The Absolute Basics – Anyone Can Write
Anyone can write. Even writing a novel sounds easy at first. In theory you: Write a word. Add a few more and you have a sentence. Write more sentences. Turn those sentences into a paragraph. Add some dialog occasionally. Write more paragraphs. Turn those paragraphs into a scene, or even a chapter. Write more chapters. Group those chapters into plot arcs, three being a good average. When you've written to the point where several major plot arcs have been resolved and the story doesn't need to keep going, your novel is done.
But trying to finish a novel, whether for NaNoWriMo or at your own pace, can quickly become a test of willpower. Once you sit down, what words do you write? What sentences can you form that won’t be the same as those other sentences you wrote last time? Are your paragraphs too long, or too short? Should you go back and fix up your work from the day before? What’s going to happen in this novel anyway?
So the doubts emerge, the words won’t come, and the empty page remains empty. People often call this writer’s block, and it’s one reason why so few people become writers even though, as I claim, anyone can write. In this article I give a brief overview of practices I have used to finish novels. This article is for all the people who have started a novel with every intention of finishing it, and who somewhere along the way lost the will.
The Energy To Write – Being Pulled By Hooks
Many times I have lacked the energy to write. But trying to force that energy to write is backwards – we write because we have energy. I believe writing energy is interest. You have to fall in love with your story, and writers might need some degree of monogamy. The story must be something you would drive a thousand miles to see, because metaphorically that's exactly what you will be doing. If you stop writing one story, it could be some part of you has lost interest in the project. So start a new project, or try smaller projects, or different modes of writing. Whatever you do, don't stop writing.
Everyone has story ideas, and creative types often have many, but we don't all become writers. We have our ideas for stories, but we haven't fallen in love with the story yet. Ideas are worthless until you find the hook, the thing you can fall in love with and which pulls you along. A hook can be almost anything. A meeting of two characters, an especially dramatic scene, a clever line of dialogue. You should have many hooks, so after you reach one you'll always have the next to pull you along. But an idea is not a hook. You can spot hooks because they make you want to write, not later or someday or when you have time, but now. And in the process of being pulled by that hook, an idea can and should change.
Whenever you get a story idea, write it down so you won't have to worry about it vanishing from your head. Back when I was learning to write, I came up with a ton of ideas and all of them are in my Ideas document. But I don't look at that document anymore, because now I write based on hooks. Just like ideas, hooks can come to you at your job, while you're in the shower, before you fall asleep, anywhere. Oddly enough, often not when writing. Be prepared to write when you think of a hook.
The other day I was up late, drastically in need of sleep and with work the next day … but there was a piece of writing forming in my head and I couldn't fall asleep. So I stayed up for an hour, wrote as much of it as I could, and finished it over the next few days. It's not even that the stuff I wrote while sleep deprived was any good, I ended up re-writing most of it. But I had to get it out of my head so I could go to sleep, and it become the seed for the piece.
Setting Goals That Work
There's a quote I follow, “A writer is someone who has written today.” One way to read that quote is the sense in which anyone can be a writer. There is nothing special or unique or impossible about being a writer. If you wrote today, you were a writer. You might not be a writer tomorrow, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Also the quote helps clarify what kind of writing you should do. If you want to write a novel but you spent the day writing poetry, then today you were a poet and not a novelist. Do what you wish to be.
The main reason I keep that quote is this: If you want to be a writer, you need to write every day. That doesn’t include reading your writing from the day before, drawing up character relation webs, or planning where the story will go. You can do all that stuff, but it doesn't count. Neither do the secondary requirements of being a writer such as reading and learning about writing. Those are essential, but they're not writing. Writing every day does include writing a few decent sentences, or writing an entire page then deleting it, or writing dialogue for a chapter far in the future. If you write every day for a month you could have a chapter, and easily complete a novel after a year.
Set tough but realistic goals when you have something specific to accomplish. Many people work full time and do writing on the side, yet they can still: sit down every day and write for an hour, or do whatever it takes to write one thousand words a day, or five thousand words a week, or one chapter a month. To keep yourself honest, upload that work to DA; you'll be more focused if you've promised to do something others can see. If you miss the goal one week, work harder to meet the goal next week. You might have to lose a little sleep to meet your goal, or give up some fun activities. That’s the reality of writing when there are only so many hours in a day. You have to love writing more than (personal example) video games, maybe even give them up. You can go back to them later, if you still want to by then.
