Writing Novels in Australia

May 11

Researching To Write A Novel, by Phillipa Fioretti

Reading a book is like immersing yourself in another world. Researching and writing a book is as much if not more fun because you get to look closer at this imaginary world and those who inhabit it. From all this research I have a wealth of information about illegal fishing in the Mediterranean, Italy-to-Australia extradition procedures, organized crime and the construction of ghost hotels, corrupt Chinese art auctions, how best to give an audition performance, the market value of vintage couture, how to steal a mosaic, and much more.

There is a huge amount of information available for writers on the internet but sometimes you have to go to a real person and interview them if you want the inside view. I have a friend who is quite senior in the human resources department of a big multinational company. I asked him what would happen to an employee accused of planting porn on a colleague’s computer leading to that colleague’s dismissal. He said if it couldn’t be proven then nothing could be done officially, but that person would be passed over again and again in favour of others, shunned at the pub and become so isolated they would eventually leave. Hmm… that’s a tasty little nugget to store for possible future use. I have never worked in such an environment, so I don’t really know what goes on there and I need the nuances of real human interaction rather than the public face.

At a writing conference a few years ago I attended a session given by a senior police superintendent. The idea was that he would talk about police procedure for writers. He replied to a question about writers accessing information on procedure with the answer, ‘You don’t access it unless you get to know a police officer.’ At this point I felt a certain smugness, as I knew a police officer - a homicide detective, no less. His boy and mine played soccer. There is nothing like a windswept soccer field in the early morning to foster friendships.

He’s a hard looking dude. He makes you want to confess straight up or offer your DNA on spec. However, he was very kind in answering my pesky and endless questions about police procedure. In fact I’m surprised he didn’t put a block on my emails. I’m very aware of the irritation factor I could present, so I don’t harass too much. But I need to know.

Other soccer friendships include a chemistry forensics professor, an international law specialist and an academic nuclear physicist. I have doctors, lawyers, scientists of various types, artists, actors, singers, teachers and more on my private sources list. Invariably, these experts shred my imagined scenes or plots with precision and leave them lying in a heap, and I have to keep re-working and re-thinking.

For example, I wanted a character to be in a long coma but be revived unharmed, and I wanted to put him in that coma with opium. No can do, comes the advice. You can have your coma but not without brain damage and the opium won’t be detected as opium, but as morphine. A spanner in the crucial spoke of the plot. Fiction provides room for creative license but not to completely contradict reality. Besides, factual errors rarely escape the All-Seeing Editing Eye.

The big test will come when I want to research a character or scene and I don’t know anyone in the field. I like to think that with the right approach people are happy to share the facts about their occupations. I have favourite café near the law courts where barristers come to drink the excellent coffee. Some of them sweep in, briefs under the arm, hair swept back, as if the café is their courtroom and we are the awestruck jurors. They order and talk loudly and are generally very pleased with themselves. I sit like a small, alert parasite in the corner jotting down every move, every gesture. But would I approach one? Yes, I think I would if I needed to. Because I know these guys would just love it.

Always be polite when asking to delve into somebody’s professional life, and take a refusal graciously. Just because you’re a writer doesn’t mean you can access all areas. Assure them they will not be identified as a source unless they want to be and if that’s the case then full acknowledgement will be given. I like to interview then go away and think about their answers and return, if possible, for specific details. Flowers, wine, chocolate, jam, books or a combination of two or three are always good gift to have about your person when interviewing sources. And when it’s all over, a signed copy of the book as a token of appreciation.

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Phillipa Fioretti’s author website: www.phillipafioretti.com.au

Phillipa Fioretti’s bio page

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Writing Novels in Australia
www.writingnovelsinaustralia.com

May 8

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Strategic Thinking When Writing A Novel, by Greg Barron

Strategic thinking is something I have to make an effort at to do well. Some people are natural schemers and planners. I’m not. I’m more of a wanderer. This shows when I play card games or chess. I enjoy the interaction but usually get beaten by someone who thinks more than a move or two ahead. I’ve had to learn to think ahead for my writing.

