Novel-Writing Game Plan

It's finally here! A bit belated, but at least I got it done. I meant to write an introduction, but that introduction turned into my post on why I need a master plan. So this time, I'll jump right in. Here's how I want to approach writing my first novel:

1. Create a vision

More and more, I'm learning to appreciate the value of having a vision. I always thought I wasn't an ambitious or passionate person, but maybe that's because I didn't really know what I want. How can I get anywhere if I don't even know what my destination is? That's why I'm going to write down my dream of what I hope to accomplish, so I have something to aim for. A guiding star, so I know which direction to take. I'm not sure, yet, how detailed this vision will be, or how well I'll be able to realize it, or how much it will change with time. But this is where I'm going to start.

2. Commit to a story

Remember what I said about putting things on to-do lists that I've already finished? Yeah, this is one of them. I've accumulated lots of different story ideas over the years, and I know I need to stick to one of them — so I chose one. Once I'm done with my vision posts I'll talk more about how I get ideas and how I decided which one to pick (the reason is kind of ridiculous — but you'll see). I hope I can stick with it. I tend to like keeping my options open, which can turn into commitment-phobia, but this time I want to see it through to the end.

3. Brainstorm more brilliance

At least, I hope there will be some brilliance involved. :P Sure, I have tons of ideas, but they need to be developed before there's enough material for a novel. I need to know more about the plot, setting, and characters. I'll be asking myself a lot of questions, coming up with answers that fit with my vision and with the specific story idea I chose, and trying to weave them all together into something that sounds good to me. There will probably be a lot of free-writing and list-making in this stage. Plus a lot of being frustrated with myself for not knowing the answer...

4. Organize an outline

I do enjoy scribbling ideas down by hand in notebooks and having files of random bullet points and snippets of scenes, but I like having my ideas neatly organized even more. I'll be taking my jumble of thoughts and sorting, trimming, and reorganizing them until I can see the big picture with all the pieces where they belong. I like plans and strategies, and having an outline will help me keep track of plot elements and character arcs. Structure is important, and I want to be sure to think ahead so I don't write myself into a corner.

5. Write!

This part scares me. So much. What if I can't make it past a few thousand words? What if my outline doesn't work and I get stuck? What if all I do is open the document and then proceed to surf the web instead of actually working on it? What if I do write something but it's absolutely awful? What if it turns out I'm not cut out to be a writer because I secretly hate writing?

I don't know how I will handle the writing part. I never wrote more than a few brief scenes before. I also never had a complete outline either, so maybe that will help. I don't know. I think I will need word count goals and schedules but I think I will probably fail those and then feel discouraged and not want to write. And I will probably want to edit as I write. Well. I'll worry about it more when I get to that phase. I'm sure I'll be struggling with this a lot. At least that means I will have material to blog about, hm?

6. Repeat 2-5 with a new project

OMG IF I EVER FINISH I WILL BE SO ECSTATIC. When I'm not beating myself up because I think what I wrote is a pile of crap, that is. I'll let myself celebrate a little and resist the urge to dive back in and fix stuff by distracting myself with a new story. I hope I make it to this part.

7. Revise first novel

I'm actually looking forward to revision. How cool is it to be able to read a book and fix all the things you think are wrong with it? I will be so happy to let my inner editor run rampant (though I should probably remind her to be kind, as I don't want me to be too discouraged). I have no idea how much work I'll have to do at this point but I think it'll be fun to see what I've written and try to improve it. Or maybe I'm being delusional and I will actually want to bash my head against a wall and tear my hair out if I make it to this stage. Huh. I guess we'll see.


So, there you go! A general overview of how I'm planning to go about this writing project. Although I did leave out one important element in this plan (there's a brief mention, but nothing concrete). Well, probably more than one, but there's one specific thing I'm thinking of. I don't have a good track record regarding that aspect of planning, so I sort of dread thinking about it. But it's important, so I guess I'll force myself to talk about it in my next post. Can you tell what it is?

If you notice anything else I've overlooked or have any advice or words of wisdom for me, please share! I'm open to suggestions for revising my plan and I would love to learn from your experience. :)

Writing Habits

This is what I learn about my writing process from my post on how I write English papers:

ONE...      I never start until the last possible moment,
TWO...      though maybe it's not really the last possible moment since I always have time to whine to my friends about how screwed I am,
THREE...      in addition to waste time on the internet instead of actually working,
FOUR...      except I tell myself I’m letting my ideas marinate and that my subconcious is generating all sorts of brilliant ideas while I play Insaniquarium,
FIVE...      and it might be kind of true because, after all that procrastinating, I’ll somehow think of a thesis and an outline that's basically my entire paper, except not in prose,
SIX...      but readers like prose, so I turn my bullet points into sentences and edit each one to make sure it’s ok before I move on,
SEVEN...      because I totally don’t have time to do revisions.

