query trenches, I never really discussed the order, or the step-by-step process of writing a book from initial idea to searching for representation. 

While every writer works a little differently, I’ve decided to share my general process from start to finish to give you an idea as to what usually goes into polishing a novel to completion—at least, how I handle it. 

1. The spark. This is the initial idea—the bubble of excitement combined with the whisper of a line, shadow of a scene, glimpse of a world, or wink of a character. This is the moment when you dare to think maybe this could be a novel and everything changes. 


2. Brainstorming/Outlining. How you outline or brainstorm will depend on whether you’re a pantser or a plotter. I’ve done both sides of the spectrum, and I’ve found that I work really well by outlining with flashcards on Scrivener’s cork board, so after I’ve brainstormed some general plot ideas and I’m happy with what I have, I open up a new Scrivener project and start working. This is usually the step where I’ll decide whether or not the idea is novel-worthy.  


3. First draft. Ahh, the first draft. The exciting, terrifying, wonderful, exhausting first draft. I’m a fast drafter, so this usually takes me anywhere from three and a half to six weeks, depending on the length of the WIP and whether or not I outlined. To me, this is in many ways the hardest part, because you are, in essence, making the clay that you will later refine into a polished story. Pre-first draft, all you have are a bunch of ideas, but post-first draft you have a novel. 


4. Cooling off period. Sometimes, when I’m especially eager to get to editing, this step actually feels harder than the first drafting—even though it involves literally doing nothing. But the cooling off period is so important for reasons I’ve already talked about. I don’t recommend skipping this step, but everyone works differently. 


5. First read-through. I’ve found that the first read-through can either be crazy exciting, or horrifically disappointing. Either way, if you intend to release this novel to the world, the first read-through is unavoidable, and very important. I take notes when working through my first read-through and usually read it in a medium that doesn’t allow me to edit, like printed off or exported as an e-book. 


6. Second draft. Whatever notes I made in the first read-through—now it’s time to implement them. This is where I try to address major issues like plot problems, continuity errors or novel-wide enhancements that are needed to make the book semi-presentable. 


7. Read-aloud. I read aloud to my oh so lucky (and extraordinarily generous) first reader. Technically, you don’t need to read to anyone to get the benefits from reading aloud, but my first reader gives me a little extra feedback to help gauge what still needs fixing. The main point of the read-aloud, however, is to feel the flow of the writing, catch errors and gauge what’s working and what isn’t. I try to pay attention to where the pacing is off, where the dialogue sounds strange and where it’s easy to put the book down. 


8. CP swap/cooling off period. I’ve talked about how important beta readers and critique partners are, and this is where they first come into play. Once I’ve gone through the aforementioned steps and I’m relatively satisfied (meaning I’m aware it’s nowhere near perfection, but I’m not embarrassed to share it), I’ll let my CPs know what stage the book is in and start swapping chapters or whole manuscripts. This also acts as a cooling off period, because I’m spending some time focusing on something else (ergo: the CP’s MS). 


9. Third draft. Now that I have feedback from a couple CPs, I’ll start incorporating the changes into draft three. Depending on how the swapping goes, I may do this simultaneously with the CP swap (in which case I sort of skip the second cooling off period), but this varies case by case. 


10. CP swap/cooling off period (again). For some final feedback to see how well the revisions did (or didn’t) work. 


11. Final edit/polish. Using the final feedback and my own discretion, it’s now time for the final polish. This is where I tend to get nit-picky about word choice, placement of analogies, awkward wording and paragraph length. Sometimes, this can be the most intensive editing step, because it involves analyzing every single sentence. 


12. Synopsis/query/pitch drafting. The polish is done! Yay! Now for my favorite step—synopsis and query drafting. This tweet basically sums up my feelings for this step.
    

    Horrific discovery: when I pasted my synopsis into Word, it was in a smaller-than usual font. Now fixed, I have ANOTHER HALF PAGE TO CUT.
    — Ava Jae (@Ava_Jae) April 28, 2013

    Yeah. And for those who are interested, here’s what you’ll want to avoid when drafting up that query. 


13. Synopsis/query/pitch critique. I’ve talked about the importance of query critiques before, and now is the ideal time to do them. If you don’t polish your query, publishing professionals may never read the words you worked so hard to make shine. 


14. Research potential agents to query (assuming you want an agent). Pretty self-explanatory. I like lists, so I make a list in a spreadsheet with information like what agency they work for, how I’m going to personalize the query, and average response time. I also use the same spreadsheet to keep track of rejections/requests after I’ve sent out queries. 


15. Release to the world/seek distractions. Once you’ve hit “send,” it’s time to sit back, relax, and try to focus on just about anything else. 

Then, of course, when you’ve finished with that novel, it’s time to start all over again with a new one. Welcome to the life of the writer. 

So those are my fifteen steps—now I want to hear from you. Do you do anything differently?

