A Realistic Approach To Writing Your First Novel

“But wait… what is this washing at my feet? Why it is a pen! And a waterproof sack containing thousands of sheets of paper! And now a book entitled ‘How to Write a Novel’! Surely I am being told something…

“’Chapter One. Stop reading this ‘How to Write a Novel’ book and start writing your novel. Chapter Two. Why are you still reading this book? Start writing your novel.’ And the remaining chapters are similar, though with more swearing.” – Pip Bin, Bleak Expectations, first broadcast 19 November 2009

The first time you try something, 99 times out of 100 you won’t be able to do it very well. You might find you have a surprising aptitude for it – I, for example, discovered I have a knack for throwing axes in 2012, for reasons too complicated to get into right now, but I definitely wasn’t a good axe thrower, I was just better than I expected.

You probably already know this. You know that if you decided to try out fencing, for example, you wouldn’t be able to fight well for months or, more likely, years. You wouldn’t expect to be able to speak Spanish after spending only a month learning the language. This is all a roundabout way of saying the first thing you write will be bad and there’s no way you can prevent this.

Writing is a skill, like any other, and it takes practice to get good at it. There are people whose first novels have been excellent, but these people are anomalies. It’s like winning the lottery: People do but you won’t.

Accepting this simple fact will make you a much better writer. I have friends who tried to write a novel, realised what they were writing was bad, gave up and never wrote again. If you accept your inexperience before going in, you can concentrate on exploring the craft. Do you enjoy the act of writing? Should you be writing novels at all? Should you be writing short stories or Role Playing Game scenarios?

CGP Grey released a video essay about how to engage in activities such as writing. To paraphrase: Rather than say to yourself: ‘This year, I will write a novel’, you should give yourself a theme. In this case, the theme would be ‘year of writing’. Then, make the time to write a manageable amount whenever you can. Precisely what you write doesn’t matter – you’re finding out what sort of writing you enjoy. It could be science fiction, it could be Nordic noir, it could be non-fiction, it could be anything at all. You won’t know until you try.