Do you think you have a novel in you?

So, you think you have a novel in you, huh? The idea of having a novel inside oneself is a common sentiment among aspiring writers and creative individuals. Storytelling is an essential element of the human experience, and many people have a desire to tell their stories and share their ideas through writing. Writing a novel can be seen as a creative and fulfilling endeavor that allows individuals to express themselves and leave a lasting impact. Plus, it can be fun!

If you’re like many emerging authors though, you may have a novel manuscript that you have been writing for years with no end in sight. Or perhaps you’ve always thought you “had a novel in you” but haven’t gotten around to starting it. Once upon a time, this was me. I knew I had a novel in me, but for years I could never seem to get it out of my head and onto the page.

I was a very busy person. First, I had young children, and then I had young children and a full-time job. Then I had young children and a full-time job and was attending graduate school. And then I became an only parent. I had student loans to worry about and struggled to make ends meet. For years, I’d worked multiple jobs at any given time. How could I ever find time to write anything, much less a novel?

But then I learned about a creative writing program at a local private college that promised that I would write a novel-length work by the time I graduated. It didn’t seem practical at the time, but I had gone to business school thinking that was the practical thing to do only to find myself struggling to find a job that paid a living wage. How could pursuing a master’s degree in novel writing be any less practical than that? If nothing else, it would allow me to put my student loans on hold until a later date when I might actually be able to afford the payments. So, I went back to school to learn how to write a novel.

And that’s what I did. I learned how to write a novel. But the problem is, I never actually learned how to finish writing a novel. For my master’s thesis in my creative writing program, I submitted 90+ pages of a novel manuscript that eventually reached more than 250 pages without coming anywhere close to being finished. While I did write a book-length work in my writing program, I did not leave school with a finished manuscript in hand. I still had a long way to go. And I knew I wasn’t alone.

I’ve known creative writing professors who were working on the same novel manuscript for more than a decade with no end in sight. Several undergraduate students I’ve met during my past decade of teaching college composition classes are on the same path, hacking away at some manuscript they’d begun writing in high school. Some of them hope to be novelists one day. But if so few writing professors understand the concept of efficiently completing the novel writing process, how are any of those students going to learn the concept from them?

Personally, I have always found the mere idea of spending that much time with one story or group of characters to be unbearable. This is exactly what had begun to happen with my master’s thesis. Not that I don’t love that story or the characters. I still think about them sometimes and wonder how I might restructure the novel so I can finish it. The problem is, the story branches out into so many directions, with increasing numbers of side characters who have stories of their own that are equally important to the main protagonist, I would have to spend decades on a huge series of novels – think George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series – to ever come anywhere near completing that particular story. To be honest, I simply do not want to spend the rest of my life writing such a series. I want to write new stories and tackle the issues that matter to me in a way that makes people care about them. That’s why, after I completed my Master of Arts in English with a concentration in creative writing, I decided to set aside my thesis and start fresh with a new project.

While I was secure in my ability to write compelling stories that people want to read, I wasn’t so sure I could ever actually write a novel to its end. So, one day, I set myself a challenge to outline a fifteen-chapter novel manuscript and then write one chapter a day until it was complete. And guess what! I did it! I ended up adding a couple of chapters to my original outline as I wrote, so I eventually ended up writing an eighteen-chapter novel draft in eighteen days instead! Yes, I FINISHED writing a novel draft in just eighteen days!

Now, I know what you’re probably thinking: How good could a novel written in such a short time be?

Honestly? It wasn’t good. It was only around 50,000 words and was full of plot holes. But the skeleton of the story was finished. It still needed a lot of work, but I felt like I had completed a major accomplishment because I had finally finished something. And that was the first step to finishing what would later become my first full novel, Valley of the Bees.

Stephen King, a prolific author known for his horror and suspense novels, famously said, “The first draft of a book — even a long one — should take no more than three months, the length of a season.” He goes on to say, “The product of that 90 days’ labor should be a first draft. And it should be written quickly, with little regard for quality” (from On Writing: A Memoir on the Craft).

King’s philosophy – one that I subscribe to myself – is that the first draft should be a rough sketch of the story, with the emphasis on getting the story down on paper rather than worrying about making it perfect. He encourages writers to “write with the door closed,” meaning to write without worrying about what others might think, and to let the story unfold without worrying about structure or coherence.

King acknowledges that first drafts can be messy, saying, “the first draft of anything is shit.” However, he also stresses the importance of revision and rewriting, stating that, “the real work — and the real magic — lies in the revision.” In essence, King’s advice is to give yourself permission to write a messy first draft, knowing that it’s just the beginning of the process. Once you have the story down on paper, you can revise and refine it to create a polished final product.

As I continued to work on my own novel experiment, I eventually realized that the steps of the writing process that I teach my undergraduate students to apply when writing essays could also be applied to writing – and finishing! – a novel. I honed this skill through my next several writing projects and am now happy to report that I can typically write and complete a polished novel in about two years. And because the method I have developed involves having two novel manuscripts in progress at any given time, I am publishing a new novel every year!

The method I follow and that I will share with you in this series of blog posts is a simple one. I hope you will take advantage of this series as a practical, step-by-step manual that you will follow to finish your own novel. If you’re on board, you will first learn how to apply the basic steps of the writing process to writing a novel. Then you will follow this process step-by-step as you practice on an experimental piece — using writing assignments that I will provide — to help you learn to finish writing a novel. Be sure to complete each writing assignment when instructed to in this series. This will help you finish the first draft of your novel manuscript as you follow along on the blog.

Next, you’ll start on the revision process that King refers to as “the real work.” (You might also have started working on a follow-up novel to write once the first one is officially “finished.”) It may be hard to believe now, but with regular dedication to your writing, you will be well along the path of your new novel writing career by the time you get to the end of this novel writing series! Soon, you’ll be publishing a new book every year just like I do!

This post is the first in a new series on using the basic steps of the writing process to finish writing your novel. I hope you’ll enjoy this introduction to the topic and then subscribe for email updates to have each new post delivered to your inbox.