Twitter-sized bites: 

One novelist's process of writing a book in fifteen steps—from the first idea to the first query. (Click to tweet) 

How to write a novel from the initial idea to querying, condensed into 15 steps. (Click to tweet)

Discussion: Do You Finish Every Novel Idea You Start?

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Confession time again: I have started several novels that I never finished.

Considering I’ve often written about finishing your novels and just getting the words down and worrying about the rest later, this may be a little surprising to some of you. But it’s true, and it’s something that I’m actually quite unashamed of.

Most times, these starts are a false start of sorts—more of an exploration of an idea than an actual attempt at writing out a novel. But I have fully plotted WIP ideas from start to finish, written a page or two, then decided I didn’t want to write it after all. On two occasions, I have written more than a couple thousand words, then realized with some disappointment that it wasn’t working.

So there. I’ve said it: I don’t finish every novel idea that I start.

The thing is, that initial writing for me is part of the exploration process. I could have plotted out my most epic novel yet, but if the voice of the protagonist doesn’t work for me, I immediately lose interest and move on to something else. For me, character is king, and if I don’t find an intriguing voice to tell the story, then it’ll remain a snippet of writing and some jotted down ideas.

This is why I don’t really call a first draft an actual draft or WIP until I’ve hit 10,000 words. Even that isn’t necessarily a guarantee that this is a novel I’m going to finish, but the odds are astronomically higher after that milestone because I’ve gotten a good feel for the characters and usually if I’ve made it that far, I know something’s there.

Now, I’m well aware that not everyone works the same way I do, and so I want to hear from you: what is your exploration process like? Do you finish every novel idea that you start? 

Twitter-sized bites: 

Do you finish every novel idea you start? @Ava_Jae doesn’t, and here’s why. (Click to tweet)  

Why one writer doesn’t call a WIP an actual draft until she’s written 10,000 words. (Click to tweet)

Writing Discussion: Where Do Your Novel Ideas Begin?

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From the outside, novel-writing appears to be a somewhat nebulous process. Writers wrangle stories from sheer imagination and layer them with complexities and emotions, plot twists and character arcs that leave readers craving more.

The inception of that novel idea is often regarded with some wonder, even to writers. For some, the idea begins as a sentence, or a scene, or a world or situation. For others it begins with a character, or a line of dialogue, or a stray echo after a dream.

I’d like to hear from you: where do your novel ideas begin?

I am absolutely a character-based writer. Every one of my WIP ideas has started with a character, with a world and situation built around them. I find it very difficult to build a character to fit a story—instead, the story evolves from the character.

This is likely a large reason why I tend to neglect setting in my first drafts—I focus instead on learning about my characters, what makes them tick, what makes them them and worry about nailing down a setting in future revisions. Of course not all writers work like that, but character to me is the heart and soul of the novel. I could have a fantastic premise, but if I don’t have equally spectacular character to go with it, the idea fizzles away.

I’m well aware, however, that there are many writers who function quite differently—writers who create an intricate, interesting setting and fantastic premise long before they begin to think about who populates the world. And then there are writers who work somewhere in between—those who develop the two simultaneously and integrate them at the same time.

So now you tell me, writers: where do your novel ideas begin?

Short Story or Novel Idea: How Do You Tell?

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Every so often one of you amazing readers will suggest a blog post topic I haven’t covered yet (which is fantastic, by the way) and I’ll ramble on about how awesome you guys are for being such interactive and invested readers and then get to the point of the post. 

As you might have guessed, this is one of those posts.

This time, however, I’d like to hear from you guys. Because while I have some ideas on the topic, I don’t really write all that many short stories, and truth be told, it’s been a couple of years since I’ve written one (which, come to think of it, should be remedied), but I suspect some of you lovely readers are more recently acquainted with the short story writing experience. So. Here we go.

The proposed question, as many of you astute readers probably inferred from the title, was how to tell the difference between an idea better suited for a short story than a novel.

I find this question to be particularly interesting because it’s been a long while since I’ve really even allowed myself to consider whether or not an idea would be appropriate for a short story—to me, it’s been more of a question of whether or not I could write an entire novel based on whatever premise rose from the depths of my mind, and those that failed the idea worthiness test of time were labeled unworthy and discarded and ignored. I kind of imagine Odin’s booming voice as he screams, “YOU ARE NOT WORTHY,” at Thor, but that’s beside the point. 

Getting back to the question, though, once you’ve determined whether your idea is worth writing about at all (again, the test of time is a good indicator), a large part of the difference between short story ideas and novel ideas is the scope. 

You see, novel ideas have to be big—and I don’t mean that they have to have explosions and ridiculously awesome action scenes—I just mean that while you’re working with your new idea, you have to be able to develop enough nuances, subplots and layers to sustain 80,000 (or however many) words. And sometimes, especially if you’re a pantser, it’s a little hard to tell if your idea is going to survive three hundred-some-odd pages or if you’re going to hit page fifteen and say, “You know what? Maybe this idea isn’t worth a novel after all.” But the first step in answering the question of whether or not your idea is enough to sustain a novel, lies, I believe, in determining the scope of your idea.

