by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell
Back when I was doing the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference every year, I read a lot of manuscript excerpts for critique. One year I read the opening chapters of a fellow’s first attempt at a novel. He gave me the pitch and was obviously enthused about the idea. He’d had it for years, in fact, and was finally getting it down on paper (as we used to say). I marked up the MS for him and gave him some tips.
The next year he was back. When we met he showed me the same manuscript. “I made some changes you’ll like,” he said.
I asked him if he’d written anything else since last time.
“No,” he said. “Still working on this.”
A whole year (’nother) with the exact same book? Trying to get it in shape to submit to agents? And while I don’t remember the entire pitch, I do remember thinking it’d be a challenge to market.
Plus, it was his first novel. How many writers produce a publishable (or sellable) first novel right out of the gate? Not many (though I believe our own Brother Gilstrap is one of them, with Nathan’s Run).
I’ve had some people over the years come up to me and say, “I think I have a novel inside me.” And I bite my tongue to keep from saying, “That’s a good place to keep it.”
Because there are two things wrong with their sentiment.
First, if you only think you have a novel inside you, you won’t have the drive you need to make it in this game. You’ve got to think: I am a writer inside, and I’m going to write that book.
Second, no one is interested in publishing a novel. They want a novel-ist. They want someone who can deliver the goods over a career. The landscape is littered with first-time novelists whose second effort fell flat, along with their future prospects inside the walls of the Forbidden City.
Now that we have self-publishing, of course, there is no barrier to entry. But if you toss up dismal offerings that readers don’t respond to (except with one-star reviews or, what may be worse, no reviews at all) you’re not building a career, you’re just exercising your fingers.
So how long should you labor over a book before saying, “This isn’t getting me any further. Maybe I should start another one.”
There is no magical answer, but maybe I can offer some suggestions, such as:
Spending a year on one book is long enough.
Yes, that’s a bit overstated. If you’re intent on writing a novel that begins with the pre-Cambrian protozoa and ends at the Treaty of Versailles, that’s your choice.
But a novel-ist produces. A page-a-day is a book a year. A Ficus tree can write a page a day. Don’t be shown up by a Ficus tree.
If you have completed your first novel, celebrate. You’re ahead of most “I think I have a novel inside me” writers. If you’ve studied craft along the way, you will have learned a lot, so your efforts are not in vain. Almost every novelist in the 20th century had a “trunk” novel. Maybe years later they came back to the idea. Or maybe not. What they didn’t do was workshop it over and over, waiting for the cows to come home or the agents to come calling.
This assumes, of course, that you’re hoping to have a career or at least happy vocation that brings in a little dough for your efforts.
But what if this is my second attempt?
You’ve written two whole novels. Good job. Now compare the second one to your first. Did you improve? Consider getting some objective feedback from a few beta readers.
I don’t need no stinkin’ beta readers!
How big is that chip on your shoulder?
This sounds too time consuming. I want to be published yesterday.
When I was in college I wrote to a novelist I admired, the author of The Last Detail, Darryl Ponicsan. He wrote me a nice letter with some solid advice, ending with, “Be prepared for an apprenticeship of years.” (I tell that story here, with a comment from Mr. Ponicsan himself).
It did take me years, and some pretty clunky efforts, before I was published. I spent seven years writing and immersing myself in the craft before a publisher gave me a shot. I’m glad easy self-publishing was not an option back then (just expensive, worthless “vanity” publishing). Going through the grinder of submission and rejection made me a better writer. When my break came, I was ready.
But writing should be fun. This doesn’t sound like fun.
You know what the best fun is? Getting better at what you do. I loved basketball as a kid and had my dad put up a hoop on our garage. I spent hours and hours practicing, sometimes in the rain. I played hours of pickup every weekend at the gym. I got real good, and that was doggone fun. I played in college. For years afterward I had fun playing, until I blew out my knee. That was not fun. But it didn’t negate one bit all the satisfaction I got out of getting good, of hitting the winning shot with the crowd cheering.
This sounds like you’re talking to newer writers. Am I hearing you right?
Loud and clear.
So what about a “seasoned” writer? Should they ever abandon a book?
I’ve got the answer: It depends.
Okay, genius, what does it depend on?