Goal setting is difficult, but necessary. And not every goal will be right for you. If you set a goal of one thousand words a day but only manage to get three hundred on average, anyone would start to feel discouraged. But you still wrote three hundred words. You are still a writer. So for now, make three hundred words your daily goal. As you learn, maybe your daily average will increase. More likely though is you have to live with that pace and somehow find more time to write. Some writers are slower, but they still write novels.
Organic Growth – Write Like An RP
The rumor goes that role-playing games are the secret handshake in Hollywood. That the writers, actors, and probably everyone from the directors to craft services play some kind of tabletop pen and paper game. Role playing games are all about creating a character, placing that character in dramatic situations, keeping that character believable in their world, following the rules of that world to survive, and above all else having a good time.
When writing, you are essentially leading your audience through an adventure like the game master of a role playing game. So why not imagine yourself as that game master, with a group of players all fully immersed in their interesting characters? What can you do to keep the players (and you) engaged in the game? Throw challenges at them, allow them time to talk and recover, reward them when appropriate and always give their actions consequences. With a character-focused story, let the characters do what they would naturally do and have dramatic things happen around them. Tell stories that are fun for you and your audience – and there is a wide variety of what makes a story fun.
Thinking about writing this way can help you get a fresh perspective. It’s also fun and easy to practice. If you don’t do role playing games yet, get a group of friends together and try them. Write a deep character backstory, contribute to the world’s lore, or try being the game master. Better yet, join or start an online role playing post-by-post game. The rules there might be loose or nonexistent, but that makes it closer to most writing. You won’t be able to control the story like you can as a writer, but learning to give up control is important so a story won’t feel forced or on rails.
Add A Character / Ingredient
Think of writing as cooking. The story is your kitchen, and you can use anything to create your dish. Characters are your ingredients. Keep your favorite character types on hand at all times, and soon you'll know how best to use them. Try new character types occasionally to keep your stories fresh. Focus on your main characters, place them in a sturdy setting, and use just enough spice. When everything is in, put a lid on and let the story stew for a while. Some stories need heat and pressure, while others can simply be thrown together. Experiment with your personal stories, and attempt your best writing for others.
When a story feels slow and plodding along, add a character. When a story is starting to bore you, add a character. When a story needs something and you don't know what, add a character. New characters might bring out a subtle theme, add something that was missing in hindsight, or change the entire dynamic of your cast. When a story is too peaceful, add instigators that will cause trouble. When your cast is breaking apart, add a character that will glue them together. Every character added should have some purpose though, contributing to the whole story. If you don't know the purpose yet, you might soon find out when they tell you.
Craft Your Frame To Keep Things Interesting
All stories take place within a frame, and every part of a story is a frame. Paragraphs frame single ideas, scenes frame plot points, chapters frame themes, and novels frame all of these and more. Writers carefully craft each frame to brings meaning to a story. In the best stories, every single word brings something needed into a frame. Anything else gets cut. Everything between the beginning and the ending, and from the revealed background to the implied future, is in the frame.
Since crafting your story with framing is so important, adding unnecessary moments inside the frame will weaken the story. It is possible, but not likely, for the contents of a frame to be too sparse. Rather, most stories are too messy. Scenes that don’t contribute to a character, or characters that don’t contribute to the theme, or themes that don’t contribute to the story. Even experienced writers add too much at first, but they know how to cut those unnecessary elements in editing. We grow attached to our favorite elements, but the unnecessary elements within one frame can be removed to a more fitting frame. If something is really good, it should get its own story anyway.
Thinking about frames also allows you to move things around inside them for greater effect. Maybe you wrote a scene organically before, but switching a few paragraphs around allows you to transition to the next scene easier. The ordering inside a frame can be just as important as the content. You are writing a story above all else, and so events should happen in a way that has meaning.
Dealing With Emotions and Fears
Sometimes there are serious things holding a writer back. There are times in a writer’s life when they shouldn’t be a writer today. After a serious trauma, after a death, when they are angry or depressed. Some people do write as a means of therapy, but there are many ways to recover. Instead of being a writer today, be a friend, a parent or a sibling.
But when life is going okay, consider the far more common and less serious things that may hold you back from writing. Perhaps a subconscious suspicion that your story isn't really that great after all, or even knowing the story is bad, or a fear that you can't do a great story justice. Whichever it is, accept it and move on. An idea may not be great, but you can make it great in the writing. Pursuing a bad idea can still be great practice for an eventual good idea. Maybe you can't do the great idea justice, but doing it half justice is better than not trying at all.
