I’ve been truly blessed to beat the “starving artist” stereotype and make a career as a writer. Of course, that meant I had to learn at a young age to diversify my writing projects. My main sources of income are corporate copywriting (the “day job”), travel blogging, ghostwriting for clients, and the occasional freelance content marketing. You’ll notice that bookwriting is not in there. That’s because I’m a newbie to the publishing game, but I know a thing or two about taking on enormous writing projects and getting them to the finish line. Today, I’m going to walk you through how to write a book forward, backward, upside down, from the middle… okay, so there’s no “right” way to do it, but these tips may just help you ease your nerves and confirm that you’re doing everything right. Or, better yet, you might even find an easy way to improve your writing. Let’s dive in, shall we?
1. Write for yourself.
Before you even decide what your book will be about and who your target audience will be, start freewriting and see what happens. Freewriting is like writing down one’s stream of consciousness — it’s all about allowing your thoughts to flow freely from your fingertips. This creative exercise allows your mind to run wild while you sidestep the threat of writer’s block.
Freewriting can be challenging for some writers, as it’s not about perfection. Heck, it’s not even about being good. It’s all about getting your thoughts on paper. Refinement is a step down the line, so you’ll want to separate from any thoughts of a certain level of quality. At this point in the game, it’s about developing a habit, as practice makes perfect.
Understand, too, that there’s a high chance your first manuscript won’t be good. My first book was one I wrote in ninth grade, and my cocky young self queried that book to literary agents. Rejection was swift and relentless. If you plan to eventually shop your book around to see if you can find representation and pursue traditional publishing, you’ll eventually need to develop a thick skin. But, again, that’s a few steps down the line, and it’s not yet something you’ll need to put energy into. Just something to keep in mind.
As you write for yourself and allow a story to grow from the ground up, you’ll have a chance to get to know your writing style. You’ll see how you develop stories and learn if your story has the potential to flourish into something more. You may find that your initial idea is best poised to be a short story, or as you explore, you may find you have even more ideas than you initially thought. Either way, it’s okay! At this point, the only audience you need to think about is yourself as both an author and a reader. Do you like your story idea? Perfect. That’s all that matters.
2. Write like you’re running out of time.
Once you start encouraging the creative juices to flow, start writing a lot. Seriously. I cannot emphasize enough that practice makes perfect, so at the very least, you’ll be sharpening your writing skills every step of the way. Of course, writing a book takes a lot of time, so writing frequently and consistently is truly the secret sauce to getting the job done. There are four ways you can go about this:
- Schedule a dedicated writing time. For some writers, setting a dedicated writing time is the key to success. For example, every weekday at 6 p.m., you may sit down and write for a full hour. Maybe it’s a 30-minute session before bed. Whatever works for you, it’s essential to hold yourself accountable. Sometimes, I’ll even put a reminder in the calendar in my phone to make sure I have a reminder to sit down and do it.
- Write when inspiration strikes. An alternative option is to allow your creative juices to dictate when you write. This is a great way to prevent writer’s block, as you’ll already have an idea that’s ready to execute. Writing when inspiration strikes and your personal muse is easing you toward the finish line is an easy, stress-free way to get the job done. However, inspiration is not always a frequent occurrence. I’ve certainly had books where I go weeks without any new ideas. That time for reflection is okay. Your book isn’t a client project with a hard deadline; it’s your creative endeavor that you’re throwing a piece of your heart into. Give yourself the grace and the space to reflect and find the right path forward.
- Do a combination of the two. I love this option, as it’s a great balance between striking a healthy rhythm and submitting to your inspiration when it’s demanding center stage. Each day after work, I strive to destress by dipping my toes into a bit of creative work. After writing product manuals, marketing materials, and other corporate resources, it’s great to have fun! Plus, I sometimes like funneling my righteous fury from the workday into more melancholy stories. I might have had a bad day, but at least my main character, Kristina Simmons, is having a worse one. (Insert maniacal laughter here.) While I do love to write at this dedicated time, I also don’t force it if I’m not feeling particularly creative. I find that inauthenticity comes across when your heart isn’t in it, so I allow myself to take a break if I need it. Of course, taking breaks also means that if I wake up on Saturday morning with an idea, I need to carve out some additional time to sit down and put pen to paper.
