Writing your first novel, Part 1

Graphic by Peg Ihinger

Welcome to 2025!

Lots of people do New Year’s resolutions, or come up with annual goals, or set intentions, or do some similar type of life planning at this point in the year. And apparently “write a novel” is on a lot of those lists of goals. So I thought I’d start the year with a short series of posts on first novels, for those who are new to this. I’ll try to remember to link to earlier posts on technical things but this is going to be mainly about the process.

Let’s start with what not to do, which is mostly, don’t start at the far end of the publishing process. Don’t begin by worrying about how to sell your foreign language rights, or whether you should hire a lawyer to make sure nobody cheats you or steals your idea. Don’t start by setting up a web page announcing your new novel, or try to generate social media buzz. Don’t start by contacting editors and agents—or Amazon—to “market” something you haven’t even started writing yet.

There is no point in fussing about marketing an unwritten book, because things in publishing change fast enough that anything you do now is almost certainly going to have changed radically by the time you’ve written the book, and actually need to have something that works then.

Most of the writing advice out there—books, classes, websites, opinions—is contradictory, particularly when it comes to how to decide what to write. 99% of such advice ignores the fact that one of the most difficult things about writing an entire first novel is finishing the whole thing.

So my advice is to start by picking a story that gets you excited, that you think would be fun to write, that you would love to read if someone else had written it, because these things will help you get all the way through it to the end. Start by thinking through some of these questions.

1. What kinds of books do you like to read?

Most professional writers I know are omnivorous readers. Most of them also have a favorite type. Sometimes it’s a specific genre, like mysteries or science fiction; sometimes it’s a type, like plot-centered or character-centered; sometimes it’s a length—short stories vs. novellas vs. novels. What do you like to read?

2. What story do you want to write?

Most writers find it easier to write (and do a better job of writing) something they want to write than at writing something they think they should write, or something they think they have to write. Usually, what writers want to write lines up pretty well with what they love to read. Getting through an entire novel is hard enough without making it even harder by turning it into a should or a have-to obligation. If you’re worried about embarrassing your family or letting someone down or doing a horrible job, you can always publish it under a pseudonym (or tell yourself you will—you don’t have to decide for real until it’s finished).

3. Which writing skills do you already have, and what parts do you think you need to improve on?

If your answer to either part of this question is “everything,” you haven’t thought about it enough. Nobody is good at everything; everyone is good at something; and all of it will improve with practice. Knowing your strengths and your weaknesses can help when you’re head-down in a tough scene—sometimes the best trick is to focus on writing just the one bit you’re best at (be it the dialog, the setting, the choreography, or whatever), and then layering in the other parts later.

4. How have you approached other creative projects in the past?

By this I mean, do you just jump in, or do you start by reading all the directions and then follow them methodically? Every writer’s process is different, but what works best for a particular writer will frequently be similar to what works in other areas. Particularly if one is a seat-of-the-pants, make-it-up-as-you-go writer (generally termed a pantser). The only way I know to be sure of how one’s process works is to experiment, but a good place to start, in my opinion, is with what works for other things you do. If, after a month or so, it doesn’t seem to be working, try something else.

Even if you can’t answer all of the above questions definitively, thinking about them can help you decide on the specific story you’re going to commit to. Because nobody can write a novel. You can only ever write a specific novel—about particular characters, with particular problems, in a particular place and time.

Most writers have some idea what they want to write—a mystery, a romance, a literary novel, a mashup of history and horror, whatever. Nearly always, there’s some seed-crystal idea or trigger—a character that they want to write about, a situation, a what-if or if-this-goes-on, a setting, a theme, a problem…something that makes their fingers and their backbrain itch with an urge to get it down.

The seed-crystal idea can be as small and specific as a mental image of ravens circling a half-ruined tower, or of an out-of-control brawl in a bar with a pink dragon’s head on the wall; as wide and general as “something set in pre-contact South America;” as abstract as “a novel about grief;” or as specific as “how George the carpenter solved the decades-old murder of the young woman whose body he found hidden in a walled-up closet of a house he’d been hired to remodel.” Figure out what that seed-crystal-idea is (or pick one, if you have several), and commit to it.

The next step is developing your seed-crystal-idea a bit, which is for next week.