Eek. Not only is that list a humongous run-on, but it also includes many bad habits. Procrastinating? Whining? Terrible. Letting my inner editor run rampant? Turning in a first draft? Scandalous!

And I think I might be a compulsive outliner. Sure, I free-write journal entries, personal emails, and brief blog posts, but I always try to decide on what I want to say before I write, even if I don't make an outline (my friends have remarked that my emails tend to be very organized).

But there are times when a blog post (or even email!) becomes longer and more complex than I anticipated, and then I totally regret not outlining first.

I dislike reading drafts in which my ideas are all jumbled up rather than flowing logically from one point to the next. I feel like my brain melts into a disorganized mess, and while some people thrive best in creative chaos, I can't wait to straighten out all my thoughts. I see my ideas so much more clearly in summarized notes than in pages of unwieldy paragraphs, so sometimes I'll turn my rambling draft into an outline, draft again, rearrange the outline, then write a final version that I tighten and polish before sending it out into the world.

But at least that tells me I'm not completely incapable of revising, despite how little time I allot for it when I write papers. I find that I enjoy tweaking sentences, eradicating careless mistakes, and — most of all — deleting unnecessary words. The hard part is creating the outline and churning out the words so I have something to edit.

Here are things I'd like to change about how I write:

- Less whining!
Or at least not on my blog/Twitter (and I'll try to give my friends a break, but sometimes I can't help it). When the going gets rough, I'll write a blog post about the difficulties I'm experiencing, why I think it's happening, think up a few ideas to deal with it, and ask for advice from more experienced writers.

- Less procrastination!
I am very deadline-motivated. I used to start personal projects and forget about them for long stretches at a time since I felt like I had forever to work on them. I started this blog to keep myself accountable, and I'll be blogging about my plans and progress every week. Hopefully, my own (flexible) deadlines will motivate me to work and stay on track.

- Don't be a perfectionist on the first pass.
I can't imagine allowing myself to write anything riddled with spelling and grammatical errors (I still make dumb mistakes sometimes though). Still, I understand why writers advise turning off the inner editor for the first draft. I will prioritize getting the words down and leave fixing awkward sentences to the revision stage, no matter how tempting it is to try to get it perfect. I'll have plenty of time to fiddle with the writing later; the important thing is to finish a first draft.

- Use a blend of outlining and free-writing.
I don't think I'll be outlining every piece of dialogue or action. I want to figure out the major scenes so I don't feel lost or get overwhelmed, but I think it will be good for me to do more exploratory writing in order to learn about my story and characters. That means I'll probably change my outline as I write, but I still like starting out with a basic structure.

By now you can probably tell I like to plan things out in advance (never mind how good I am at actually following through). Next week, I'll talk about planning for my novel-writing project. I made a lot of false starts when I was younger, but this time I'm determined to finish!


Do you have any bad writing habits? How do you overcome them?

8 Steps to Writing an English Paper in One Night

You may think it's odd I'm blogging about writing English papers as I am no longer in school, and what I want to write are novels, not more papers.

The thing is, I know very little about writing novels. Sure, I've read hundreds of novels and tons of blog posts, articles, and books about how to write them. But I’ve never written one.

What I have written a lot of are English papers. (I get points for sticking to "write what you know," don't I?) I hope that, by analyzing how I write academically, I can get an idea of the best writing process for me as I dive into my fiction project. I probably have a ton of bad habits I need to fix, and being aware of what they are would be the first step.

This is how I write English papers:

(Disclaimer: your mileage may vary; results are not guaranteed and you're responsible for the outcome should you try this at home.)

1. Pick a topic

As soon as I get the list of prompts, I cross out any prompt based on books I didn't buy for the class. (The best way to save money on textbooks is not to buy them, right? I think there was a semester or two when I didn't buy any textbooks. Somehow, I survived.) Then I eliminate prompts that look like too much work or too boring or whatever. Eventually I settle on a topic. Then I figure I've done enough work for the time being and forget about the paper until a couple days before it's due.

2. Read the source material and find all relevant passages

This is when being a fast reader comes in handy. I can (and do) read several full-length novels in one day, so I know I'll have enough time to read whichever book I've chosen to write about. If I've already read the book, it does make it easier to note all the sections related to the prompt, but I can do it on my first read through as well. I like to highlight and dog-ear every instance to make them easy to find. I tend to do this a day or two before the paper is due.

