For many writers, November is the month for writing a novel. Whether you’re taking part in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) or you simply want to finish your novel before the end of the year, this blog post is for you. Approaches to writing a novel differ vastly from writer to writer, and often from novel to novel.
The good news is that you don’t have to marry any of them: you can assemble your own by taking and borrowing from take or borrow from different approaches. As you go on writing more novels, your writing process will develop and change. You might discover that each novel is a beast in its own right and will want to try something different.
“The scariest moment is always just before you start.”
Stephen King
There are three standard approaches to writing a novel. Let’s unpick them one by one.
1. No Plan
You might have heard of this approach as ‘pantsing’ (writing from the seat of your pants) or discovery writing (discovering the story as you write it). The essential characteristic of this approach is that you start writing without a plan. That’s not to say that this approach is easier than the other two.
The primary advantage of this approach is that you can start writing without preparation. It’s a fun way to explore a story with all the freedom and none of the difficulty of puzzling to fit it all together. On the downside, you can easily get sidetracked or tangled into the narrative with little clarity about where you’re going or what your story is about. You might get stuck. As a result, you’ll likely need to revise much more heavily to untangle all the stray storylines, fix the inconsistencies and make sure your story makes sense.
That’s not to say that this approach can’t work well. I know many authors who wrote their first novel without a plan, only to discover they couldn’t do the same with the second one. Sometimes, newer stories require more work because the details haven’t been fleshed out in our minds. Quite a few famous writers claim to use this approach, though very few do so in reality. Several self-professed ‘pantsers’ actually outline their story before starting to write. Some outlines might be as short as a couple of paragraphs, others might consist of research and character notes. Famous ‘pantsers’ are said to include Isaac Asimov, Pierce Brown and Ernest Hemingway. It’s fair to assume that those who use this approach regularly can do so because they’ve internalised basic story structure to the level that they no longer have to think about it.
If you’ve tried this approach, let me know how it worked for you.
2. A Plan
This approach is often referred to as outlining or plotting, meaning that the author would first pin down the essential elements of the story. Some outlines might be as simple as a one-page summary of the story plot, others are a scene-by-scene synopsis with detailed notes on the plot, setting and character. Famous plotters include J.K. Rowling, E.L. Stine, Marcel Proust, F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Grisham.
The upside of this approach is that it gives you a direction and structure to follow, which makes for a more relaxed writing experience. While many writers claim that knowing what happens in advance makes for a boring writing experience, that’s not necessarily the case for those who love outlining. Knowing where you’re taking your story and why makes you less likely to take detours that will take weeks of revisions to fix. Besides, one can’t predict everything that will happen and your story might still change, so you won’t get bored easily.
This doesn’t mean that following a plan is without downsides. For one, you’ll need to take time to prepare before you as much as write the first sentence. This, however, doesn’t mean that your story won’t shift once the story comes to life and your characters reveal their true selves. Depending on their behaviour, you might have to adapt your outline to fit the new reality or remove, add or change the character’s storylines. If you instead decide to stick to the original plan, your story could become stifled and your characters resemble chess figurines, moved from scene to scene by an invisible hand.
Good plotting is done from the inside, keeping in mind the characters’ inner drive. I’ve read many brilliantly plotted novels in which the story feels so natural that it swipes you away, but I’ve also read several that were well-plotted but had stilted characters with no motivation or drive of their own.
If you’d like to plot well, read Jennie Nash’s ‘Blueprint for a Book.’ Or try out Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake method.
3. A combo
The last approach combines elements of outlining and discovery writing. This might mean deciding on a few crucial events, such as the beginning, the middle and the end, and working out the rest as you write. It might include character notes and exploratory scenes that help define the shape of your story and give you a better understanding of your character’s motivation and arc of change, or it could include any other combination of planning and discovery writing that suits you best.
While this approach isn’t widely discussed, many writers who’d describe themselves as ‘pantsers’ use it in practice. As soon as a writer does any prep work, be it detailed plot or character notes or a brief story idea scribbled on a paper napkin, they’re outlining. Sure, they might not know any other details and have to figure out the rest as they write. Still, they are combining outlining and discovery writing.
The benefit of this approach is that a loose outline lays the ground on which to grow and discover the rest of the story.
If you’re unsure which method to try first, this approach is probably a good fit for you. Lisa Cron’s ‘Story Genius‘ approach, for example, combines both approaches really well and you could use it to plot a few scenes ahead without losing any excitement about discovering the rest of the story.
To learn more about other writers’ processes, read this excellent Substack post on how Bram Stoker planned ‘Dracula’.
