How to Write a Novel

How To Write a Novel © 2013 by Nathan Bransford

All rights reserved.

Published by Nathan Bransford at Smashwords

www.nathanbransford.com

eBook License Notes:

You may not use, reproduce or transmit in any manner, any part of this book without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations used in critical articles and reviews, or in accordance with federal Fair Use laws. All rights are reserved.

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only; it may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to your eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

2nd Edition: October, 2019

Cover Design by Mari Sheibley

Interior Design by D. Robert Pease, walkingstickbooks.com

Published in the United States of America

In the years since I first published How to Write a Novel, I struggled to write a new novel.

I mean struggled. I wrote dozens of pages that went nowhere. I would have a burst of inspiration, only to find myself hopelessly stuck. Years ticked by. Gray hairs took up residence on my head. I began to lose faith that I would ever write a novel again.

It did not help that I had recently published a guide to writing a novel, which sold far more copies than I had ever imagined when I placed it for sale in my local mega-selling online bookstore behemoths. The irony of being someone who told other people how to write a novel while being unable to write one was not lost on me.

Well, dear reader, I recently finished the novel. And, in truth, the words in this guide helped sustain me throughout this painful process.

You see, I wrote these chapters as much for myself as for you, to remind myself of what I should be doing when my novel was not cooperating and writing itself. It is not easy to follow the advice contained herein, even (especially?) for the person dispensing the advice. But, when I needed to remember how to get back in the saddle after a long break, what I might be forgetting while revising, or what in the world I said about reversals, I cracked open these pages to remind myself what to do.

So it comes from the heart when I say that this guide is personal and meaningful to me, and I can only hope it will be to you, as well.

This new edition contains two entirely new rules and many polished and updated chapters, which were influenced heavily by the work I’ve been doing editing manuscripts and helping unpublished authors on their publishing journey. I find this work incredibly meaningful, and if you need help with your manuscript, or some guidance on the publishing process, please feel free to reach out to me at [email protected].

Writing novels really is a journey, and there’s never a moment when it starts being easy, even after your books have been published. It’s challenging and arduous and you may often question your life choices, but however difficult the voyage may be, it ultimately leads to a deeper, richer, and more meaningful life.

Thank you for embarking upon this voyage with me!

The first thing you need to know about writing a novel is this: you can do it.

No, really. You can. Lesser people than you have written a novel. I’m not saying they were all good, but they did it. You can, too! And if you read this book, and apply the rules and advice herein, it will probably be pretty good!

I spent eight years reading slush as a literary agent at a century-old agency, so I can say this with authority: you can’t possibly go and write the worst novel ever written. It’s already been done. Don’t even try.

You probably shouldn’t try to write the best novel ever written, either, because the resulting paralysis will turn you into a miserable alcoholic.

Instead, write the novel you want to write. Strive for quality, write something you love, and don’t become a brooding, cafe-squatting malcontent whom people avoid at parties. You will learn a lot from the writing journey, you will be thankful you have written a novel once you’re finished, and humanity may thank you for shutting yourself inside long enough to write something that brings meaning and entertainment to the world.

You can do this.

Proof: I did it! I once harbored major doubts about whether I could really write a novel. Then I went and wrote one, and it didn’t get published; then, I really doubted whether I could write a novel. But I had another idea, I wrote a new novel, I found an agent, and the end result was the Jacob Wonderbar series. What’s more, I wrote the series while maintaining a more-than full-time job. I didn’t even get fired.

If I can do it, you can do it. But you have to want it.

There will come a time in the course of writing a novel where you would rather rip off your toenails and light them on fire than write one more word. This is normal.

There will be days when scrubbing your floor with a toothbrush will start to sound like a good idea if it means you can avoid writing. There will be days when you will contemplate driving yourself to the nearest mental institution and hurling yourself onto the reception desk because anyone who would devote so much time to writing a novel when the rewards are so uncertain is surely insane.

This is also normal.

This is because writing, when done correctly, is not always fun. If you think writing a novel will be completely fun, you should find another hobby, like playing laser tag on ice skates. Or something. I don’t know what non-writers do with their time.

Writing is not always fun. It shouldn’t always be fun. You’re not doing it because it’s always fun.

The only reason to write a novel is because you have some insane fire burning inside that years of therapy have been unable to extinguish and you fear how disappointed you will be with yourself if you never do it. Or, you know, because you really, really want to do it.

You have to want it. You have to work at it. You have to be able to write when the weather is teasing you with its pleasantness and when your friends are merrily drinking bottomless mimosas without you because they are happy non-writing jerks.