Strategic thinking and writing are not at cross-purposes. People read for many reasons. Compelling characters are probably the most important reason readers continue reading a novel that they have started. Characters are compelling partly because there is something unresolved about their life or personality. Your strategy should be to make sure this is not ‘fixed’ to the reader’s satisfaction until the end of the book.

Choosing how to begin a novel can be hard. As in a game of euchre, don’t always lead with your highest trump card. What I mean is, if you are writing a story about a murder don’t necessarily kick the book off with the killing itself. Come at it obliquely with a formative character experience: something exciting and pivotal, sure, but keeping the winning card for the best possible moment will pay dividends. The reader has read the blurb. They already have expectations. Use the opening to throw them off balance.

Twists are excellent - readers love them - but they also don’t like feeling bushwhacked. They don’t want to feel that the author has withheld something that he or she should have disclosed. Offer a few hints that they will remember later, without actually giving the game away. This is called foreshadowing and all the best books and movies do it. Remember the old wisdom – if a man cleans his gun in chapter three, it better damn well kill someone in chapter twenty two.

This leads us to a related topic – the withholding of information in general. As English novelist Charles Reade once wrote, ‘Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry, make ‘em wait!’ Will Jane and Brian stay together? What did the patriarch write into his will to so tear the family apart? Even in literary writing it’s important to reveal information at key plot moments. Remember that people read on to find out what happens. If you tell them at the start they won’t feel compelled to keep reading.

Make your storyline and characters unpredictable. Some of history’s most psychopathic villains loved animals, art or music. Some so called ‘great’ people had terrible tempers, and even abused their families psychologically and physically.

As I wrote above, I’m a wanderer by nature. I tend to write first drafts that need a lot of work. The characters are in place and the plot hums along but I generally need to add some devices and scenes that make the story more suspenseful. That’s the great thing about writing: you can add the strategic thinking in later. It’s best, of course, to keep it in mind right throughout the process.

Not every book needs the level of strategy required for a Da Vinci Code or even a PG Wodehouse novel (twists and turns galore) but novels of every genre will benefit from a touch of strategy.

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Greg Barron’s author website: www.gregbarron.com

Greg Barron’s Bio Page

Writing Novels in Australia
www.writingnovelsinaustralia.com

May 6

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On The Value Of Librarians And Booksellers, by Alison Booth

Who are the unsung of the book-publishing world? The librarians and booksellers, who give advice and make recommendations to their members and customers. The people who are in their jobs because they love books.

Once you’re an author, you realise how much more you still have to learn. Reading a book becomes not only a glorious escape but also a painless way of absorbing the technical skills that will help you create your own masterpiece. For what it’s worth, my advice to writers is to read eclectically. Don’t restrict your reading only to the bestseller list or to prize winners. Take a look at other books in the bookshop and library, and see if they might be of interest to you.

Do you know the owner or librarian? If the bookshop or library is small, this will be easy. If they are large, pick out a regular employee who’s been particularly helpful to you. Once this person knows you and your tastes, they’ll have reliable recommendations for you in the future.

Sometimes they’ll even have statistics. Recently I had coffee with our librarian, who then emailed me some interesting figures. Here’s one that I particularly liked: in Australia there are more libraries than McDonalds outlets. We have 1,417 libraries (fixed locations) and 74 mobile libraries, as compared with 851 McDonalds outlets! Library loans total 182,757,656 per annum and 45 percent of Australians are library members. Now that’s a lot of loans and books, isn’t it? The happy conclusion is that we’re still well served in Australia by libraries.

What about bookstores though? Their numbers are unfortunately dwindling. It’s important to support them as well as our libraries, not only because we want to make sure they survive but also because access to a bookshop allows you to flick through the pages of new books – or books by new authors – before you buy. There’s nothing like this quick skim to help you choose.