- Find an accountability buddy. I have a few different friends that I’ll video call just for a creative session. If we’re writing, we’ll check in at set times (say, every fifteen minutes) to report how many words we’ve added. It’s not a competition, but a great way to watch your work grow in real time with a writing partner who will celebrate your success with you. Of course, your accountability buddy doesn’t have to be a writer! I’ll write while my friend paints, does yoga, practices contact juggling… really, this particular path is about curating a safe and encouraging space to be creative, so it doesn’t matter who you partner with! As long as you’re having fun, that’s all that matters.
Novels tend to be around 50,000 to 100,000 words. If you write, say, 1,000 words a night, you could have your first draft done in as little as two months.
National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, is another fun accountability tool. While I don’t have an account to participate in the group events, I still aim to write a 50,000-word story every November. Here are my stats from the last three years:
- November 2021: 52,174
- November 2022: 120,000 (Look at that nice, even number!)
- November 2023: 52,719
November 2022 was an outlier year because I had a nasty bout of chronic iritis and could not see out of my left eye. I wasn’t working much, so I was bored. Between using speech-to-text and pounding away at my keyboard while my left eye was hiding from light under an eyepatch, I wrote an unnecessarily long story for National Novel Writing Month. And let me tell you — it was horrible! I’m not too proud to admit that it was too long, too eccentric, and totally weird. But damn, what a great writing exercise that was.
3. Find a healthy balance of plotting and pantsing.
Pantsing is my favorite word to come out of the writing community — it’s deliciously Shakespearian and hilarious to say to non-writers. What are plotting and pantsing, you ask? Essentially, pantsing is flying by the seat of your pants and freewriting. I always joke that my characters do whatever they want, and while they’re obviously not sentient, it’s because freewriting (or pantsing) sessions sometimes push the story in a direction I didn’t anticipate. Seeing your story evolve in a way you didn’t expect is always a delightful surprise. To a degree, it allows you to explore the story more like a reader would. As you’re pantsing, you might not know what’s coming next, and the twists and turns of your own story just might surprise you.
On the other hand, plotting is meticulously mapping where your story will go. It’s a rough outline that’s prone to change, but it’s a great tool to show you where you want to take the novel. Having an outline helps you get a bird’s eye view of the story and might even help you identify plotholes. This is truly an essential piece to story writing, as it prevents you from going on and on and on and on…
It’s easy to watch your book grow beyond average word counts for your genre. Word count is essential to keep in mind whether you’re pursuing traditional publishing or self-publishing, as it highlights the industry standard and reader expectations in one concise number. A little bit of deviation is okay, but writing 150,000 words in a genre where the average is 80,000 may indicate that your story is filled with fluff.
For me, exclusively pantsing a story leads to an undisciplined manuscript that’s off-putting and weird (as with my 120,000-word NaNoWriMo project). On the other hand, exclusively plotting is rigid and robotic. In fact, pantsing sometimes causes my outline to change. For my upcoming novel, Industrialized, Part One: Experiment (you can get a free sneak preview with Poor Vinnie’s Valor if you’re interested), I realized as I wrote that my original intended ending was unrealistic for my characters. They’d evolved beyond the outline, which was actually a great thing. It showed me that I wholly understood my characters and how they’d come across to a reader.
4. Create some character analyses.
Once you start your story and know a bit about its players, take the time to complete a character analysis. I always say that the author should know at least a dozen things about their main cast that the reader doesn’t. In each analysis, I look at everything from the characters’ romantic and sexual orientation to their opinion of their childhood and the impact their parents had on their personalities. I get to know them inside and out to understand their nuances as if they’re living, breathing beings. They start to feel like friends, and predicting how they’ll react to changing stakes in a story is easier.
