Writing a novel..

I have failed about 3 times but I hope to try again. The last attempt was a long time ago. I am really glad it never got finished or published! I once read that you should think hard before starting, about whether the main character is 1st or 2nd person, whether it's going to be in past or present tense. because those 2 things are the hardest to adapt if you change your mind. I was using a word processor at the time and didn't believe this, I thought it was just a matter of replacing words. Idiot! I changed back and forwards between 'I'and 'she' a few times. I decided the past tense sounded too formal. The present tense meant I couldn't switch smoothly between periods of time. Oh and I changed everyone's names. The atmosphere got weaker and weaker. It was the worst half a novel I ever read.

Wow! I am suprised to find so many people who are just writing like I started a couple of months back. I have never written Anything, save over large assignments for College, and I do not have an extensive English background. That aside I work full-time and spend my time travelling to,and from work writing out my little story. I have seen many articles and books that have said that you must create a structure first or a novel wont work. I highly disagree with this concept for the average person who thinks more creativly than those who think in a linear fashion. Pursonally I spend lots of time making notes in little note-books on how a think characters in the story would respond to certain situations. Then I see if those situations can be shown, or included, as part of the plot. Even in my head the plot changes quite often and has flip-flopped completely at least three times in the last month or so. But I am happy with the progress I have made and am not thinking of publishing at all untill I have a friend read it and say, "this is damn good!" then I might consider showing a proffesional. Just my two sense! I like taking a break from writing and comming back to it when I have done something else creative. I find that it's not the story that's not meeting my expectations but rather my need to write hastily that makes me mis details sometimes. Good Thread Thanks All!

i wish i knew how ... i get stuck at about 20k words each time ... mish mash is my problem i've been told ... i need structure ...

Hi All, My main dreams and ambitiousness is writing,either short story or a script, anything of a value in reading.Out of all,I get lost somewhere and someplace in starting my story.Infact I have no factual events to summarise or give it a lengthy description.And even if,after recalling,find it inadequate to make a story.Can someone push me to start at least few paragraphs. [%sig%]

Here are my thoughts.......I am in the middle of writing my first novel. I am about 45,000 words in and plan on getting to 80,000 by the end. The entire first draft will take about 6 months, and then another 6 months for editing, etc... Here are my suggestions.... 1) When you have an idea.....START WRITING....don't try and write the whole thing in your head first 2) Do not set daily goals, set weekly goals. It works out better, trust me. 3) When you write 10,000 words or so, go back through the draft and fluff it up a bit. By now you have a better idea of where you want the story to go, so now is a good time to "fix" some things early on. 4) Keep a timeline of ALL characters. You do not want to have a guy die in chapter 4, and then have him sipping a Latte in chapter 7 5) Entrust ONE and ony ONE person to be your official reader. Let them tell you what makes sense and what doesn't. If you let too many people read, it will confuse you. MORE TO COME

I've been working on a novel for about four months now and I've reached the point where I'm starting to lag att he workload I've got ahead of me. I've got 65000 words so far and still cant see the end in sight. i know whats going to happen in the end but if i follow the plan I've got right now then its going to be crawling towards 180000. and that cant be good. I've been working ridiculous hours recently, the last three or four weeks, and havent been able to do as much as i would like. I'm still thinking about it but I'm wondering what I can do to get the juices flowing again and make the characters less stilted at this point.

C Mainwaring I found your post very inspiring and heart warming! Thankyou. I agree with you about self-publishing, for me, the elation that would come if a publisher decided my novel was good enough is something I am very much looking forward to. I first started writing my first novel in my teens, I didn't have a computer so a friend used to let me visit her house so I could borrow hers. Heavily pregnant I got alot of my novel done just blindly writing away. However, once the baby finding time to write became harder and harder, nine years later I am picking up where I finished and I feel now is the right time. The idea for the novel has been with me for so long I feel she's an old friend who I haven't seen for a while. Now I see the sense in planning. Having found my writing style which has taken years and which is something I think should be first mastered, I can't just blindly write. I need structure and organisation. I need to know alot of information about my main characters, before I write about their lives I need to know them. I have written alot of detail down about the main characters, their personalities, appearance etc just like describing a person in real life only I know their thoughts and feelings. An excellent tip which is working well is to do an outline of the novel. It's called 1-30. By writing down the numbers on an A4 sheet of paper the first few chapters, middle and a possible ending gives you an idea of where you are aiming for rather than being completely blind. Eventually or as you feel inspired all the numbers can be filled in and before you know it you have have a novel. With a small child and working full-time finding the time has been hard but I have decided that I am a lark and write for 2 hours a day. This doesn't seem alot but it is all I can manage. I get up at 5am and write until 7am. Writing when the mood strikes me hasn't worked in the past, I have ended up producing nothing, by starting to write I have found I 'get into it' even if I didn't particuarly feel in the mood beforehand. By regularly I have found that I have begun to 'think' of my story (novel) throughout the day and if an idea comes into my head I write it down quickly, good advice is to never rely on memory! I hope these tips help, they're certainly helping me. At the moment I'm not sure how long it will take me to complete but I am very happy knowing I am working towards completing it.