Yet it won’t help the bookshops much if you use their stock only for skimming their titles before ordering online from someone else. The environment for the bookstores is changing rapidly. The biggest online retailers have been adopting several approaches to technological change. On the one hand, it’s often asserted that Amazon are engaging in predatory pricing, a practice much-studied in industrial economics. This involves selling books at an artificially low price. The goal is to drive out existing competitors and discourage the entry into the market of new ones, and thereby to become monopolists who can subsequently increase the price. On the other hand, in the US an antitrust case against Apple and the big publishers alleged a conspiracy to fix e-book prices. Settlements recently reached in the US against the big publishers may be viewed as a win for Amazon and a further strengthening of their position.

At the same time, other factors are affecting book sales. For example, it’s well known that newspaper books pages are shrinking, and shrinking fast. When shopping for books, you may search or click on an author’s name because you’ve read a review in a newspaper. With the contraction of newspaper book pages, you may find that the surviving reviewers’ tastes are not necessarily yours. Yet you want as much information as possible before you make a purchase. To my mind, nothing beats a thorough browse in the bookshop or in the library before making your selection - or a good chat to the staff if you know them.

How will bookshops cope with print book and e-book publishing in the future? This remains to be seen in a highly uncertain world: a world in which there is an antitrust case still to be settled in the US, as well as legal challenges by bookstores to suppliers who are trying to lock in consumers through particular electronic technologies. A world in which the relative demands for paper and electronic books are still unknown.

Some booksellers are reacting to this uncertainty in creative ways; for example, by expanding their bookshops to encompass book discussion sessions, or exhibitions, or children’s readings, or literary evenings or lunches. If we want to retain our favourite bookshops in a fast-changing industry, they need our support. Like the librarians, they’re the unsung heroes and heroines of the publishing world.

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Alison Booth’s author website: www.alisonbooth.net

Alison Booth’s bio page

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Writing Novels in Australia
www.writingnovelsinaustralia.com

May 3

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Month In Review with Steve Rossiter (April 2013)

Writing Novels in Australia has reached the end of its fourth month of articles for 2013, from this year’s line-up of monthly contributors encompassing aspiring novelists, early-career novelists and established novelists.

You can connect with Writing Novels in Australia on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.

The purpose of these Month In Review articles is to:

- provide a handy list of links to the articles for the past month, then to

- relate some of the content of these articles to my own novel writing to help novel writers and other interested people discover the month’s content and gain some insights into ways the month’s content can be engaged with in a practical context.

Articles for April 2013

Prose Cliches And Originality When Writing Novels by Greg Barron

Proofreading A Novel Manuscript by Phillipa Fioretti

What Makes A Bad Writer (And How To Avoid It) by Lia Weston

Life As A Newly Published Novelist by Jenn J McLeod

Why Have A Literary Agent? by Alison Booth

Finding Inspiration For Your Stories by Kelly Inglis

How Long Does It Take To Write A Novel? by Onil Lad

The Business Of Being A Novelist by Helene Young

Starting A Novel With A Great First Sentence by Ben Marshall

This month’s articles and writing my novel

Helene Young wrote: Has it ever been enough to simply write a unique and compelling story? I suspect not. In today’s climate with the debate raging over the longevity of books, and traditional publishing versus self-publishing, it’s even more crucial that a writer has a game plan. […]
As a writer you are both product and producer, so you have two briefs to write for your business plan. Before you can do that, however, think about defining what it is you want from your writing career.

Lia Weston wrote: What makes you a bad writer is refusing to deal with criticism.

Helene makes a good point that writing a story is not sufficient to get lots of people reading your story. If this is to happen, word has to spread somehow. Maybe you or your agent will get publishers in multiple countries to publish the book in particular countries or languages, with each publisher investing in a marketing and publicity campaign and ongoing support for your novel. Maybe your agent will find you lots of publicity opportunities. Maybe your existing family, friends and acquaintances will buy your novel or read a free copy you give them then blog about it, review it on bookseller websites and recommend it to their family, friends and acquaintances. Maybe you will do lots of interviews and guest articles. Maybe you or your publisher/s will buy some advertising. Maybe a journalist from your local newspaper will write something about you.