Google is a great tool for exploring different character analysis templates. Finding the right one for you is essential, as I believe every writer has different needs. But I also firmly believe that knowing your characters deeply is critical to preventing one-dimensional character development.
Personally, I take it one step further and create a character web. It’s a lot to look at, but allow me to explain.
I set two main goals or desires for each character in my primary cast. I don’t need these for background characters, but each major player interacting with my main character will get one. Often, these two goals conflict. Here, the analysis of Titus Tarm reveals that while he has an intense desire for control and leadership, he also craves meaningful friendships. Those two naturally conflict — who would want to be friends with a power-hungry asshole? This adds some depth to an otherwise angry, uninteresting character.
From here, I surround these goals with the names of the other main characters. These are the people that the analyzed character is likely to interact with, and it’s an excellent opportunity to highlight any lack of development. Jophiel (if you take a look at the photo above) has the same response to each goal, which makes him a relatively flat and unremarkable character. In this case, it’s intentional — the narrator does not particularly like Jophiel, so while the rest of the cast seems to know him well, she only sees a very surface-level view of him. And boy, does it bug her!
Then, I draw arrows to highlight how each character supports or works against the character in question’s goals. Pointing to the goal shows that they support it, and I scribble a note next to the arrow to explain how. Pointing away from the goal shows that they work against it, and once again, I add a short description of how. In some cases, like Kristina’s, an arrow may go both ways. In the image above, Kristina both supports and works against Titus Tarm’s desire for friendship. She’s rather friendly with him in the early stretches of the story, but that breaks down as she sees his true nature. Hence, the trust/betrayal note accompanying that arrow.
As you can see, glitter pens and color-coding make this process fun for me. It also helped me identify gaps in character development, obvious plotholes, and developments that just felt plain silly.
5. Get ‘er done, then edit.
Once you’ve got your ducks in a row, you can simply kick back and focus on finishing your book. Bring it to the finish line, sweetness, and don’t worry about perfecting it.
Hindsight is 20/20, especially when it comes to writing a book. Remember in the intro when I promised to walk you through how to write a book forward, backward, and so on? This is where writing backward comes in.
Your book may be too long or too short, and it’ll take a couple of passes through it to refine it. In the corporate world, any article I write will be reviewed by my content writing peers, my manager, the legal team, and a leadership-level stakeholder. In the book-writing world, you get to play all those roles. Rip your writing to shreds, and don’t be precious with it! Cut it up, take out the pieces that felt frivolous or irrelevant to where the story ends, and let the real bulk of your writing shine. Backtrack and add in some details if you need to.
As you’re editing, there are a few things you’ll want to keep in mind:
- Search for plotholes. Now that you’re reading rather than writing your work, are there any glaring plotholes? Did your story change and suddenly make a scene too telling or not telling enough? Now’s your chance to refine that.
- Check the tone. Character development will naturally happen, so any character’s tone may change from the first scenes they appear in to the final one. If the tone feels wonky in the beginning, you get to rework it at this point.
- Read it out loud. I always read my finished stories to my partner while he games. He’ll be playing a casual videogame while I read the story to him, and it has an awesome outcome: he tells me if he doesn’t like something, and I get to hear how the story sounds out loud. Some sentences will be clunky, and they’re often easier to hear than to spot when you’re skimming. If it’s hard to say out loud, your character probably wouldn’t say that.
- Infuse some contractions. Unless you’re going for a hyper-formal approach, you’ll want to mimic the mechanics of real language. Colloquial speech is anything but rigid, and contractions add some natural movement to your writing. Plus, they will reduce your word count if you’re struggling to keep it short!
