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Steps to write a novel


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Hey guys, while surfing the interwebs I found a post on Reddit about writing a Novel. Its kind of a kick in the arse type post but I thought it was great and thought maybe people here would enjoy it. So please find the post below or feel free to visit the Reddit link here 

 

 

Stop dreaming, start writing - stop your bullshit! If the words never get to the page then nobody will ever read it!

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Want to be a writer? Want some real wisdom on what it takes and how to make your novel or short story happen?

I see the same shit over and over here, albeit in different forms. Today’s top post about ‘Older Writers’, even sub-threads under other posts complaining how hard it is to work on their writing because they’re not sure it’s any good or anybody will ever read it…

STOP. Faithfully execute these steps, and I guarantee you will finish. Or, you can ignore them and continue in your mire of self-pity. The choice is yours.


THE STEPS for those who dare:

  • Get yourself a shitty laptop, thumb drive, use Open Office (free) or MS Word, and write. The only additional tools you should need are Grammarly (free) and an online thesaurus (free).

  • If you’ve started and stopped a book or two, or three…you need an Outline. A real outline. The reason you are stopping is because you’ve lost confidence in where your story is going, or what you’ve written already because you did not outline it enough. A better outline will help with this. Know where your story is going next, why, and paint it with detail and conflict.

  • Sample chapter outline – without limiting creativity: Chapter one: Ray’s bar - describe. Man walks in. Describe man. What is wrong with man’s face? How does man feel when others look at him? Some drunkard bumps into man. A scuffle occurs. Man waives his hand, and the drunkard flies through a window into the street, unconscious. Man pays for drink, leaves.* [I can write at least 2,000 words about this magical man] – there’s no need to get fancier than this, write fast, don’t overthink things. Editing comes later. Use questions on your outline like the above, they are way easier to respond to.

  • Get in the zone. Find a series of songs you like. Maybe even a genre that relates to the time period of your story. Put that collection on repeat, toss the headphones on, and zoom in to your screen. Write! You will find after about a week that the music becomes pavlovian, and if you hear one of your songs outside of being in your writing zone, that you immediately start thinking about your story. Sweet, more mind-time. The music will also help your juices to flow when you first sit down to write, and it will become easier to start clicking and creating.

  • Don’t swim in detail. If you need to know the name of a magazine type that fits into the slot of a Glock 19, search ONLY for that information. Don’t click on anything else. Don’t check the weather. Don’t go to Reddit. Don’t visit PornHub. Write!

  • Neglect everything else. Take out the trash. Feed the dog/cat. Toss the kids a snack. Keep the spouse happy. But say no to friends. Limit drinking, pot smoking, meth, whatever you fuckers do. Keep yourself in solid mental shape and use whatever time you have at your laptop and write.

  • Don’t fill your head with unnecessary bullshit. When you are not at the keyboard, be thinking about your story. Steer your thoughts to your story. Weak places in your outline where no conflict or nothing interesting is happening? Think on those, change/amend/cut them when you return to the keyboard. Write things down on napkins if you can, stuff them in your pocket for keyboard time later. Advance the story.

  • Wife taking a while to get ready? Don’t hover, grab the laptop and write! Husband golfing? Perfect! Write! Use every minute you can.

  • STOP editing. By this I mean don’t try to ‘clean up’ chapter prose. Fuck that, do that later. Write. Get the pertinent details down on the page. Who is doing what, why, what barriers they face, what comes next, etc. Spill it. Every chapter. Yes, you may need to go back and change some detail to make your story solid, and if you trust yourself NOT to adjust anything else, you may go back and do some of that. But put a time limit to it. Need to change day to night so the story sync’s up well? Spend five minutes doing that. After that five minutes, write yourself a big fat note where you left off, and return to the end of your story and keep writing it. Write!

  • When are you done? When you have written everything in your outline. Faithful writers with a full-time job who follow these steps can spit out 80,000 solid words in about four weeks. I only say this because I’ve done it myself. If you can’t write 20,000 words a week, then look for more things to neglect. If you can’t neglect anything else (i.e. taking care of parents or what have you) then your max may be 15k or 10k a week. That’s fine. But keep up that pace. Write!

Nobody wants to hear about the novel you’re writing. Don’t tell them. Besides, they always ask the awkward question ‘what’s it about.’ You know what, I have no fucking idea, but when I get home tonight, I’m going to write the shit out of the next section of my outline. Because dammit I’m a writer!

Writing is hard work. But I guarantee you, if you do all of the steps above, in just a few short weeks you can return to this thread and say “Holy Balls! I finished the first draft of my novel!” And it’s a great fucking feeling!

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  • 1 month later...

Thinking about your story when you're not writing may be a problem for some. I know it is for me.

If I spend too much time thinking about it, my brain gets satisfied to the point where I don't want to write any more because I've already told the story. It's also frustrating when I can't write as fast as I can imagine the story.

I'm neither a planner nor a pantser but a strange hybrid of the two. 

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