Writing My First Novel: Draft by Draft
Many would-be writers talk about writing their first novel. It took me three tries over the course of five and a half years, but I finally managed to finish a complete draft of my very own.
Today I want to talk about the process of writing my first novel, draft by draft, and the lessons I learned along the way. If you’re working to create a first complete draft, my hope is that some of these lessons will be interesting and helpful to you, particularly on those days when you’re feeling uninspired.
The First Draft: The ‘What-the-Heck-Was-I-Thinking?’ Draft
My original vision was the story of an ambitious, ruthless young warrior-prince in a quasi-Middle-Eastern, Iron Age-style fantasy kingdom of immortal people. It had evolved out of the backstory for an earlier project, and I was very excited to take a crack at it.
Not much happened with this first draft. My ideas were still very rough at this stage: I was trying to write a coming-of-age story, but, frankly, I didn’t know what I was doing, and I wrote nearly a hundred pages about my protagonist as a child and then a young man, and the story basically stalled.
One very important lesson I learned from this first draft was the importance of story arcs and pacing. I spent far too much time on a story arc that revolved around a childhood feud, and I had no idea how to turn that into something bigger that could propel the story forward.
The other important lesson I learned was that as a writer, you need to give yourself freedom to try.
Here’s the thing: if you don’t write the really painful, awkward first drafts, how in the world will you get better? It was a good learning experience, that first draft, one which set me up for the second draft.
The Second Draft: Could There Be a Story Arc in Here?
My second draft built heavily on my sword and sorcery concept. I realized that the most interesting world-building element I had was my living gods, so I developed them and made them central to the plot (predictable love interest and all).
This was an important lesson in its own right: if you’re world-building fantasy, it’s generally a good idea to focus on your most interesting elements and make them central to your story.
A great deal more happened with this draft. I had more story, and more characters to tell it with. I also had better story arcs, although I still struggled with them in ways that ultimately undermined the story.
My second draft failed because my vision for it failed. In essence, one way to describe it would be to say that I lost sight of how to connect my protagonist to the events of the story in ways that would actually advance his arc.
Still, I was making progress.
The Third Draft: The “Finish It No Matter What” Draft
After the failure of the second draft, I took some time to make more world-building and plot-related changes, and then I embarked on the third draft. Over the course of the next two and a half or so years I had many ups and downs, but I finally completed it on August 11, 2018.
My third draft was painfully rough and will never see the light of day, but I finished it precisely because I had a consistent vision and I kept plugging away.
In my last post, I talked about this at some length: there were significant stretches of time in which I felt uninspired and lacked creativity, but I kept plugging away all the same, and the magic always came back.
I had many problems with this third draft. The secondary characters were mostly uninspiring and boring, and my pacing suffered quite a bit near the end.
I finished the novel anyway because I refused to give up, and I made myself keep writing. I knew the problems existed and I knew that they were quite severe, but I went ahead anyway and finished the darn thing.
In Closing
Writing my first novel taught me a great deal about the nature of story arcs, characters, world-building, and the craft of writing itself.
If you’re in that boat and you’re struggling to finish that first draft, the best advice I can give you is that it’s absolutely vital to come up with an idea for a draft that you can commit to finishing no matter what. Give yourself the freedom to keep writing no matter what, and you’ll know the satisfaction of finishing a complete draft of your first novel.
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