Well I've written four - not that I'm published or anything and the first one I wrote was when i was 15. At the moment I'm trying to get a fifth one out but am having difficulty in coming up with a co-herent structure which I think I can sustain over at least 30,000 words. As far as I know the minimum should be about 30,000 for a small book. The first one I wrote I just thought of the most simple, basic plot going, came up with a cast of names, a beginning and an end and then just wrote until the beginning got to the end. I suppose everyone is different. The last one I wrote took me about five years but then I had no plan or anything - I just wrote, re-wrote, revised etc until i had something I was pleased with and it's only about 27,000 words. The next one I'm trying to do has an idea, or a few ideas, some characters but no end. My advice is as long as you have an end and don't change the end then you should be OK. Just write. I still find the most difficult thing is the opening line. Good luck.

Thanks Dazzle. I think I'm just gonna write lots of inter-relating stuff and then throw it all together, and go from there. I'd still be really grateful to hear anyone else's comments/tips/ideas etc though.

My first-ever solo novel (unpublished) -- I set myself a limit of 90,000 (not set in stone or anything) then committed myself to writing 1000 a day. I think it's a good idea to work out at least vaguely where it's going. That means you can go, 'right, well, I'm 30,000 in so I should be about a 1/3 of the way through the story'. But don't worry if it ends up going in a completely different direction. The important thing is that you end up with something that's about the length you're aiming for, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. I think it's a good idea to try and get it done as quickly as possible -- you have to write even when you you know you're writing crap, secure in the knowledge that you can rewrite to your heart's content. (Haven't done the rewrite on mine yet, I'm working on something else!)

Goodness! Has anyone thought of taking a writing course? How about buying books on your craft? That's the way I learned, and I have already placed a novel with an agent. The way this column looks now, it's like the blind leading the blind! Please, study your craft and WRITE! Aida

I completed my first novel in approx. two months. It contained 96,000 words and I have since rewritten it after finding so many errors. In between I have written another four. I used to write 5,000 words per day and then slink off to the pub but nowadays I have toned down slightly. I suppose it's quality and not quantity that counts as I've as yet had nothing published. I start off with the beginning and ending in my head and the rest falls into place as I go along. I have no problem conceiving a plot, it's just finding the right words. Anyway after my first year of writing I've achieved more than I could have hoped for and look forward to my next year.

Finishing it is the thing - I tried for ages, finally finished one and then knocked out three. All terrible, before I finally realised that I prefer short stories. I think the best thing is to just cut to a new scene when you get stuck and come back to fix the tricky bits later. I find with novels that my head just gets full of pedantic stuff about how exactly someone would do something. I think it was Ben Elton who said about writing, "it takes me thirty pages to get my character out of a room" and there's some truth in that. Write four short stories and work out how they connect ?

I am writing a novel too. I tend to write when I want but the trouble with that, is the characters tend to go stale. To Hulsey, who writes 5,000 a day. How do you manage that? That's about 6 pages, is it? I'm lucky if I can do 1.000 and that is why my novel seems to be taking ages to write. Do you work as well as write? I work full-time and am always tired when I get home! When I forsee my plot, I tend to get flashes of narration, dialogue, snatches of situation and then re-think it in my mind till I have a coherent story. I think if that didn't happen, I wouldn't be a writer. I usually see the ending and just work to that. I never, ever do an outline of the plot and prefer to just go along with whatever is in my head at the time. This might work for you, it might not. But I know what's going to happen to my protaganist and sometimes this changes. I wish you luck, anyway. I'm sure you'll succeed if you really want it to happen. That thought keeps me sane!

