Advice for a First Time Author

How long would I be open? Can I close early?

 

Depends if your clients finish early.

 

“The function of your first draft is to figure out the story. The function of every subsequent draft is to figure out the best way to tell the story.”

“You might not write well every day, but you can edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.”

 

I particularly like that first quote. Do you know who said that?

 

After I utterly failed NaNoWriMo, I was completely discouraged from finishing my first novel. But then someone on this forums gave me this advice: "A first draft is meant only for the writer to figure out the story for themselves." As a newbie writer, this blew my mind (in a good way). I realized I failed NaNoWriMo because I was approaching it not as a writer discovering the story, but as an editor trying to nail a polished draft on the first try. There's also a quote by Margaret Atwood that I love: "If I waited for perfection, I'd never write a word."

 

I suppose a corollary to this great thread would be another thread, connected to the perfection idea—What is the worst writing advice you've received? My 'worst advice' is the notion that you must sit and write every day, no matter what—otherwise you're procrastinating. I think that's simply not true.

Sometimes I procrastinate because I need time to think. Just hammering out words when I'm not sure where they're headed can be a huge mistake. I end up with tons of stuff that doesn't lead anywhere good, and that can be incredibly discouraging.

Some people can write their way out of a problem, but that doesn't work for everybody, or for every problem. Thinking is part of writing, just as it's part of any creative project. Some people think best with hands on keys. Others think best while walking, or staring out a bus window, or lying in bed at night or in the morning, or doing research. All of these activities contribute to productive writing.

I'm not ashamed of the time I spend AWAY from the keyboard or notebook. It's productive time, as long as I keep thinking about my story. Sooner or later an idea hits me, and I'm able to work my way out of a problem. THEN I go back and keep writing.

...........

I do stress here that I'm not writing to a deadline—or NaNoWriMo. I suppose if you have deadlines you must meet, then your method will need to change. But I'm writing novels because I love writing them, and I have the luxury of time. (To some extent. I'm not getting any younger! )

 

Don’t try and write something perfect. Just write.

 

The very first piece of advice I got regarding writing was this. I took it to heart. If the reader ever has to guess about what you are doing, it's bad.

Clarity is god.

Alongside that advice was the comment: "You are telling, not showing." It took about two years for me to figure out what that meant.

Show is god.​

In addition, the review said that he had no idea who was telling the story. It took about ten years for me to figure that out.

View is god.

As time has gone on, I have developed a habit of new writing time every lunch and edit time all the rest of the day. Never miss a day without some new content and never stop a project until it is done, even if you hate it.

Writing every day is god.

One rule I have noticed that few people know, but is otherwise absolutely critical, is the rule Same actor/same paragraph, New actor/new paragraph. This does not just apply to dialogue. it applies to narrative, action and dialogue equally, such that you need an excuse to paragraph (if the same actor is in play) and an excuse to not paragraph (if a new actor is in play). Take this one to the bank because it pays huge dividends, and you might have never heard of it. Little known, but critical rule:

SA/SP, NA/NP

Rules, I have found, are useless if all you know is the rule. If all you konw about a rule is the repetition of the thing like a mantra, you miss the whole point and will likely never get past the roadblock of either using it as a bludgeon or rebelling against it. People often say that rules are bad. Well sure they are. But worse is not knowing the core of why the rule was written in the first place. If you figure out why the rule has benefit, and specifically what it seeks to address, you can do anything you want because now you know what avoiding the rule can cost you. Now you can directly address the cost and perhaps avoid the cost in a different way.

Other rules of interest:

Get out of the head. The story is not in your character's head.

Introduce nothing. It takes just as much energy to show people, places and things CONTEXTUALLY, as it does to hold up the show and waste whole pages on stagnant paintings.

PACE is god. Pace means sentences, paragraphs, sections and books. Always be aware of pace, every moment of the write. When it is fast, it is on purpose. When you skip ahead, it is on purpose. When it slows down, it is the appropriate moment. Pace is huge.

When in doubt, make things worse.

Don't write to plot. Write to plot points.

Modifiers are paint. They're not structure. If the structure is good enough, you don't even need the paint. If the structure sucks, all the paint in the world is useless.

The most precious real estate on the planet is the first page.

 

Learn the rules and then throw them out. This really helped me when I first started writing seriously. I was getting stressed from all of these 'rules' (grammer, plotting, style), but once I understood that the great writers often 'broke' these rules and their books were better because of it, I realised that rules don't make good writing.
There are few hard and fast rules in writing fiction - all else are just guidelines.