The bottom line is that this has to happen somehow if you’re going to find lots of readers, so it’s worth considering in advance how you can help this happen. This is important for novelists published by major publishers but crucial for self-publishing novelists, as you don’t have major publishers working behind the scenes to market and publicise your novel (not to mention major publishers’ extensive established business relationships with distributors, retailers and media outlets, and their extensive networks of contacts on social media sites and email-lists). In general, publishers want their novelists to be pro-active in connecting with readers – so the publisher can amplify your efforts and you can amplify the publisher’s efforts to publicise you and your work, creating a win-win situation.

Whatever you do for marketing and publicity, don’t irritate people with unwanted appeals for them to buy your novel. The more people you reach with this tactic, the more people who will make a mental note to avoid you, so they don’t encourage you to keep annoying them, and to not work with you in the future, because your sales tactics would be a liability. If you want people to discover your novel, do an interview, a blog post, a guest blog post, a social media update about how you’re going with your work-in-progress, put an image of your newly-confirmed cover design on a social media site, or a photo of newly-arrived proof copies of your book, or photos from your book launch, or any number of other things that people will find interesting and from which they will gain some value. Think what you’re offering other people, not just what you want from them. If your social media updates and photos, blog posts, guest blog posts, interviews, etc are valuable to other people, many of them will click through to your author site to discover what you’ve written and how they can buy it.

It’s also worth considering what your novel itself offers readers, not just what it offers you as the writer. Of course, your novel can be very meaningful to you and also offer something valuable to readers. You don’t have to sacrifice one for the other.

Taking my novel-in-progress as an example, it’s meaningful to me as an exploration of human behaviour at a very significant turning point in world history – the German invasion of Poland in 1939, which brought the Great Powers of Europe into conflict and precipitated World War 2. It also personally interests me to go beyond the typical textbook and history book accounts of this setting to investigate the day-to-day human dimension of life in Poland in late 1939. However, this novel is intended for teenagers (and adults) and I know that some, or maybe most, readers will care much more about the characters and the personal conflict they are working through in the story than the historical setting and its significance in world history. Luckily, I also have an interest in storytelling which transcends time and place while still being firmly situated in a specific setting. The story’s appeal would be much more limited if it hinged on a reader having a pre-existing interest in 1939 Poland. The novel will offer readers a story of friendship, family, adolescence, adventure, loyalty, courage, suspense, historical drama, a catalyst for readers of Polish or German ancestry to learn more about their family history, and more. It’s up to each reader which aspects appeal to them more strongly or less strongly. If the historical significance of the story rates as a non-issue for a particular reader, maybe they love stories of adolescence and friendship, or maybe they love stories of loyalty and adventure. Part of the personal appeal for me is also to provide a novel that lots of readers can connect with strongly and which can be a catalyst for further independent thought.

So I’ve thought about the story but how will I find readers?

Some things I have in mind include:
- a blog with things like history articles to provide extra resources for readers interested in the historical setting and its significance in relation to World War 2, to the history of Poland and Germany, and to world history; character profiles; my research methods and resources used; my writing process; study/discussion guides for schools, writers and writing groups; and more
- social media pages/profiles for readers and writers to connect with me and the book online, so they can stay up-to-date with these additional resources and other news about me and my novel
- interviews and guest blog posts for book blogs, other authors’ blogs and group blogs for authors

These are the kinds of things any novelist can do with little or no financial investment and with little standing in the industry or public profile, regardless of who publishes your novel. If people are searching for the kinds of resources I offer, they might come across them through search engines. If people like the resources and news I offer, they might ‘Like’ or share it with others, who might also ‘Like’ or share it, or connect with me or the novel on a social media site. Of course, there are also options like arranging author profiles in national newspapers, book tours, library and bookstore events, paid advertising, literary festival and writers’ conference appearances, and so on, but these tend to require having the appropriate contacts, some level of industry standing or public profile, or financial investment.