Let’s take a look at an example.

The Hunger Games is big. There’s no way Suzanne Collins would have been able to as effectively fit all the setup, relationships, celebrity status of the tributes, horror of the games, rebellion against the Capitol and repercussions thereof in fifteen pages (and I don’t mean written in summary-like synopsis form, I mean written as an actual story).

However, way before The Hunger Games was the short story The Lottery written by Shirley Jackson in 1948, which certainly has many similarities to the beginning of The Hunger Games (you can read it for free online, if you’re interested). The difference between the two? You guessed it—the scope of the idea.

While The Hunger Games included various subplots (i.e.: the Katniss-Peeta-Gale love triangle, among others) as well as an in-depth look at the glamorization of the hunger games in the Capitol that only made the brutality of the games (in my opinion) that much more powerful in its effect on the reader, The Lottery included set-up, foreshadowing, some characterization and, erm, the results of the lottery (you’ll have to read it if you haven’t already to know what I mean). The former was way too big to be shoved into a short story format, while the latter fit very comfortable in a little over 3000 words.

So, in short, the main difference to me between a short story and novel idea lies in the scope of the idea. If you think you can fit it in fifteen pages, then it’s probably not worth dragging out into three hundred; but on the other hand if you think it might be difficult to condense into a shorter story without losing anything, you might want to consider writing a novel (or at least a novella) instead. 

Those are my thoughts, but how do you tell between a short story and novel idea? Have you ever had a short story turn into a novel, or a novel idea become a short story, instead? 

How (Not) to Write a Novel

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It seems that everyone is writing a novel (or planning to/thinking about writing one) these days. With the age of personal computers and other computing devices booming, it’s not uncommon to hear about so-and-so’s Aunt Gilberta who’s going to write a soon-to-be bestselling novel about her enlightenment on the human condition.

But for every writer who is toiling away at their computers every day, pouring their heart and soul into their manuscripts, there are many more staring at their computer screens, wondering where to start.

And thusly I introduce to you fifteen easy steps to writing a novel:

1. Open up a Word (or other word processing document). Once opened, stare at the abyss that is the blank, white screen for at least a full minute. Think about the enormous task you have ahead of you and how you have to fill not only one of these screens, but somewhere around 300 of them. Stare some more.


2. Check Twitter. And Facebook. And tumblr. And Twitter again. Spend at least an hour checking your feed and reblogging/retweeting/sharing interesting/funny/adorable posts with your fellow followers/fans/friends. The last thing you want is to neglect your social media presence while working on the book.


3. Check your e-mail. You forgot to check it in step two. It’s ok. Nobody’s perfect.


4. Stare at the blank document again. Crack your fingers (if you do that sort of thing). Stretch a little and run your fingers over the keyboard. Breathe.


5. Decide you’re hungry. How are you supposed to write if all you can think about is food? Go treat yourself to a Starbucks. Or a brownie. Or whatever suits your fancy.


6. Call your Mother and tell her about the amazing book you’re writing. Hell, call all of your relatives and tell them about it. Oh, and that girl you used to talk to in high school—she should know, too. In fact, why don’t you post about it on Facebook? Then everyone will know about your masterpiece.


7. Pack up your laptop and bring it to the nearest café. That’s what writers do, right? They bring their laptops to cafés and crank out works of literary genius.


8. Check your Twitter and e-mail again. It’s been too long since you last checked it. What if the Twittersphere had collapsed in your absence and left a horrible, gaping black hole on the internet that sucked everything else into it? Oh, it’s still there? Good. Carry on.


9. Stare at the blank document again (again). This time it’s real. You can feel it—the inspiration is reaching towards you through the coffee-saturated air and jazzy music. The people are all watching. The next words you write will go down in history as pure genius.


10. Write the title. Aha! You’ve started! And the title—its sheer brilliance brings tears to your eyes.


11. Write “Chapter 1.” Ok, ok we’re getting somewhere. Chapter 1. Now the first words, those beautiful first words…


12. Type “It was a dark and stormy night…” All brilliant novels start on a dark and stormy night.


13. Stare at the (not) blank document. Drink some coffee. Stare some more. Type a sentence and delete it. Type “the” and delete it. It must be perfect, perfect…
    


14. Realize you’re hungry again. I mean, it’s dinner time so you should probably go home and eat, right? Right.


15. Congratulate yourself on a hard day’s work. No one really writes more than a couple sentences a day anyway. Besides, you can’t rush genius.

Sarcasm and false advice aside (and pretending none of us have ever done any of those aforementioned steps *ehem*), there are really only three steps to writing a novel:

1. Write
2. Revise
3. Repeat

And that’s all there is to it.

What steps would you add to the NOT list and what (real) tips do you have for novel-writing?