How to Write a Novel - Step by Step (Part 2!)

This post is a continuation! If you haven't seen part one yet, you can read it here!

Step Fifteen: The Playlist

Remember that playlist we created last step? Now it’s time to put it into action! Put it on shuffle and the song that plays is the scene we’re gonna work on.

Step Sixteen: Skeleton Draft

This is what I call the first stage of writing. We’re gonna rip a book down to its bare essentials and build it back up again piece by piece. For this draft, just focus on writing the dialogue and key actions of each scene. What we’re looking for is something reminiscent of a script for your scene. This, I find, is a lot easier to write than a full first draft right off the bat. 

Write a skeleton for all of your scenes and then move on to the next step.

Step Seventeen: Basic Draft

So, we have the bones of a novel – let’s add some meat! We’re gonna turn our script into actual full sentences… And that’s pretty much it at this stage. We want to focus on mapping out the action correctly. Picture your scene in your head like you’re watching a movie (based on your lovely script from the last draft, of course) and just write down everything that happens! 

Don’t worry about flowery descriptions and such just yet. Instead, where you think a description of a scene or a person or object is necessary just write “DESCRIBE BLANK HERE” and move on. (Of course, if you want to write it now or inspiration hits you, go for it! But I find that I get stuck on trying to describe stuff and it really slows down my pace and pulls me out of my flow so I prefer to save those bits for a different time.)

Step Eighteen: Full Draft

Now we’re really cooking! We have dialogue, action, probably some exposition here and there too. What’s left? Well, we gotta add back in those flowery descriptions. Don’t feel they need to be perfect right away! Things can be corrected and improved at the editing stages. But you can’t edit a blank page. So just get something down.

This draft also needs to cover emotions. There’s a chance you’ve already taken care of this in the other steps but it’s an important thing I want to call out. Make sure you cover how your characters feel in each scene with action and descriptions. At this step, you’ll probably also want to inject some of your POV character’s personal voice and opinions into your draft so that your story always stays connected to their perspective.

Step Nineteen: The Macro-Edit

For our first pass, we’re gonna do a ‘macro-edit.’ Read through your novel start to finish. While reading it, make notes on plot, structure, character, setting – all the big stuff. Answer questions like: are you enjoying reading this? Which parts are boring? Which parts are confusing? Is your main character likeable? Is it clear where we are in this scene?

Most writers and editors refer to this as a ‘structural edit’ but I prefer the term ‘macro-edit’ because it paints a better picture of what we’re doing here – we are NOT getting caught up in the micro details. For this round of editing, I usually have a separate notebook open next to me where I write my notes as I’m reading.

Once you’ve made notes of the entire book, go back and edit based on your notes. You’re welcome to do a few passes of this editing so that you can get the basics right before we move on.

Step Twenty: The Micro-Edit

Happy with your overall story? Great! Now we’re gonna get real intimate with it (and you are gonna get so bored but it’s all for the greater good!) 

Now we’re gonna focus on the details. Spelling, grammar, word choices, sentence structure and flow. I find it hard to stay focused on this edit sometimes so, to remain thorough, I literally go through my manuscript line-by-line.

Sentence. By. Sentence.

This is a marathon, not a sprint. Take your time and really ask yourself “is this the best word I could use right now?” If yes, move on to the next word. If no, get to replacing it with something better! This is where we really polish up our manuscript so that it shines like the sun!

Step Twenty-One: The Feedback-Edit

If you’ve done all the previous steps well, this should be a pretty easy step for us. It involves sending out your manuscript to a few beta-readers: family, friends, people online – literally anyone who will read it for you. Then you’re gonna ask them for feedback and edit based on the feedback you receive. 

I recommend having a few pre-prepared questions to ask them to get the most out of your feedback. Things like “did you enjoy it?” “What did you think of the main character?” “Were there any parts you skimmed over because it was a bit boring?” This is how you’ll get the best feedback from even people who don’t feel like they have anything to say.

The Choice

First of all, you’re gonna have to make a choice: are you gonna self-publish or try down the traditional publishing route? There are pros and cons to both. I personally only have first-hand experience self-publishing but I also learnt a lot about traditional publishing during my degree course. This topic deserves a long post all of its own and, once I have written it, I will link it here.

For those of you wanting to shoot your shot at traditional publishing your next step will be:

Step Twenty-Two: Query Agents

Do some research and find agencies and agents that want what you have and that you think you could vibe with. Make sure to read what the agency/agent is looking for. If you feel as though you meet that criteria, apply to them in the way they want you to apply. This usually means sending them the first few chapters plus a query letter and maybe a cover email so make sure you have all of those prepared first and put your best foot forward. From there, it's just a waiting game, I’m afraid.

If you’d rather self-publish:

Step Twenty-Two: Hire Some Help

If you want to charge people for your novel, you need to make sure it is worthy of being paid for. The only way you’re going to manage this is by hiring some professionals to aid you. There are a lot of different people you can hire for a range of different things but, at the bare minimum, you’re gonna need to hire an editor and a cover designer. You can find some for relatively cheap on Fiverr but be wary that you might be compromising on quality if you’re paying for really cheap. Otherwise, do some research until you find the perfect people to help you do your bidding– I mean, help you with the finishing touches!

Step Twenty-Three: Amazon KDP

I have used Amazon KDP to self-publish my books and it doesn’t get much easier than that. I will do a full tutorial on this at some point (and link it here once it’s posted) but there are also plenty of tutorials on YouTube and on Google that can help you too. There are, of course, other options for self-publishing that don’t involve Amazon but I am far less familiar with those avenues so it’ll probably require some of your own research.

Conclusion

And that’s it! How to write a novel – step-by-step! It’s been a long one so if you’ve managed to get to this point, thank you very much. I hope you’ve found this mega-post helpful!

If you have any questions, feel free to use the google form below to leave a comment. I read every one and am happy to reply with answers where I can.

I hope this has shown you that novel writing isn’t as intimidating as it seems and literally anyone can write a novel! 

You’ve got this, fren!