Whether writing your novel or connecting with readers: Be creative. Assess your options and come up with a plan that works for you and your readers.

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‘Month In Review’ Updates

For more articles on writing novels you can check out Writing Historical Novels and Writing Teen Novels.

You can connect with Steve Rossiter on Facebook or on Google+.

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Writing Novels in Australia
www.writingnovelsinaustralia.com

Apr 28

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Starting A Novel With A Great First Sentence, by Ben Marshall

It’s often said that the first sentence is crucial to get readers (and potential agents and publishers) hooked.   I’m sure a good first sentence helps, but what follows is what really counts. That said, a lot of picture can be painted with just a few brushstrokes.

“The seller of lightning rods arrived just ahead of the storm.”
Ray Bradbury’s classic, Something Wicked This Way Comes, starts with some Bradbury genius - tension, era and intrigue painted in one stroke.

“There are plenty would call her a slut for it.”
Margo Lanagan’s start to Tender Morsels hints at her narrator’s education and background, at the theme of sex, and raises intrigue about what ‘it’ might be.
“I was sitting outside the Commodore’s mansion, waiting for my brother Charlie to come out with news of the job.”
Patrick De Witt makes an unassuming start to The Sister’s Brothers with a sentence that sets up the brothers’ relationship and gives a mild sense of intrigue.

“The Austrian horses glinted in the moonlight, their riders standing tall in the saddle, swords raised.”
That’s by Scott Westerfeld from the first in his Leviathan series.  A few brief brushstrokes to give you a sense of place, theme and tension.  He promises war, and that’s what you get.

“Quentin did a magic trick.  Nobody noticed.”
With those sentences, Lev Grossman begins his novel, The Magicians, with hooks that establish character and the self-deprecating tension of the first-person narration.

“I had just come to accept that my life would be ordinary when extraordinary things began to happen.”
Ransom Riggs begins his tale, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, with this first line.  It hints at intrigue, but it’s exposition rather than action, especially as he doesn’t follow immediately it up with an example of an ‘extraordinary thing’.

“I belong to Mister Splinter’s circus.  I do the murders.”
That’s the first line from my unpublished novel, The Pricking of Thumbs.  I wanted to establish a lot, quickly - generating intrigue, and hinting at the darkness of the novel.

“Conor was awake when it came.
Patrick Ness: A Monster Calls. Simplicity and clarity begin this emotional tale. Trying to squeeze too much into a single first sentence without equally effective follow-up is, obviously, pointless. Each successive sentence must build on the first.

“The smuggler held the bullet between thumb and forefinger, studying it in the weak light of the storeroom.  He smiled sourly.  ‘Just imagine,’ he said. ‘Imagine what this feels like, going through your head.’”
Chris Wooding’s start to the first in his Ketty Jay series, Retribution Falls, drops you into a life-and-death situation, and establishes style and story.

“Jasper Jones has come to my window. I don’t know why, but he has.  Maybe he’s in trouble.  Maybe he doesn’t have anywhere else to go.  Either way, he’s just frightened the living shit out of me.”
Craig Silvey’s novel, Jasper Jones, hints at the ambiguous relationship between the narrator and the subject, is reasonably active and creates intrigue.  It raises more questions than it establishes character or place, but it’s no bad thing for a beginning to make the reader want to know what’s going to happen next.

So far, so Young Adult, which has been my primary focus recently. Turning to other areas…

“All it took was a single glass of orange juice laced with hydrochloric acid.”
Graham Farmelo’s biography of Paul Dirac, The Strangest Man, let’s us know we’re about to embark on a train crash.

“The taxi’s radio was tuned to a classical FM broadcast.”
A low tech start from the deceptively simple, beguiling prose of Haruki Murakami’s IQ84 works to ground the reader in the known world before everything gets surreal.

