How to Write a Novel Step by Step

The toughest part of learning how to write a novel is knowing where to start and how to keep on going to the end. This section tells you everything you need to know about the novel writing process.

Figuring out how to write a novel can be confusing, probably because there are so many steps to take..

• You've got to create all the fictional characters and write a watertight plot.
• You've got to write the subplots and weave them seamlessly into the main plot.
• You've got to build an atmospheric setting and decide on a theme.

...and that's all before you even begin to write the novel!

Add to that the need to learn the art and craft of novel writing (which is where this website comes in), and the need to read published novels (to see the theory put into practice), and it's little wonder that the question I am most often asked is...

Where do you even begin?!

The answer is that you begin by studying a good map and familiarizing yourself with the route, and the process outlined below is your map. Actually, it is two maps in one...

• First, it gives you an overview of every step you need to take to get from where you are today to having a published novel to your name.
• Second, it is a kind of user's guide to Novel Writing Help, in that it summarizes where everything is and what all the sections are about.

Take some time to study this novel writing road map now, just to get an idea of where you are going. But don't forget to return to it along the way if you ever find yourself lost.

Three Steps to Write a Book

At the most basic level, writing any book involves just three steps...

1. Planning. This is where you work out what you want to say in note form.
2. Writing. Here, you transform the plan into prose and dialogue.
3. Revising. Finally, you polish the words until they shine.

Easy, right? Well, yes...except it really doesn't tell you anything about how to write a novel.

What you need are lots of specific steps to take, not just three broad ones. What you need is for each step to contain concrete instructions on what, precisely, to do. And you will find all of this below.

But before we get started, a quick caveat...

Writing a Novel is Not Like Baking a Cake.

To bake a cake, you simply follow a trusted recipe in the order it is written - first stage one, then stage two - and at the end of the process you have a tasty treat.

But writing fiction isn't like that. Why? Because everything you do affects everything else.

For example, two of the specific steps below involve creating your characters and writing the plot. But once you have completed each step, you can't simply tick it off the list and never return to it again.

Why not? Because everything in novel writing affects everything else...

• Change something fundamental about a character's personality and you will also have to alter what they do in the plot.
• Change what a character does in the plot and you will have to alter their personality to make their actions more in keeping with who they are.

This doesn't mean that you shouldn't follow the steps to write a novel in order (because you should). It just means you will have to do a certain amount of back-tracking and forward-thinking as you go.

Teaching you how to write a novel would be an awful lot easier if I could present you with a simple "recipe" - first you do this, then you do that. But I can't.

There really is no such thing as writing novels by numbers. A foolproof guide to how to write fiction has yet to be invented.

Having said that, the instructions below are about as good a guide to how to write a novel that you are likely to find. You just need to bring something of your own to the table: intelligence, intuition, and the flexibility to adapt the novel writing process to your own specific requirements.

Okay, enough talk. Time to get started.

I know I said above that "planning" is the very first step to take, but I lied. If you are serious about succeeding as a novel writer, you need to begin right at the grassroots.

First Steps in Novel Writing

Writing a novel is not a race. If you have your heart set on selling a completed novel to a publisher in just a few short months, good luck but I'm afraid I can't help you.

If you are willing to work as hard as it takes for as long as it takes - without forgetting to enjoy yourself along the way, of course - you could go far.

Still with me? Good. Here is an overview of the first three steps to write a novel...

(If you want, you can click on the links for more information. They all open in a new window, so you won't lose your place in THIS article.)

• Prepare For Becoming a Writer. Primarily, this means deciding why you want to write novels. Wanting to make money from writing is not a bad motivation, but there are much better ways to ensure you look forward to working on your novel every day. Other tasks here include getting organized and learning how to harness your inner-creativity.
• Learn About the Different Types of Fiction. An important aspect of learning how to write a novel is adopting a professional attitude. Forget all your romantic ideals, selling a novel to a publisher is a business proposition. And what that means is that, to stand the best chance of success, you need to know right from the outset where your book will eventually sit in the marketplace.
• Brainstorm For Fiction Ideas. The final thing to do before planning begins in earnest is to find an idea. I don't mean any old idea, but the best one you can possibly come up with. The section dedicated to finding writing ideas not only shows you precisely how to do this, but also how to "road-test" it before finally committing to the idea.