First, on whether or not you’ve got a contract. You may not have the luxury of simple abandonment. You may be able to get a deadline extension from your publisher, but don’t make a habit of it.
If you’re an indie writer, or are writing “on spec,” you have more flexibility. We’ve talked about the “30k wall” here at TKZ. I seem to hit that with each book, even with an outline. I’ve found that a day or two of letting the basement boys have at, then coming back with a vengeance, always provides a breakthrough.
But I also have known a successful “pantser” who has written up to a point where the book flattens and loses steam, so much so that he sets the book aside and moves on.
I do my “pantsing” in the plotting stage. I explore many possible scenarios and outcomes, possible twists and turns, before choosing the path that has, for me, the greatest potential. If some twists pop up during the writing (and they always do) I take a little time to assess, and then tweak my outline. I prefer tweaking over abandoning.
I do have a file of first chapters. I can write first chapters all day long. I’ve done that as part of my creativity time, just to see what it sparks. Sometimes it is a jumping off point into further development. Other times I consider it writing practice.
Nothing is wasted when you exercise your writing muscles.
Can Artificial Intelligence save your bacon?
That is a whole can of worms (to mix metaphors). I’ve run plot problems by Mrs. B, whose intelligence is not artificial. So it is good to a brainstorming partner. The advantage of AI is you don’t have to make a phone call and set up a meeting. It is instantly available.
I would just advise not becoming too dependent on AI, because then you’re not exercising your imagination, as stated above. When that atrophies, it affects all aspects of your writing.
On the other hand, the more you work out that brain of yours, the stronger your writing will become. Plus, you’ll bring that secret sauce called self to the pages, the thing that makes your writing stand apart from the noisome pestilence of mediocrity.
Don’t ever abandon yourself.
How I have rambled on. You take over now in the comments. I’d love to hear what you have to say. (Mrs. B and I are watching the grandboys all day, so my responses may be limited. We never abandon grandboy time!)
Wow. This topic covers a wide range of thoughts and emotions. I will first say that generally speaking, my experience thus far is that I abandon novels in the general brainstorming stage. For years I have kept a list of about 100 story ideas I want to write, and over time, the appeal of some of them has just fallen away so I’ve rejected pursuing them. Or maybe it’s an idea that requires such a different realm of research I know I’ll never be able to realistically have the time to research it unless my life drastically changes & I’m suddenly filled with free time.
But I do have one project I first-drafted about 15 years ago but I have no intention of abandoning it. It’s worth finishing. But I bounce around from project to project.
I suspect for me aging is going to kick me into at least a slightly higher gear–as you age you reach a point where you ask how many of those approximately 100 story ideas can you realistically finish in the time you’ve got left? I was recently discussing Clifton Strengths Assessments with a coworker and my #1 is Learner. And for me the single greatest way to continue learning is through reading AND through writing — even if its just journaling. As I’ve said many times, writing is exploration. And because writing is exploration–it’s logical for me to abandon a story that I’ve only vaguely brainstormed, but if I’ve already dug into the project & begun writing it, it just makes me want to dig in my heels and keep pushing to the finish line no matter how long it takes–it’s part of the exploration journey.
Your advice and words are spot on, as usual. One of my friend Jim Rubart’s 10 Commandments for Writers is “Thou shalt not publish thy first book first.” The first novel I wrote ( and rewrote. And rewrote) was published 4th.
I’m up to 9 now, with 4 more under contract. Thanks for your invaluable encouragement through the years (both at Oregon Christian Writers and Mt. Hermon).
Excellent advice, Jim. My first four novels will remain trunked, though I have stolen pieces over the years (killer’s signature and MO, sidekick character, and an eerily beautiful crime scene). Rather than work on my first novel for years, I started a new one. Which I think was a good move. It expanded my imagination and helped refine my storytelling abilities. Sometimes new writers can get too “locked in” with their first, and it limits their learning.
My neighbor know I’m a writer so I hear, “You should write a story about X.” Usually those ideas won’t carry you far and they are as often as not about the setting. “Hey I saw a man leave that Airbnb carrying a rifle – you could write a story about that.”
