Beyond the Novel Writing Process
First the bad news: following the Novel Writing Process is only one of the tasks you must complete to write a novel.
In all, there are three of them:
The first of these is doing the actual planning and writing and revising of your novel, and the way you accomplish that is by following the step-by-step Novel Writing Process.
The second task is to learn your craft, or the "rules" of how to create characters, how to plot a novel, and so forth - and that is why the steps are backed up by in-depth sections explaining all these rules.
Finally, you need to read novels, particularly recently published novels from your chosen category of fiction. This will help you to learn both the art and the craft of how to write a novel.
If it feels like I have just tripled your workload, don't look at it that way.
The good news, you see, is that these three tasks - working on your own novel, learning the theory of novel writing as you go, and reading what other writers have done - feed off each other, creating a virtuous circle of improvement.
In other words, the best way to tackle the three separate jobs is in unison...
- Don't feel like you have to nail the theory of novel writing (by reading all of the in-depth articles on this site) before you are ready to analyze published novels for literary technique. Keep reading as you normally would, and the things I talk about in this guide will be brought to life in the novels you read.
- Don't feel like you need an encyclopaedic knowledge of published novels (by reading lots and lots of them) before you are ready to write some prose of your own. The novels you have read so far in life will stand you in good stead, and the novels you read in the future will only enhance your understanding of how novels work.
Learning the theory of how to write novels can be heavy-going all by itself, but practising the things you learn in your own planning and writing and revising, and seeing how other writers do it through reading, will bring the novel writing rules to life.
"Write as often as possible, not with the idea at once of getting into print, but as if you were learning an instrument."
- J. B. Priestly
In practical terms, you simply need to create space in your working week for all three tasks...
- Planning and writing your own novel by working through the steps of the Novel Writing Process.
- Taking some time away from your novel to read up on the theory of how to construct characters, how to give a novel a theme, and so on.
- Reading novels from your chosen genre of fiction to see how it all works in practice.
And speaking of reading novels...
Next up is an article examining the three specific ways in which reading fiction can help you with the job of writing fiction. It is called How to Write Novels by Reading Novels...