Well, I might be the only American looking at this, but not quite sure. Don't hate me if I am, it's only by birth, not by choice. The way I write is almost frightening. Most say you should write a certain amount every day. I wish I had that sort of discipline. Most of the work on my writing I do on a daily basis is simply proof-reading and trying to find better ways of phrasing things. I guess I am a poet at heart and want the words to sound like the moment of the story as much as possible. When I do actually write, it comes in a massive rush that I often find myself putting down far into the wee hours of the morning, and at times straight on through to the wee hours of the afternoon, depending on the inspiration. I guess this might be a sure sign as to why I can only get then novel I've been pushing around to about 23,000 words. I think perhaps Hemingway might have given some good advice, though. Never write drunk, and write until all you know is what happens next. If you write until you don't know what happens next, your story will turn out badly, as he would say. though, I guess i've come to believe that he didn't necessarily always follow his own advice, as some of his novels were absolute crap.

Yes Karen I work full time but my excellent shift pattern goes something like this. Four twelve hour shifts on and four shifts off. Every seven weeks I get eighteen days off. All in all I end up working four months of the year. Not bad eh? That's actually the reason I started to write, I have so much spare time. As I said I've toned down a wee bit now as my eyes are suffering. Anyway, it's not quantity that counts, it's quality. Good luck with the novel Karen.

Karen, As part of my uni course at the moment we get extra-curricular courses with a writer. The woman we have has encouraged us to write for whatever amount of time, straight off, with no stopping - she says that's the way she writes (her novels), then the real time is spent rewriting. I've found that approach incredibly helpful in generating a large amount of stuff to work with and on, rather than spending time while I'm writing deliberating on the word or sentence. It may not work for everyone, but worth a try?

Karen, As part of my uni course at the moment we get extra-curricular courses with a writer. The woman we have has encouraged us to write for whatever amount of time, straight off, with no stopping - she says that's the way she writes (her novels), then the real time is spent rewriting. I've found that approach incredibly helpful in generating a large amount of stuff to work with and on, rather than spending time while I'm writing deliberating on the word or sentence. It may not work for everyone, but worth a try?

I don't get all this pish-pash write 1000 words a day. If you're aren't in the writing mood, then you shouldn't sit down and write the thing you are writing, otherwise it just won't come out right. Sure, do some creative writing, but just not on the novel that you're writing. I'm writing a novel kind of thing with a friend at the moment and doing the first with a friend i find is extremly, extremly usefull. You get to talk about it with them and they know exactly what you're going on about, you don't have to spend ages explaining everything because you've been discussing it as the thing progreses. Now, about a year ago structurising stuff wasn't my best ability - but you should try writing all your planning down, your characters and develop them. You know, put some heart and soul into it. become your characters and know what part they will play in your novel. Okay, planning things down to the utmost detail may make the actual writing boring, but you need to plan the thing out... scene by scene, not paragraph by paragraph and chapters can be finalised later, or at least I find that the easiest way. From studying english literature and language I have learnt many things that is sometimes very hard to put into play. I mean - you should not babble. Don't write anything that ain't relevant and keep in mind who this is aimed for. I mean, write a novel which has content suitable for an 18 but has a storyline that would only interest a 12 year old. (i.e. the movie Drop Dead Fred - 15 rated but hardly appealing to that age group). Something that I myself struggle with when writing anything is the flow, the relevance of things. Which is why I like to keep on practising with short stories. You have to discover your novel writing style... whether you're the type who likes to colour up the page with descriptive writing or whether you're a plain matter-or-fact writer who doesn't always dwell on the beauty of a sunset. Write when you're in a good mood, writing in a bad mood, I find personally, that whatever you write always has that emotion of anger, frustration, and any other dark emotion. I find writing when you're in a happy/content mood that writing is more objective and also easier. When writing a long thing there is a possibility that you will encounter writers block... well I'm not going into that as this thing here is long enough (My fault - I babble and usually fly off onto smaller sub-topics), but don't let it get over you.