- Check your dialogue tags. “We have to collect those apples, or the world will end,” he said. Many writing guides will discourage using dialogue tags like the italicized text in the former sentence. Show, don’t tell, they say. In this case, I can clarify that he is saying the thing about the apples by showing who is talking. “We have to collect those apples, or the world will end!” He shifted, wringing his hands together nervously. In many cases, your story can be told without dialogue tags, especially if only two characters are interacting in a conversation. That said, I always advise opting for what feels natural for you. You know your tone and storytelling style best!
As you write, writing from the middle might also be necessary. Add in scenes if they’re needed! Editing is your time to shine.
Of course, after you edit, you should also consider hiring a professional editor if you plan to self-publish. If you’re pursuing traditional publishing, know that your agent will find the right editor for your work. And be prepared for them to make some changes. As I mentioned before, getting a book to the market will require a bit of emotional distance. You simply can’t be precious with it.
6. It’s beta time, baby!
Congrats, you wrote a book! You think it’s good, but do they? Your beta readers are the first group of outsiders to read your story. This process is a bit vulnerable for any author, as these guys will tell you what’s working, what’s not, if they like the story, if they spot any plotholes… they’re here to tear it up and give you insight into how real-world readers might react.
After your first readers dig in, expect to walk away with new insights and possible edits. And be prepared for some readers to dislike your work. That’s okay! Writing is an art, and no two viewers will ever appreciate a painting the same way. For example, I just don’t like cubism. It’s not for me. Your story may not sit right with every reader, and you should prepare for some negative feedback. You need a thick skin if you’re in the public eye. It’s okay to take time to develop that, and it’s normal to feel stung at your first piece of negative feedback.
I had one beta reader who tried to read Industrialized several times, but she could not get into it. Another reader gave me a vague “okay, cool, I’ll read it” when she was handed a draft, and then I woke up to find that she’d stayed up all night reading it in one go and was obsessed. Those are both extreme cases that arose out of my beta process. The average beta reader enjoyed the story, and they got mad in all the right ways at the twists and turns in the story. (Hehehe.) Nobody highlighted any plotholes in this particular draft, but a few readers found typos. One glaring issue wasn’t caught until the fifth or sixth reader called it out, so remember that these guys are not editors. I always recommend one last read-through before you put it out into the world, even if your beta readers have given sufficient feedback.
There’s one last anecdote I’d like to add about the value of beta readers — they sometimes find meaning in your story that you didn’t intend, which is a cool English class-kinda approach to seeing how your work resonates. With Industrialized, one reader pointed out how striking it is that King Robert Sands, whose administration represses the role of women in society, has claimed the symbol of the nation’s goddess for his coat of arms. She saw it as a symbol of his ownership of female identities, from freedom and rights to religious beliefs. She thought it was a beautiful and haunting metaphor. As the writer, I just threw that bit in there to establish more worldbuilding and style their culture. It was fascinating to get that feedback, because as a writer, our work will always resonate in different ways with different people. The same is true for any type of art!
Congrats, you’re done!
You’ve completed your first manuscript! Writing a book is a bucket list item for many people, but it’s a career endeavor for some. Whatever you decide, you’ve put in the hard work and are ready to roll. You’ve mastered how to write a book forward, backward, upside down, and everything in between.
If you are considering putting your book out in the real world, I recommend joining some writing groups and learning from the pros. On Facebook, I like 20BooksTo50K®. This neat group is one of many resources where authors can be candid about their successes and pitfalls, and it’s a great place for camaraderie, asking questions, and navigating tough situations.
Whether you’re starting to write a book, finishing a book and looking for next steps, or just hoping to learn a new perspective, I hope this article helped you find your footing as a writer. Sometimes, it’s easier to have a checklist to operate off of. Perhaps you’re just looking for reassurance that your process is sound. The truth is that writing a book is all about what works well for you as the author. Know that I love that for you, and even if it feels like nobody is in your corner cheering for you, I am. Send me a message if you’d like to chat.