3. Collect potential quotes

The day before the paper is due, I'll complain to my friends that I have a paper due the next day and haven't even started (I can't believe they put up with me either; my friends are so nice!). In the afternoon I review my source material, and after dinner I start compiling the most useful passages in a Word document. This becomes my "brainstorm" file and it's where I outline the paper. Since it's still early in the evening, I feel like I have lots of time left. So I take plenty of breaks to play random flash games. It wouldn't do to overwork myself now, would it?

4. Make observations and organize the quotes accordingly

The previous step shouldn't take all that long, but time flies when you procrastinate. Eventually, I notice how late it's getting and make myself analyze the passages and find patterns and connections. I start with concrete details and build my paragraph ideas from there as I link together passages that support the same point. As before, this is accompanied by surfing the internet and whining to friends.

5. Come up with a thesis

By the time I finish it's probably around 11pm. Then comes the toughest part of the entire paper-writing process for me. I look at my potential topic sentences and try to think of an argument that ties them all together. This is hard. It has to say something interesting and compelling about the text or author that can be logically supported by the observations I've already made.

It's so incredibly difficult that I agonize over my lack of ideas, certain I will never be able to start writing my paper. I decide I will most likely fail the class. So I go look at something funny on the internet to make me feel better.

After a good laugh, I stare at my screen. A lot. And change my status to "I NEED A THESIS!" so all my friends know how tortured I am. And whine some more to make sure they didn't miss my subtle hint. And then let my conscious mind take a break with Bejeweled so my subconscious can work on the paper. And then blank out some more at my brainstorm file.

Around 1am (or midnight, if I'm lucky) I finally type out my beautiful, brilliant thesis and wonder why I didn't think of it sooner. To celebrate the amazing progress I've made, I let myself procrastinate some more by watching YouTube videos.

6. Outline the paper

Once I get my thesis, everything falls into place. I look at the material I have and rearrange the order to fit the thesis. I make sure the outline flows logically from one point to the next so my transitions would be smooth. I write out my topic sentences and decide which quotes to keep. Then I'm ready to start writing.

7. Write

Most of my paper assignments were in the 5-7 page range. From experience I know that, including time spent on procrastination and the inverse relationship between efficiency and sleep deprivation, I should budget about one hour to write each page.

By now I'm not so worried; the hardest part is over. I know the basic writing mechanics and I know what I want to say, thanks to my outline. I just have to churn out the words.

I write and edit sentence-by-sentence, making sure what I've written makes sense and says something useful before I move on. If I can't think of a good way to phrase something, I'll write SOMETHING GOES HERE and skip to the next section. But that doesn't happen often as I'm simply transforming my outline into prose. I already know what every sentence is supposed to say, whether it's the topic of a paragraph, analysis of a specific line, explanation of a quote, or a transition to the next point. Since I have a thesis, the introduction and conclusion write themselves.

But thanks to my terrible habit of procrastinating, I'm writing at a time when I'd normally be sleeping, so my brain isn't exactly operating at its optimum. I have to be careful that I don't start writing nonsense as my brain turns to mush. The longer I stay up, the harder it becomes to form a coherent sentence. Minutes pass by as I squint at the blinking cursor, trying to remember how I'd intended to finish the half-written fragment. I can't think straight at all — it takes too much effort to remain lucid.

I can't afford to get writer's block, so I don't. But I do let myself take a nap. Around 5am, I get so tired I let myself lie down and close my eyes. I always worry I'll oversleep and miss my class, not turn in the paper, and fail the course, but the thought is so horrifying I wake up every few minutes to check the time. I always get up in time to finish my paper.

8. Check it over and turn it in

I complete the paper about half an hour (or less) before class starts. I make sure I didn't inadvertently leave SOMETHING GOES HERE in my paper. I quickly reread my sentences and tweak them a bit, but the changes are minor. I don't have time to do an in-depth line edit, and much less any revisions, so I print out the paper and hope there aren't too many typos or awkward sentences. Even if there are a few careless mistakes, I tell myself it's the content that matters. I try not to be more than half an hour late to class, then finally hand in the paper.

And then it’s over! Yay! I struggle to stay awake during class and bolt out the door once it ends. I go home, stumble to my bed, and fall into a much-needed and blissful slumber.


This process works for me, for the most part. It's not perfect and sometimes my papers turn out to be less than stellar, but thankfully those B+ and A- grades were in the minority. The one time I got a C on a paper, I was absolutely appalled, but I talked to the grader and worked my butt off on the second paper and the final, so I still ended up with an A in the class (whew!).

So I'd say my habit of staying up all night to write English papers generally works ok for me, though I can't say how well it'd work for anyone else. (Don't try this and expect to get a good grade if you usually spend days writing multiple drafts of your essays.)

Anyway, that's how I write English papers. In my next post, I'll talk about what issues I'll need to work on as I tackle writing a novel (I bet you can already guess what some of them are).


How about you? How did (or do) you go about writing academic papers?