“He was tall, about fifty, with darkly handsome, almost sinister features; a neatly trimmed moustache, hair turning silver at the temples, and eyes so black they were like the tinted windows of a sleek limousine; he could see out but you couldn’t see in.”
Joe Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

“At a certain village in La Mancha, which I shall not name, there lived not long ago one of those old-fashioned gentlemen who are never without a lance upon a rack, an old target, a lean horse, and a greyhound.”
The sublime Cervantes’ Don Quixote.

“In the long unfurling of his life, from tight-wound kid hustler in a wool suit riding the trains out of Cheyenne to geriatric limper in this spooled-out year, Mero had kicked down thoughts of the place where he began, a so-called ranch on strange ground at the south hinge of the Big Horns.”
Annie Proulx expects readers to focus hard with her first sentence of The Half-Skinned Steer, which is perhaps a tad shorter than her usual start. Her dense prose obliged me to re-read it three times. Is it effective to make the reader work harder? Not so much for commercial fiction perhaps, but rich prose requires a different mind-set and provides different rewards.

If we’re looking at contemporary commercial novels - especially for YA and genre fiction - then we’ve got a clear pattern for the opening lines; signal clearly to the reader that they’ve begun a story that will go somewhere interesting, raise intrigue and perhaps expectations, hint at the flavour or style of the storytelling, say something about the character of the narrator or protagonist, hint at the world they’re in, and don’t waste a word.

If we’re looking at literary fiction, pretty much anything goes because, arguably, the reader is already more committed than genre readers and, as mentioned, seeks slightly different rewards.

Whether we choose a workmanlike row of words or create sentences that shine like a distant torch guiding us from our quiet place of reading to a land of adventure, the story is the thing.

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Ben Marshall’s author website: www.benmarshall-wordpirate.com

Ben Marshall’s bio page

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Writing Novels in Australia
www.writingnovelsinaustralia.com

Apr 20

4 Comments

The Business Of Being A Novelist, by Helene Young

I recently read an excellent post on Rock Your Writing about how to sell your books without annoying the heck out of all and sundry. (It’s laugh-out-loud entertaining.) While I’m not going to comment on the ins and outs of using social media to sell books the post did make me ponder the whole idea of being a published author and all the skills that entails.

Has it ever been enough to simply write a unique and compelling story? I suspect not. In today’s climate with the debate raging over the longevity of books and traditional publishing versus self-publishing it’s even more crucial that a writer has a game plan.

Years ago my husband and I looked into buying a Brumby’s Bakery Franchise. We started a Queensland Government small business course and lasted two weeks. The paperwork, the regulations and the red tape were enough to make me weep. The one thing I did learn was the importance of knowing your product and sticking to a budget.

As a writer you are both product and producer, so you have two briefs to write for your business plan. Before you can do that, however, think about defining what it is you want from your writing career.

Is it fame and fortune and a place on the New York Times bestseller list like Stephenie Meyer? Is it truckloads of money like JK Rowling? Do you want to earn enough money to pay some bills and allow yourself to loll about in PJs (and drink too much coffee…)? Do you write for the sheer pleasure of putting words on pages and evoking powerful emotions in your readers? Or do you write because the characters simply won’t leave you alone until you tell their story?

Let’s base this discussion on the premise you want to see your book published and you want to make some money – whatever the amount. Once you’ve written your book you have to put on your salesperson’s hat, with its bells and whistles, because when you’re pitching to an agent you’re selling your personal qualities, along with your work, so that they can on-sell this to a publisher. It’s kind of like a wholesale market.

Once your book is published you are then selling to your readers. That’s the retail end of the business. If you’re planning to self-publish then you’re skipping the first step and increasing the amount of work you’ll need to do in the second step.

I know selling isn’t easy, as I did one of those gigs trying to flog discount cards at the Brisbane Ekka when I was fresh out of school. Swallowing glass would have been easier. The good news is that when you’re passionate about something, and as writers it’s all about passion, then it’s a little easier to sell your stories. Most of us struggle with the me, me, me, part of selling ourselves, but if you plan it right you can let other people do that me, me, me’ing for you.