These less serious things that commonly hold writers back tend to revolve around pride. Writers want to write something amazing, but that's the problem. We need to write something terrible and learn from it. When you can’t write anything else, try writing something full of bad cliches, overused tropes and purple prose. Writing badly on purpose, when you know it is bad, is one way to practice writing well.
Ending A Novel ...
It's never too soon to start thinking about how your novel will end. You don't need anything specific, but keep the ending on your mind as you write. To have an impact on the reader, endings should mirror or reflect the beginning, showing how the characters have grown or emphasizing how they haven't. Write your beginning with an ending in mind. When you're lost somewhere in the middle of the novel, you can use that ending for ideas on how to proceed.
When you are finished, go back to a normal sleep schedule. Start doing the fun activities you had to temporarily give up, if you still think of them as important compared to writing. Tough writing goals are just tools. Writers use them when they have a specific project to complete, changing them as necessary, however works best to complete the project. To continue writing great novels, writers must embrace flourishing as a person.
... And Starting The Next
So you’ve finished your novel. But you don't want to write one long novel, you want to write a whole series of them, the classic trilogy perhaps. So save everything you wrote for the first story and threw out, because it might be useful in the next story. Note down any hooks in the first novel that can connect to the next. Go ahead and write a vague series outline, but don't get attached to it. You never know how editing the first might impact the second, or how writing the second might impact the third.
There are hundreds of ways to become a writer, and writing novels are one of the hundreds of ways to continue being one. Try writing short stories, which I think of as the building blocks of novels. Participate in contests to see how your writing stacks up against others. Diversify your skills with script writing, non-fiction and poetry. Keep a document on hand where you can write daily. And after you’ve done your daily writing, try critiquing the stories that others write. Write guides to share your insights on writing with others.
My Collection Of Don’t
Professional writers seem to write incredibly fast, but that’s because they're always writing. I don’t worry when writing takes me a long time. Like most artistic skills, writing takes longer to do well the better you get at it. I'm not getting worse, I'm getting better and that slower pace of progress is the proof. Never underestimate the time necessary to write well.
A story is an arc from beginning to end, and arcs require planning. But I don't pre-plan to the point where the story isn't interesting to me anymore. I allow myself fun surprises. At some point, deciding beforehand how each scene will go makes it harder to actually write. Most of the time, the organically written prose will reveal problems in the outline. An outline is easier and better in your head than prose could ever be, but prose is what people want to read.
These days we have many ways to alleviate the mental boredom of necessary waiting or mundane tasks. As someone who dislikes being bored I've tried them all – video games, music, podcasts – but I don't need to distract myself now. I've learned that boredom is an often-unrecognized key to unlocking creativity. When I'm bored is when hooks come to me, when the way to write forward on my current project will pop into my head, what that missing element will appear. Recharge your creative juices by allowing yourself to be bored.
Stories often center on the emotional growth and transformations of characters. But if I write them one way, I don't expect them to easily change. If I write one character to be a tough, no-nonsense warrior, I don’t expect them to easily cry when I need them to cry. If I write a character to be a coward, I don’t expect them to be brave without some big incentives. I wrote my characters the way they are, and I have to live with that or show why they change. Fighting your characters will make the story more difficult to write.
I don’t take enjoyment from not writing. If I had a difficult time writing one day and told people about my writer’s block, they might try to cheer me up and tell me that everything will be okay. If those internet hugs feel good, that’s taking enjoyment out of not writing. My writer’s block might persist, might become chronic, if I get rewarded for it. Rather than that ten word status update, write ten words of your story.
Being tired may lower my inhibitions and make the writing feel easier. But I don’t let myself become sleep deprived to help me write. That would lower the quality of my writing and give myself more to re-write the next day. If I have to become impaired to write, there are deeper problems. To write your best, be at your best.
In Summary
In summary, anyone can complete their long storytelling projects. Doing so will require falling in love with your story and focusing yourself completely, so set tough writing goals, try new perspectives on writing and write toward hooks not ideas. If you still can’t write, consider what fears and bad practices might be holding you back. Other than that, there's always practical advice: take breaks, do exercise, spend time with friends, eat better and drink more water. Keep writing, keep reading, and keep learning about writing.