You should complete an incident a day or complete the writing of a "situation" a day. Each time you go on your desk to write, you should have completed a part of the novel and have felt good about the completion of that part. Label Incidents: "The Breakup." "The Killing." "Zooey's psychotic rampage: her dreams of pummeling King Kong after she is fired." The characters are the vehicles of the content so if the content is "I can't have relationship because I want things to be perfect," you should express how characters are driven mad by the desire for perfection. Your voice may be ironic or even sarcastic, maybe even resigned.

Hey Beef! Like your style, man Yeah..... Don't that.....'crappy first ever novel ' thing, get in the way of writing the damn piece? Oh. By the way. If you write 2000 words a day. You'll end up with 100,000 words in 50 days. I read that in some creative Maths book. I really do, like your style. [%sig%]

Oh Hulsey, it's about time you bought yourself some glasses! What an excuse that is! and your working patterns sound divine. I work 10 to 6 everyday (apart from weekends). Sometimes I want to give up the job and concentrate on the writing but I know if I don't suceed, what happens then? To Beef, I can't really write that way! I seem to have the editor on my shoulder all the time telling me "what a crap sentence that is" and "would she really do that?" How can I combat that? I dunno. Tell my muse to knack him maybe? Now that would be a good fight! Are any of you guys in a writers group or anything? I know this goes off the theme of this forum but I was just curious. I've just joined one here in Leeds but they are more poetry oriented which ain't my thing really. I read my story out last night and it had loads of swearing in it. Some of the members are old (sorry!) and a bit stuffy so I didn't think they were too impressed. But never mind. One woman finds everyones work rubbish (apart from her own, that is). Have you got any tips on what I should say back to her? Some witty one liners please. Right I'm off now; Sorry if I bored you Hulsey & Beef. Why do they call you Beef Beef? Just curious! Bye.xx

It's kind of my 'soul nickname' I think - two completely seperate groups of friends started calling me it because it apparently sounds like Beth (my name). I can't seem to get away from it, so I kinda adopted it, and I like it now (it's endearing, in a kind of meat-related-sense) :-)

yall seem pretty good "it takes me 30 pages to get my characters out of the room" my problem is (espeacially in the biggining) that i want to rush my charachters into to the exciting part and then my book/chapter is scrawny and to small. any ideas?

I agree that working with a co-author is really helpful. But you've got to find someone you can get on with and it's no good if it's someone who dominates you (or the other way around) because then you won't be honest about which way the book should go.

A beautiful, beefy sort of term of endearment. I agree! I am gonna check out your work on the system now beef. I'll let you know what I think. I just posted my first one yesterday so it should be on soon. See ya later Beef :-)

Cool, cheers Karen, will return the favour!

Karen, what's your username? When you search karen, there's about 9 of them! I couldn't see anything that looked like it might be you in the last ten either.

You can find it under Dawson, that's my surname. I don't think my story is on yet - at the time of writing this, anyway (10 past 1). Have you got some stuff on? When I went into yours there was a dedication and nothing else? Is it under something else?

Yeah I do, I have two abc sets. That's strange...

Beef jus go for it ;- It's been my experience to do your own darn thing - what suites one isnt the same for the other. I get up at a stupid time coz I'm best in the mornings. I go along with the 2,000 words a day idea. In two hours I write 2000 - edit 2000 and submit 2000... So on a three day cycle, I have a 37% success rate at that, it seems to work for me. I do feel the most imporant is to get it down on paper, practice makes perfect. The number of professional writers that will tell you they start a novel - finish it then go back to the beginning and start all over... they know anyone get better as the book evolves. Jan

Hi Beef, So, I totally get what you're saying about wanting to write your first novel, I am in pretty much the same position... Anyway, I read some really good advice about sorting out plot etc. - and it can apply to any stage of writing, it's not a pre-requisite that you already have a definite outline for your story - it goes like this: Look at your ideas and ask the following questions: Does your story involve conflicts and motives? Is it original? Take your idea and break it into its constituent parts: person, place, time. Then replot the story using the following combinations: Right person, right place, wrong time. Right person, right time, but wrong place. Right time, right place, but wrong person. I know this sounds a bit tricky and i was completely stumped the first time I tried it, but I am finding it increasingly useful to work out new directions in which my stories - long and short - could go. If nothing else, it leads me onto a new and more exciting tangent... I hope this is of some use. :0)

I started by joining up with a grandma in a different country who was wanting to write a book for her grandson. We had great fun e-mailing our collaborative efforts across the Atlantic. We also fixed a target date by which we should have finished and learned a lot about the process of writing in the process. You see, when we didn't understand what theother had written, we were faced with having to explain ourselves. This is very humbling, especially as the intended recipient of the book was only 10 at the time we started and 12 when we finished the story!

