Why Write a Novel?

As you know, or as you are about to find out, it takes a lot of hard work to write a novel - and with no guarantee whatsoever that the novel will be successful. So what is the payback? What are the perks of novel writing? Why bother to write a novel at all?

The motivation for writing a novel will be different for everyone...

For some, making money from writing will be the prize they keep their eyes on - though it doesn't motivate me (honestly!) Not that the good cold cash that an international bestseller would bring wouldn't be appreciated. It's just that there have got to be easier ways of turning a buck than to write a novel.

For others, it will be fame that they seek (or, God help them, celebrity). Me, I'm perfectly happy out of the glare of the spotlight, thank you very much.

Other people will seek the respect and kudos that would surely come from publishing a well-reviewed novel. Or perhaps going down in history as one of the greats.

Are any of these things the driving force behind me when I write fiction?

Nope. Not that they wouldn't be welcome if they came knocking on my door, you understand, but they really don't motivate me. They aren't the perks of novel writing that I am seeking.

Why not? Because all of these things are rewards you receive only after your novel is published.

Before that can happen, you face months (and probably years) of hard work, and with no guarantee whatsoever of success.

No, if fame and fortune and all the rest of it were the only reasons to write, none of us would stick at it for more than five minutes.

So what else is there? For what it is worth, here are a couple of the things that motivate me to write a novel...

1. The Challenge of Writing Fiction

Nothing in life that is worthwhile comes easy. In fact, it is precisely because something is difficult that makes it worth the effort.

Why? Because with something simple, like boiling an egg, there is little payback - you just get an egg.

But to write a novel is tough, not easy.

Consequently, the payback is more than just a completed piece of long fiction - you also get an incredible sense of achievement and feeling of self-pride.

And you don't just experience these things at the end, when you have completed your novel, but every step along the way.

The reason I love playing golf is that playing the game well is difficult. Most of my shots could be described as workmanlike at best. But just occasionally I hit the perfect drive or sink a 30-foot putt, and when I do that the buzz is immense.

I experience that same buzz frequently when I write - when I finish a particularly difficult scene, for example, or figure out a clever plot twist. And you will feel it, too.

2. Exploring Unrealized Possibilities

As you will discover in the section on Creating Characters, there should be a part of yourself in all of your fictional characters.

Or to put it another way, all of your characters should be facets of yourself.

When you write a novel about a murderer, for example, you need to draw on that part of yourself which, under extreme circumstances, would be capable of taking a life (and it exists in us all).

We actually contain every human trait imaginable if we search deeply enough...

There is a part of us that is the life and soul of a party, and an opposing part that hates parties and makes us wish we had stayed at home.
There is a part of us that is fearless and another part that is cowardly. (The two traits play off each other, meaning you are neither as brave as you would like to think you are nor as cowardly as you fear.)

Now here is the thing: in the real world, we rarely get to explore the extremes of our personalities. We all would like to play the brave hero, but we all have that inner coward holding us back.

About the only time we truly get to be the hero is in our daydreams.

And writing novels is really just a glorified form of daydreaming.

When we create fictional characters and put them into invented situations, we can get to act in any way we choose. We can be more romantic, more witty, more loveable, more anything than we ever quite manage to be in our real lives.

The flip side of that is that we also get to be more villainous when we write a novel. We can cheat, steal, lie, say terrible things, even kill people. And that's kind of fun, too!

You will find a longer version of this article - including a discussion of why writing novels is like playing at being God - in my downloadable Ultimate Novel Writing Guide.

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