Critical Thinking: How to Write a Book

I was once asked how I write a book. Not because I’m some great and holy guru, but because I’ve managed to do it. As of this date, I have two pretty much finished, one almost finished, and two first drafts completed (one rougher than the other). Oh, and 40k down on this year’s NaNo (which marks the two-year anniversary of my writing delusion).

What? No, of course not. Why would any of them be published?

Anyway. I have also read numerous books and articles and websites and interviews about the best way to write a novel. All of them are different. Some say to sit down and write. Some say to develop a thorough, chapter-by-chapter plot line. Others recommend writing down all the major scenes in your head on 3x5 cards and shuffling them around until they make a story. I have friends who polish every chapter as they write it, loath to ever visit it again, and those who get the words on the page and think about maybe going over stuff later. It is said that Tolkien would start writing until he came to a bit he didn’t like. Then he would rewrite the entire thing. And he didn’t even have a thumb drive.

Here, in general, is my process.

- Come up with an idea
- Mull it over for a while
- Realize it’s never going to be a story if I don’t actually write the story
- Start writing
- Remember I have to have characters to have a story
- Take some random thing I’ve read or heard and try to fit it in (Dirigibles? Pharisees? The Boneyard?)
- Write some more
- Research some stuff
- Come up with a good climax
- Tell myself I’m not allowed to write the good climax until I get there
- If I’m writing multiple viewpoints, head to Jeff Gerke’s website (See Tip #71)
- Plug viewpoints and recommended number of pages into an Excel spreadsheet
- Wiggle out some of the plot; add to spreadsheet
- Research some more
- Consider dedicating the book to Wikipedia
- Realize I need a lot more in the first scene
- Pick up more random inspiration (Hadron Collider? Lattes? My brother’s tattoo of his ex’s dog in a space suit? Alton Brown has his refrigerator Velcro—I have story Velcro.)
- Write, plot, search for inspiration, rinse and repeat
- Remember there’s supposed to be a character arc
- Add character arc
- Write, plot, search for inspiration, rinse and repeat
- Finish first draft
- Realize it’s only 65,000 words and I wanted 95,000
- Add another plotline which may include another POV character
- Realize I have no villain
- Add a villain
- Realize the villain needs a voice
- Add another POV thread for villain
- Realize the story now has 109,000 words
- Edit the poop out of it
- Realize the story now has 112,000 words
- Send it to my readers (people who actually read)
- Read their reviews
- Realize they sent back absolutely nothing helpful
- Take pages to writers’ group
- Try to figure out if the published Christian-historical-romance author’s distressingly adamant advice is specific to her particular genre or specific to getting published
- Catch her comment that she doesn’t like SciFi
- Despite the fact her husband is published in the field
- Decide she doesn’t know what she’s talking about
- Mess around with chapter breaks
- Sit on it

I have not always used this method. For my first book, I just wrote, finished it, then read books on how books are supposed to go. The story had no antagonist, no story arc, and very little tension. Just a setting and some characters based on real people and then the characters did some stuff. This last novel (excluding NaNo), I had to write a proposal first, so all the chapters were outlined ahead of time. I updated the outline as I wrote, but it stayed pretty much the same.

To outline or not to outline. That’s a tricky question. Outlining helps quell writer’s block. Outlining forces you to sit down and think about a cohesive storyline and the characters required to live through it. But I also find it leads me to rush things, explore less. Then again, editing a free-form first draft can be absolute murder. Moving chapters around, figuring out who should do what when…madness! I’m reading the Harry Potter books again, preparing for the final movies. JKR’s writing is so tight. She plotted all seven books together, allowing for tweaking as she went on. There’s no fluff. No inflated word count. Every line is relevant to the story as a whole. That would be very hard to accomplish without outlining first, I think. Then again, you discover some interesting things when you’re not paying attention to where you’re going.

I think, regarding extensive preparation, I would say to prepare in your weakest area. If you're writing in an unfamiliar setting, research it. If you're a character-based writer, get a grip on the plot or the action. If you're plot-based, sit down and think about your characters. I don't know about you, but I don't generally get caught up on my strength (characters, alas), but, when I'm tooling around, upping the word count, it definitely helps to have a road map for my weakness (action, alas!).

What’s the madness to your method? What tricks do you use to encourage yourself to keep at it when you’re 55k down and losing steam and why did your MC just do that? Do you complete personality tests on all your characters before you start, or just scribble on a napkin? Do you draw diagrams and maps and contemplate what font you’d like your name to appear in on the front cover? What would you like to try but have always been too chicken?

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