I just plugged "novel writing" into google and found this thread. Nice to know that there's so many budding, frustrated, scared "would-like-to-be" novelists out there, like myself. Interesting, helpful comments all around. I, myself, have not started word one on the great unwritten novel, but it's my dream and I believe at some point I'll take the plunge. To date, I've been working as a copy writer/creative director/account manager for several ad agencies. I went independant in 2000. It pays the bills and I know that I can write. Hell, if I can find drama in a toilet brush, a hearing aid, a bagel, or a skid-steer loader, I should be able to create a little drama when I'm unshackeled to write whatever I please. At least, one would think that. On writing: They say, write what you know. They say, work up an outline first. They say, first just let it out. Writing is a process, revise, revise, revise. They say, writers write, so just do it. What freezes me up: Thinking that I have to write the great American novel. Thinking that I have to write what someone else will want to read. Or more to the point, is willing to pay for...before they read. Why would someone want to read what I wrote anyway? What encourages me: Every writer faces the blank page with the same thought: this time I will fail. Writers are in charge of content and style. Editors are there to help you not look stupid. To all the writers out there...may we all be published and appreciated...before we die. [%sig%]

I'm currently about 2/3 of the way through my first novel. I have been planning it for years now, but that is because I'm a perfectionist who keeps re-editing the plot line millions of times, filling in the background (the book's fantasy, and I've got to the point on the background-world where I have drawn plans for every building that is vaguely important, invented three languages with too much grammar and know the life histories of every character backwards) and doing far too much of everything but writing. I decided that I was jsut hanging around because I was too scared of writing something crumy after all the effort I'd put in, so I sat down and wrote. Lots. I'm now on pg.200 or so, after a few months, and that is w/ things like coursework. Whoever invented coursework was, in my opinion, both the coolest of saints and the most damned to hell idiot. The main point I'm trying to get at is, by all means plan, because planning is very very very very essential, but don't lag around planning for whatever reason, but write. There is no point planning something brilliant if you never do it, is there? I can't structure a time table for anything (as anyone who knows me will know) so I just write when I feel like it, and as someone else above suggested already, I write by mood. Hell fire, demons and mass destruction when angry ( be gald I take out on the characters, and not the real world *manic grin*) and forrests of paradise when cheerful *saintly halo* or trying to escape from a baaaad day *depressed sigh* My friends say the stuffs good, but my friends do stuff like jump off bridges to see what will happen in the middle of freezing winter so they may not be the best judges,

My first effort at writing a book happened on an empty beach on one of the Islands in the Aegean with my wife by my side. That was 17 years ago, and when I sent it to my first publishers with more than enough enthusiasm for the whole world, I sat back deciding what sized yacht I was going to buy. Ah what it is to have a healthy imagination. The publishers Hodder & Stoughton were extremly polite and helpull and did in fact read my manuscript, and I even had a private letter from the Editor, who. Informed me that anything less than 100.000 words was a novelet, but congratulated me on a very nice letter of approach. Needless to say I was politely told that my story was not commercially viable at that time, and they wished me luck elsewhere, and indeed suggested another publisher. So slightly rejected knowing I had to wait another year or four for that Yacht, I continued. Since then I have had four short stories serialised on BBC Radio, and an edited version of one of them published in a Magazine, to which I have had over 70 responses and sent that particular story to each of the applications. A modicum of success, for my money, forget Vanity publishing, you pay through the nose, and though I went down that particular road, publication stopped after the first year through lack of commercial sales. Though when I was in Vancouver recently and looking around a very large book shop, and couldn't resist the temptation to punch in the title of my first and only publication, no longer in print. That was ten years after it had been paid to get published and end up nowhere, but the joy and momentary elation I felt when my name came up, along with the description of the book (In my opinion was reward in itself, and suddenly the whole thing took on a new and more practical experience.) That Yacht still evades me, so my advice would be to keep plugging, if writing is in your blood that in itself is a gift, in this day of speedy Internet (Sometimes) technology. Do not, I repeat do not go down the road of paying for your book to be published, no one makes any money out of it, except those who have made you, (once again in my opinion) a false promise. If your gift is a good one it will surface, in my case the joy and pleasure I have felt recently following my short story of the Red Admirals has been more than worth while, and I am not talking money here. Some of the letters I have received have given me more pleasure in the last two months than I could possibly imagine, in fact I have been illuminated. No my friends persevere, without us it would be an empty world, fire your imaginations, the story is in front of you, treat it like the reflection you see in the mirror. Sleep warm Clive. C Mainwaring.