There are numerous blogs about ways to increase your presence in social media and in the public gaze. Joanna Penn’s blog has some excellent information, so I won’t bore you with my ideas. What I do want to stress is that you need to have a plan with a budget and you need to be realistic.

A budget can be a simple as a word doc with bullet points saying you expect to earn ‘x’ amount of dollars and therefore will spend ‘y’ amount, leaving ‘z’ in your wallet.

In anticipation of a stellar career you could set up a simple spreadsheet, you could invest in a business course, or you could speak to your accountant about establishing a system for taxation. Your accountant should have lots of good advice about tax deductions for writers.

It’s easy to go overboard with promotional products, giveaways, advertisements and attending conferences - probably even more so if you’re self-published. Traditional Australian publishing houses bear the responsibility of advance review copies and selling to bookstores, freeing you up to do blog posts and social media. Either way you need to decide how many of your hard earned dollars you’re prepared to spend. You will have some idea of income if you’ve received an advance. If you’re on a royalty only contract then make a conservative estimate of sales. It’s far better to find extra money at the end than a great big negative…

My husband fondly refers to my writing career as a self-sustaining hobby, as I made the decision to plough most of what I earn from my first three books back into promotional opportunities like attending conventions, conferences and free library talks. That’s an easy choice while I have a day job to pay the bills but it’s not right for everyone.

Whichever path you choose the sooner you have a plan and a budget the sooner you will treat your writing like the business that it is. Writing stories is the fun part. When you put on your business suit, metaphorical or actual, that’s when the hard work begins. So, do yourself a favour and take thirty minutes of your time to write down your business plan for this year, for five years and for the next ten years.

Keep it simple, keep it realistic and then do your best to stick to it.

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Helene Young’s author website: www.heleneyoung.com

Helene Young’s bio page

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Writing Novels in Australia
www.writingnovelsinaustralia.com

Apr 19

8 Comments

How Long Does It Take To Write A Novel? by Onil Lad

I’ve stopped beating myself up over how long it is taking to finish my novel. It’s counterproductive and, anyway, there have been so many obstacles in the way. Just when I build up a head of steam, I get super busy at work, or I get roped into training for a marathon or some new challenge pops its head up.

Word counting is off the agenda as well. I’ve tried to write a novel in a month or fifty thousand words in fifty days. The one time I forced myself to write regardless of what came out, I ended up with a mess. The time was wasted, there was next to nothing that could be salvaged and it took me a long time to pick up the pieces and start again.

With a short story it’s easier to keep the motivation going, as I always have a work in progress that is nearing completion or something sent off and awaiting feedback. I feel like I am in the mix; there isn’t enough downtime for the doubts to set in and one failure doesn’t make me want to give up altogether.

Writing a novel can take six months, a year or, in my case, longer. The thought of throwing in the towel grows greater as the years roll by. If I was to call it quits now, I don’t think that I‘d have the heart to start again.

When I’ve spent so much time on one project, I want my story down on the page, but there’s less chance of that happening if I try to force it out. Also, I’m conscious of the fact that I need to get this one right and include all the things I ever wanted to say.

So, I’m not rushing it. I’ve gone back to the beginning and started re-writing my early chapters. I know that it is only a first draft and a fair chunk of it will have to be cut at some stage but, as I rewrite, I keep refining my manuscript.

To keep my motivation up I’m considering sending the first few chapters out for review. I’d like to make my first fifty to a hundred pages as good as possible instead of waiting for a complete first draft. As I go back and work on my earlier sections the middle chapters are becoming clearer and are ready for some serious work.

I recently came across an interview with multiple Hugo award winning author Vernor Vinge: When asked why the time between books is so long, he claimed that he has had writers block since 1960 and he finds it hard to write first drafts. He says “Once I have an initial draft, I can work much more efficiently.”

This gives me hope. On the other hand, I’ve also read a discussion on the Authonomy community board where one writer has been trying to write fantasy for over thirty years without finishing one project. Gulp.

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Onil Lad’s bio page