NEWSKILL - Write the First Draft of your Novel

A complete first draft of your novel.

Everyone has a book in them, some have several, and others have libraries. Why don’t we all have the skill to start the first steps of writing a novel? We do, we just need to know where to find the information and we need to know where to start.

There is no magic. There is no mystical experience to encounter. There is, practice.

This is going to be the first draft, NOT the finished article. This is the draft where you are allowed to get everything wrong. For now, your goal is to hook the idea out of your head, and make it give birth all over your favourite notebook. Clean up on the third or fourth edit. Teach it how to walk and talk on the firth and how to observe etiquette within cultural norms on the sixth or seventh edit. For now, you have to get that baby OUT!

Getting started is the main pitfall of the writer. All writers think that their prose is an art, and that the art should spew forth, unsullied by grammatical error or heinous crimes against sentence structure. Unless you are a supremely confident writer – (in which case, you will not be reading this) you’ll need to be instructed on the finer points of the first draft.

I have done it. I’m not published, but I have written a complete first draft of a novel, and I’m on my third draft which is 85,000 words long.

I have my own step-by-step approach for that tentative first draft, which I’ll briefly share:

1) Write. Hmm…bit too simplistic? No. You need to write every day, about everything and anything. You need to be able to write fast, with clarity and conviction. You’ll need to churn out a massive piece of work, so writing hard and fast is your first lesson.

2) Read. Yes, really. You can hardwire your brain into automatically ‘know’ about dialogue conventions/handling white space/paragraphing/tone and pace if you are prepared to read those books until your eyes bleed. Deciding that you haven’t got time to read is a false economy; you’ll have to learn all this stuff at some point anyway, so reading with a purpose is the best option for you – learning it all with lessons isn’t the easiest or the most valuable way and you’ll end up with a complete headache. Trust me, read the genre you will be writing in, get the vibe, and go for it.

3) Learn about key terms, such as: showing not telling and how to develop your voice etc. There are thousands of books out there to help with every aspect of the craft, but they all make it sound too hard. Heads-up – it’s NOT hard.. You start to care about grammar on your third or fourth edit, if this is too daunting, align yourself and befriend an enthusiastic proofreader/editor (find them on writing sites and forums).

4) In November, you join NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo is the abbreviation for National Novel Writing Month.They will be your detailed instructors. They will send you weekly motivational e-mails. You will have a month to complete your ‘novel’. I know – scary isn’t it? Everyone is scared and fuelled only by adrenaline and robust bloody-mindedness on their first draft. The site praises quantity over quality. The process of writing the volume you need to produce is a dramatic learning curve. NaNoWriMo is supportive, mostly people like YOU and you can join a forum in your local area – some areas have meet-ups in your chosen genre. It is sheer unadulterated perseverance but above all, the pleasure of writing your first draft in a supportive massive group is truly worthwhile. You ‘win’ if you complete 50,000 words or more within 30 days. (I did it – 2,000 words a day, taking about 1-2 hours in the evening). Hundreds of people win every year. You get a certificate. I won it on my first go and the achievement feels brilliant, soul-warming and skill-affirming.

5) Keep this first draft to yourself. Do not read it for about 6 weeks. Keep reading within your genre, come up with new ideas, and write things in your notebook until you have forgotten the twists and turns of the main plot of your first draft. THEN read it. Edits, inconsistencies will be evident and a second draft will be a natural process.

NaNoWriMo Website: http://www.nanowrimo.org/

Wesites for writers to learn from, to gain reviews and everything that's in between: I’ve reviewed a few writers sites below. There are literally thousands. Howver, I’ve had ‘contact’ with the ones below, it might be helpful to take a look and decide which types would suit you, if indeed you decide to join one:

Reviews of writing websites.

First Writer

This website gets 34,000 individual hits per month. 45% are American, 41% are British, 11% other. Unusually, this website displays its demographic; other websites do not do this, so its rash to conclude that the demographic is the same for each site, but you can conclude that this type of site attracts this demographic.

By age range and gender taken at Dec 2003:

Under 25s 11.1% Male and female

26-35 Female 14.5% Male 10.5% Total 25%

36-50 Female 20.1% Male 11.2% Total 31%

Over 50 Female 15% Male 12.2% Total 27%

Over 70 - residual amount

Positive:

· This website saves research time

· Regularly updated databases; these include Literary Agents/competitions off-site/Publishers and updated calls for submissions.

· Instant Alert e-mails set by user

· Editorial Services as an extra source of revenue, paid on demand by the user

· Links to the outside world: e-mail newsletter, Magazine (ad funded) e-mail alerts

· Flexible payment structure, ranging from £64.99 for life membership to £2.65 per month

Negative:

· Poorly organised ‘Hints and Tips’, i.e., all under one heading, no boundaries, in date order

· The users submit hints and tips, but professional learning material isn’t present, therefore, as a user, the learning material seems less credible

· No community forum, or free peer reviews

· Poorly executed graphics and aesthetics

· The tone is banal

· Content is cramped and overall effect is too busy

BBC Writers Room

Positive:

· The site is credible and well connected

· The content is energising, fresh and interesting

· The tone is engaging

· Is a specialist site for submitting to the BBC and promoting their aims

· Funding and opportunities

· Useful learning material

· Writer interviews

Negative

Write Words.org

Revenue generation is everywhere you look: Correspondence courses/Commercial notice board on the forums/unpaid public access limited/Bookshop.

Positive:

· Graphics are fresh (White Background black and grey with flashes of zingy orange

· Font is appealing and contemporary

· Active community – about 2-3 new members a day

· Peer reviews encouraged

· Random Read – this is a nice touch for when you’ve just popped in and good for hooking lurkers as well

· Jobs board

· Events Calendar

Negative:

· Is the most expensive site at £35 per year but does have a free trial

· Events calendar format is linear, rather than in calendar format

Urbis.com

This site is incredibly ambitious – to its detriment. For me, the positives are heavily weighted. This site is a lesson how something fabulous can turn very crap, very quickly.

Positive:

· Graphics are cool and trendy

· Rolling news feed in real time of reviewers/new stuff

· Concept is to die for: creative democracy and simplicity

· Brand logo is ubercool

· Easy non-intrusive sign-up

· On the outside, at least everything seems so simple…

· Registered Copyright infringement Agent

· Import friends from your e-mail list so they can join as well

· Networking opportunities

· Options to select your reviewers from just friends or everyone

· Extensive FAQ section

· Black/white and splash of pink on the logo and page heading

· Rather than addressing ‘writers’ they address ‘voices’

· Review guidelines

HOWEVER:

Negative:

· Review guidelines are over policed by the moderators

· Nothing that you expect a writing site to contain, no ‘usual suspects’ such as paying markets, lit agents etc…

· Reviewing reviewers NEVER works and on Ubis, this is over prominent

· Reviewing credits should ensure that people review and submit work, but has gone seriously wrong. I’ve read through all the forum on these topics and basically, the credit system is in abstract, a very good way to ensure peer reviews, but the implementation of this, added to the policing elements of the reviewers, plus arguments querying the boundaries of good/bad review has caused this site to nearly die.

· Simplicity has been used in the wrong areas – clarity has been absorbed by massive general forum categories with hundreds of pages with no search facility

· Functionality is quoted as sophisticated, but although algorithms etc are a great idea the application of these, plus the jargon associated with understanding it all is, unfortunately, over-ambitious

· Breaking away from tradition is great, but the system to which the concept has been attached to does not work.