You tell 'em Clive, they don't like it up 'em you know Mr. Mainwaring. Duck down Arthur C Dunn

Who do you think you are kidding?

don't tell them pike!

I hear that Mr Brown is ready

I really think this has gone far enough don't you? perhaps we should adjourn to the books remembered as kids thread?

100,000 words? how am i ever going to write 100,000 words? how am i ever going to write a 100,000 words without padding for England in the process? and what happened to that old Checkhov dictum, much endorsed by Saul Bellow, about novels never being short enough. clues anybody? anybody?

I'm about 25,000 words into writing a novel (started about 6 months ago) and now I'm completely stuck! The problem is not the actual writing - I could write wonderful little scenes and dialogues until the cows come home! What's bugging me right now is the bigger picture - the overall plot. I'm finding it incredibly difficult to work out what the story actually is - beyond the most general outline. In other words, what's the point of it all? I like the characters I've created but I've left them in limbo, poor things, and they are waiting to know where to go next. Any (constructive) suggestions about how to proceed? Has anyone had the same experience? [%sig%]

Hi all! It seems writing is not something that a few "talented" people do..but something that has been tried and tested by millions of people who are genuinely serious about it. It was really great reading through all these posts which give some genuinely good advice on how to go about writing a novel. My prob is that I have the topic on which I have to write, only I have to write it from someone elses's point of view, more specifically, my boss's. Would anybody give some suggestions on how to go about it? Thnx Nidhi

UM. I'm a musician so I can only go so far as to give you some advice regards the creative process. I write my best songs when I'm making a cup of tea, changing the bed covers or driving along a motorway. All the examples have one thing in common - your head's working on auto pilot. It's a time when the unconcious streams through. I no longer reach for the dictaphone when an idea emerges. I pick up an acoustic, jam it out and play it a few times and then leave it for 4 or five days. If in that time I still find myself humming that tune and when I pick up the geetar again it just flows from within just as it did the first time I played it, then it's a start. To complicate matters. I write my best songs when I'm auditioning chord patterns on the couch. I could spend 4 or five hours building a pattern, re-arranging it and sometimes scrapping it altogether for a new pattern I found. Then I leave it four or five days and if in that time I'm still humming that tune and when I pick up the geetar again it flows from within just as it did the first time I played it, then it's start. To complicate matters even more - none of the above may work for you as a writer. It's up to you to experiment and find a method you're comfortable with! Thats a start!!!!

One thing I have tried is to find a piece of music that reminds me of the person. Sometimes this takes a bit of doing. And then I play it to get in the feel of it and start writing, freely, without preconceptions. It usually takes a while to find the character's voice if it's not your own. You leave it a little and read it, then you will see if it has really captured them. Then whenever you want to write them if you're stuck the music is there to put you back in the right place.

You could create character mind maps? A handy source of quick reference. Sounds a bit scientific to me but it's one of those tried and tested study methods? :(

I've always worked to about 70000 as min for novel - on the basis of looking through book shops at the shortest novels I could find (Camus - The Outsider eg) and doing a rough wordcount. as for the novel-writing, I'd tell you to plan it and divise the characters and structure/plot beforehand, but then i got that advice and ignored it for the first couple I wrote - and it does really show, but I just wanted to do it my way and enjoy writing it. I'm writing a far more structured one now, which means I might get published eventually, but it does take some of the fun out of it - yo can't jsut sit and let the words spew out, which is the most fun. I go for about 1000 a day too (when in suitable psychological state).