I recently abandoned my 25th book as life got in the way and I lost a good deal of my writing muscle. The story was in a genre that I love to read (UF), but have a much harder time writing than Mystery. So I pivoted and added additional books to a long series. Once I’ve strengthen those muscles, I’ll go back to it next year.
I think I went about this all wrong. I had no desire to be a writer. Never took a creative writing class or anything like one. Then, in my 50s, I discovered fan fiction and eventually toyed with writing a story. It was fun. I wanted to see if I could write something all “mine.” I met a friend who was writing her memoir (this was 20 years ago, and she just had it published) and she invited me to her writing group. I wrote my first novel — took about 9 months — and one of the members insisted I start submitting it. E-publishing was just starting (no Amazon, just individual publishers) and one of them accepted the book, so yes, I did have my first novel published. I’m getting ready to publish my 30-something one now.
“Nothing is wasted when you exercise your writing muscles.”
What profound wisdom, Jim!
I have 10+ “practice” novels stuck on 3.5″ disks in out-of-date versions of Word. Best they stay there. But the effort wasn’t wasted b/c they served as part of my apprenticeship, honing my skills as I learned.
I wrote six chapters of a novel about ten years ago and showed it to a respected editor. He was kind enough to tell me why it didn’t and wouldn’t work. I abandoned it, realizing it was an exercise in how not to write a novel.
The first five novels I wrote were practice novels. The first four were pantsed through to “The End,” then trunked.The fifth novel was my first attempt at outlining, and went through the two-week novel outlining workshop I took in 2013. I drafted it, rewrote, got feedback on it from a classmate and the assistant workshop leader, and realized it was broken.
Back in 2019-2020 I made two attempts to write the sequel to my urban fantasy, Gremlin Night, hitting 26K with the first attempt and 21K with the second. Immediately after I put aside the second try in August 2020, I began working on my first cozy mystery and haven’t been back.
I think about returning from time to time, but, for me, writing mysteries has been my focus since then. I wrote the first version of my first mystery in just a few months, spent six months trying to rewrite it, then went on to write a new version, and followed that with drafting a third version, which then went past editor and beta readers, rewritten again, and then published. There were multiple points in this process where I thought about abandoning the novel but I knew, too, that I was going through a big learning curve, so I stuck it out.
Something I’ve learned with moving into mystery is how my process changes, and how stopping in mid-draft to do more outlining and brainstorming, sometimes for a week or more, and sometimes multiple times, seems to be part of my process as I play three-dimensional mystery chess. This was not the case with my urban fantasies.
So, as I work my way through the draft of my latest cozy mystery, Fine Me Deadly I stay the course, recognizing that, for me again, writing a mystery involves a lot of thought and three dimensional narrative chess.
Thanks, Jim. This post is loaded with good stuff.
Have a passel of fun with the grandboys today. We get to go celebrate Miss Ava’s 10th birthday this afternoon…she is indeed a character. (No, not that kind of character.) 🙂
Happy Sunday!
When I got about 40K words into my first novel, I realized I needed help. I was fortunate that someone mentioned the Christian Writers Market Guide. I found my editor/mentor in that book. I also learned a lot about layering the story from a novel by Hank Philippi Ryan. Someone recommended JSB’s Plot and Structure and also Self-editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King. It took a couple of years of work, but I finally received offers from several small publishers. I went with Crosslink Publishing and I’m so grateful since I knew nothing about publishing.
While I’ve written nonfiction as a ghostwriter and published a few myself, and while I’ve not published a novel, I’ve written a number of unpublished short stories.
I always write either in fiction or nonfiction for myself or clients. But there’s a particular world of fiction I’ve been building in notes for five years now. Each year the idea got brighter and I kept telling myself that it would materialise one day. It did this year and I hope to finish it early next year.
I’m currently at a stage where many writers here were 20 to 30 years ago. That means I’m probably the youngest here. Armed with the knowledge that the first novel doesn’t have to be a do or die affair, I’ll see where this WIP leads me.
Noooooo I’m being showed up by that Ficus tree AGAIN. I’d better get cracking on my pages!
Thanks for all the good comments today. It was indeed a non-stop day yesterday keeping tabs on three rambunctious wolves. But rewarding and led to a deep sleep or me and Mrs B.