Planning a Novel

One person's idea of how to write a novel will be a little different from somebody else's. (That is why I suggested above that you should feel free to adapt these steps to your own unique requirements.)

Perhaps the biggest way in which people's approaches to novel writing are different is this...

• Some folks like to plan their fiction in huge detail before they turn to the business of writing and revising it.
• Other writers manage to get by on virtually no planning at all. They come from the "seat of the pants" school of writing.

Which way is best? There is no absolute answer to that - if a particular way of writing fiction works for you, it works. End of story.

But if you are unsure and want me to make a recommendation, I would suggest planning a novel in as much detail as you can stand before you write the first draft. Why? This article reveals all: Planning a Novel vs. Writing a Novel

What Does Planning a Novel Entail?

Because planning a long work of fiction in detail is such a large task - not to mention a potentially confusing one - the best way to tackle it is to break it down into smaller parts. In all there are five such elements: theme, viewpoint, character, setting and plot.

By working on these individual story elements one by one, the mammoth task of planning a novel is made a lot simpler.

Afterwards, once you have worked on each area, you will then reassemble them into what I call a novel's "Master Plan." But more on that in a moment.

The first job is to work on each of the story elements individually. More specifically, you need to perform the following five tasks...

1. Sow the Seeds of Theme and Symbolism. This isn't nearly as tricky as it sounds. It simply means working out in advance what your novel is "about," or what it "means." Do this and your novel's deeper layer of meaning running beneath the surface will pretty much take care of itself.
2. Decide on a Viewpoint. For most of you, this will mean a straight choice between first person or third person point of view. But there are also some less common alternatives you might want to consider.
3. Create the Fictional Characters. The idea here is to get to know your characters before you write a single word of the novel. Fail to do this and they are unlikely to come across to the readers as convincing human beings.
4. Construct the Novel's Setting. As you will discover in the section dedicated to setting, it encompasses a whole lot more than just streets and buildings. It includes things like the weather and the town's history and what the characters do for a job. Just like with characters, you need to get to know all of these things before you write.
5. Write the Novel's Plot. This is the big one, at least in terms of how long it will take you. That's the bad news. The good news is that the job will be made a lot simpler by my 10-step guide to plotting a novel found in the plot section.

And that is all there is to it!

If it seems like these five planning steps represent a lot of work, you aren't wrong. They're kind of fun, though (what's not to love about creating people and places and events out of thin air?) And once you have completed them, you will be ready to start writing your novel.

Well, almost...

The final thing to do is take the five individual elements and re-combine them into a "Master Plan." This will not only make the job of writing the novel much simpler, it will also help you create a much stronger first draft.

When you are ready to perform this step in the novel writing process, this article will tell you everything you need to know: How to Combine the 5 Story Elements Into a "Master Plan".

And on the basis that writing this grand plan is an excellent time for dealing with one or two loose ends before you begin the actual writing of your novel, these articles will also help...

• How to Divide a Novel into Chapters & Parts
• Finding a Title for your Novel

Writing and Revising a Novel

Phew - all that information on how to write a novel and we've only just reached the actual "writing" part!

That's quite deliberate, though. According to agents, most novels are rejected because of weak craftsmanship. My job, therefore, is to teach you the craft of novel writing (and a little of the art, too) in as much detail as I can, and then how to apply that craft effectively.

And guess what? You are far, far more likely to write a well-crafted novel if you take the time and trouble to plan it in some detail first.

If you choose to skip all the planning material above and jump straight into the writing, that is okay. Chances are, though, the first draft will end up being a structural disaster zone - and you will then have to apply all my planning suggestions to it to try to make sense of it.

That's why I'm a fan of planning beforehand - particularly if you are writing your first novel.

And remember this: Although some people will tell you that the only truly creative part of writing a novel is doing the actual writing, they are wrong. In fact, starting out with a blank sheet of paper and filling it with characters and places and events, using nothing but your imagination, is the very definition of creativity.

What Does Writing and Editing a Novel Involve?

Simple: First you write a draft, then you edit it as many times as it takes to get the words right. But there is a decision you need to take here...

• Are you going to draft your entire novel, from beginning to end, until you revise a single word of it?
• Or will you draft and rewrite the first chapter before moving on to the second?

The choice is an important one, because it will affect your enjoyment (or otherwise) of the entire process. You will find an analysis of the pros and cons of each choice in this section on the website: Two Ways of Writing Fiction.

