My First Novel Process

I am about one third of the way through the first draft of my first novel! It's been smooth sailing so far, not to jinx anything. Whatever. I'm not superstitious. I decided to use a systematic approach, just because there are nine main characters, and that's a lot to keep track of. I'll talk about my process so far.

#1 I started by asking myself a few questions:

• What is my "North Star"? (What is this story about?)

• Why am I writing this story?

• How should this story make people feel?

  
  

#2 From there, I did what I'm calling a "Character Analysis" for each of my nine main characters. I wrote two pages on each character exploring answers to various questions, such as:

• How does the character see themself? How do other characters see them?

• What motivates them?

• How do they change throughout the story?

#3 I established some basic details like setting, time period, and time frame. Then, I considered how the political and societal pressures of that time period would affect each character. I did some basic research on the logistics of the time period (technology, clothes, etc.). Just enough research to start writing the story without getting bogged down in facts.

#4 I asked myself, "What kinds of things happen in the story?" And used that to create a rough outline in the form of index cards taped to my wall. Each index card gives a brief description of a scene in the story. I did not make this up myself. It's already a thing, and I heard it from screenwriter Viki King.

#5 Lastly! I gave myself some rough deadlines. I wanted to have the first draft done by August 22, 2025. Looks like I'm going to have the first draft done a lot sooner than I thought...maybe May? We'll see.

But really...I started thinking about this story way before I started this process. I visualized it in my head like a movie. When I sat down to put pencil to paper, I was surprised at how much I already knew about it. Had I not thought about it so much beforehand I think I'd feel lost and frustrated. But it's all there in my head. Now I'm just working out how to get it onto paper. It's fun! I'm having a blast (0% sarcasm). The hardest thing so far is writing consistently after work. I had to lower my expectation from 2-hour writing sessions to 1-hour sessions. Not going to lie, some days I don't write at all. Still, the important thing is to keep going...keep going...keep...

Visit my Pinterest for a visual sense of the story:

Novel: Untitled