It’s hard. It really is. But, again, you can do this.

You, the person who may not always have had the best work ethic. You, the person who wonders whether they’re really creative enough to think up enough ideas for a whole novel. You, the person who thinks the whole thing seems magical and impossible. You, the person with the nagging voice in your head that says, why do I want to do this again? You, the person who feels like they never have the time. You can write a novel.

And if you’ve already written a novel, you can learn to write an even better one.

Here’s how.

The first step in writing a novel is deciding what in the heck you’re going to write about.

There are many horrible reasons for choosing what to write about, but there is only one correct reason.

The horrible reasons are almost always variations of one basic and colossal mistake: choosing a particular idea because you think it will make you mountains of money.

Visions of endless mahogany bookshelves, of sparkling blingety bling, and of being featured in the New York Times Book Review with the headline Wunderkind motivate writers to do many ill-advised things, but perhaps the worst is when they cause writers to chase trends. Take this one to heart: if you’re chasing a trend (vampires! post-apocalyptic!), you’re already too late. (See Rule #7 if you are feeling particularly stubborn on this point.)

Avarice is what motivates people to write in genres they don’t particularly like. It pushes them to choose ideas that they don’t love enough to make it all the way through the writing of the novel. It’s what makes an already difficult process completely impossible.

Let’s get this out of the way: you’re not going to make mountains of money writing books. You’re not. You’re really, really not.

Okay. Well. Some of you will make mountains of money, but you’re most certainly not going to make mountains of money if you are setting out to try and make mountains of money.

The only reason for choosing something to write about is because you love the crap out of the idea.

When you’re choosing an idea for a novel, you’re choosing something you are going to be spending more time with than many of your best friends and your most demanding family members. You’re choosing an idea that will render your bathing habits irregular and your sanity patchy. You’re making a terrifically important decision that will shape the next six months to seventeen years of your life. You have to choose wisely.

In other words, it can’t be an idea you merely like.

Liking an idea will get you to page fifty. It will give you an initial burst of enthusiasm— a dawning feeling of Hemingway’s daiquiri, I can do this!—before you inevitably lose interest, your attention wanders, and you find yourself with an unfinished novel that you feel vaguely embarrassed about.

Liking is not enough.

You have to love the idea of your novel. Or if not your plot idea, then your main character, your setting, or some part of your novel that will sustain you through painful bouts of self-doubt and distraction.

How do you get to love?

Well, it’s tricky. Here are some ways not to choose your idea.

Don’t listen to what other people say you should write about

It has become a fashionable conversational crutch to reward a particularly funny or gruesome anecdote, such as a harrowing encounter with baggage claim or an apocalyptic string of bad dates, with the words, OMG, you should totally write a book about that.

Do not listen to these people. Unless the person telling you to write a book about that is a publishing professional, assume the person uttering these words is merely being polite and is not looking out for your best writerly interests.

Do not write the novel you think you should write

Maybe you grew up in an interesting locale. Maybe you’ve had a Dickensian biography. Maybe your ability to dress kittens in capes is hailed far and wide.

Set it aside. You’re not going to get to your best idea by marking off checklists or by applying an algebraic equation to your life that goes, I experienced X, and it was rather intense, so therefore I will use it as inspiration to write about Y.

That’s not to say that your real life can’t influence your central idea and the contents of your novel. After all, what’s the point of writing a novel if not to settle old grudges by taking veiled swipes at people who have wronged you? But it’s important to stop yourself from chasing after an idea by shaking your biography like a piggy bank to see what shiny things fall out. If this happens naturally, and you love an idea that is based on your own life, then absolutely go for it. Just don’t do it out of a sense of obligation or because it is the default choice when you fail to think of something else.

You’re not going to find your idea with a formula, and it’s not going to be immediately self-evident. It has to come to you.

Do not try to think of an idea so unbelievably original it has never even remotely been thought of before

I get it. You don’t want to imitate. You want to chart new ground and be the most brilliantly original writer the literary world has ever seen.

Good luck.

Sure, maybe you’re a once-in-a-generation visionary who can conceive of whole genres that have somehow eluded the billions of people who have lived on this planet before you.

But you’re probably not. No offense.

Besides, even if completely new ideas weren’t logistically borderline impossible, they are also highly overrated. There were wizard schools before Harry Potter. There were mystical lands before The Lord of the Rings. There were helicopters with dorky names before Fifty Shades of Grey.

You don’t need to chase trends, but neither do you need a completely off-the-wall