Also there, look out for articles explaining the mechanics of how to write a novel's first draft and how to revise it.

What about help and advice on how to write words to a professional standard?

Yes, you will find plenty of that, too, in the following sections...

• Writing Narration and Description. Narration is the type of writing you will use the most - it is basically writing that "tells the story." Descriptive writing means those fancier, more poetic passages of prose where you describe a character or the setting.
• Writing Dialogue. I don't need to tell you what dialogue is, but I should point out that bad dialogue is one of those things most likely to make publishers reject your novel. This section offers plenty of ways to make your conversations sparkle.
• Writing Interior Monologue. This section is all about handling a character's thoughts. The ability to get inside a character's head and hear what they are thinking is one of the big advantages that novels hold over movies, and you must make full use of this advantage.

And that pretty much concludes this whistlestop tour of how to write a novel.

Caveat: Ask one hundred writers how to write a novel and you will get one hundred different answers. Everybody is unique, and everybody works in their own unique way.

I can tell you what works for me - and for many other writers I have spoken to - but if you need to tailor the steps above to your own personal needs, that is what you must do.

Publishing a Novel

Congratulations - you have done all the hard work and it is now time to think about finding a publisher. Seeing your novel in print, and perhaps even topping the bestseller lists, is the prize that awaits you.

Traditionally, there are two ways of getting a novel published...

• The most obvious route to take is to sell your novel to a publishing house. You can either do this directly or, far more likely, approach a literary agent who will sell it to a publisher on your behalf.
• Second, you can also consider going it alone and publishing the novel yourself.

Whichever method you decide is right for you, you will find all the help and information you need in the section on Publishing a Novel Traditionally.

The new way of making a career for yourself in writing is through online self publishing. Because the Internet itself is so new, so too is this method of getting published. But it is also very exciting and certainly one to consider, particularly as traditional publishing is undergoing something of a crisis.

For more on this new and exciting publishing option, please see Getting a Book Published in the Twenty-First Century.

It will take a lot of work to progress through all the steps outlined above - several years of work, probably. But this final step, selling your novel, doesn't involve much work at all. Beyond submitting your manuscript, the most you will have to do is wait for the agents and publishers to get back to you, hopefully with an acceptance letter.

The frustrating thing is that publishers and agents are painfully, notoriously slow. And so this would be a good time to take a break, or to catch up on all those other tasks you have been neglecting. Sooner or later, though, you will want to go right back to the beginning and start work on your next novel. The good news is that it's much easier the second time around.

More Help on How to Write a Novel

To finish with, here are a few articles which, although not a part of the novel writing process, should nevertheless help you to gain a deeper understanding of it...

• Beyond the Novel Writing Process. Reading the information on this website is only a part of learning how to write a novel. You also need to practice, practice, practice - by applying what you learn to your own novel in progress. And you need to read plenty of published fiction - preferably from the same genre you are writing in - so you can see what it takes to succeed. Do these three things in unison and you will create a virtuous circle of improvement.
• How to Write Novels by Reading Novels. Speaking of reading novels, this article looks at the three ways in which reading fiction can help you become a better novel writer.
• How Long Does Writing a Book Take? This is the question everyone asks, but unfortunately there is no absolute answer. It helps if you know what the Ideal Novel Length is (about 80,000 words). But, still, writing a novel will take just as long as it takes you to reach the end. The important thing is to work at your own pace and to remember to enjoy yourself.
• An Outline For Writing a Novel In One Year. Having cautioned you against rushing, however, I can totally understand how some people are keener to reach the finishing line than others. Hence this article, which offers a very basic strategy for getting to the end inside 12 months. Just don't take it too seriously.
• Breaking the Novel Writing Rules. Yes, learning the rules of how to write a novel is important (I'd be out of a job if it wasn't). But once you have learnt them, you must then learn to break them. This article shows you how.

And that, as they say, is that.

I know this article isn't exactly on the brief side but, like I said at the top, knowing where to start and how to keep on going right to the end is something that many beginners would dearly love to know. And now they do!

Bookmark this page and return to it often - it's like the map that will stop you getting lost. And if you want an even more streamlined guide to how to write a novel, you will find it in my Ultimate Novel Writing Guide.

Although I have tried to make the website as easy-to-follow as I can, the downloadable e-book literally tells you everything you need to know in the order you need to know it.