When I began writing fiction I did so with very little guidance and, looking back, I think that was the best thing for me.
I will always recommend cold-starting to any new fiction writer. This way, you can push all of the initial emotional garbage out and find the first indications of your narrative voice. This will also allow you to move beyond the myth that you need specified training to write fiction. This myth simply is not true, and there are scores of untrained writers who have written great fiction to disprove it.
The meta-thinking writing world generally divides itself into halves — the half that plans and the half that doesn’t (called “pantsers” because they “write by the seat of their collective pants”). In my own work, I’ve found that the longer your project becomes the more planning that’s required, so I’m generally a tweener in the great divide. Once you find what works for you, stick with it until it stops working. Remember, the first draft is all about building a big enough world to operate in. This is where you will want to hammer out your setting, plot and character profiles. Your prose may be dealt with at a later stage.
Booktuber Steve Donoghue once said something in a video on writing that has stuck with me since. In essence, he said that the novel is not the painting in the art museum, but the museum itself with each smaller element within it representing the individual works of art. Basically, the writer is not only the painter, but also the architect, curator and vendor.
Remember: Talent leads, intellect polishes.
If your first draft is ready to go, review the lists below and consider how their points may apply to your story. I’ve compiled this list out of my own experience and of my clients.’ This list does not intend to provide exact-science measures for your first draft. Your first draft should not be created scientifically. If your first draft is finished, stop for a few days to review your plot, characters and narrator functions to solidify your base as you move into the self-editing and rewriting phase.
There are two lists. Using them both is advised, but using one or the other will enhance your first draft enough to enlighten your rewriting phase.
My novel…
Clearly indicates characters, narrators and settings.
Clearly indicates the goals and deterrents for all major characters.
Attempts to complete plot lifecycles using cause and effect.
Uses conflict as a driver of plot.
Is free of personal views that aren’t processed into fiction elements.
Is free of superfluous injections or irrelevant text.
Is built by scenes and made of action.
Has dialogue that is clear to somebody other than the writer.
My novel does not…
Disregard plot.
Keep character personalities uniformly consistent for the novel’s duration.
Leave open a superfluous amount of plot lifecycles.
Inject a superfluous amount of narrator input (outside of a tight first-person dynamic).
Contain any unneeded text.
Lose clarity in its use of time.
Rip off another writer’s work.
Again, using these lists will not land you an automatic bestseller. I would not recommend using dollar signs as a motivation for you writing at all, especially when you are only beginning (though I do seriously recommend my friend Lainey Cameron’s “12 Weeks to Book Launch Success” class and cohort when you do decide to publish and sell). My work on Substack is about craft, the engineering of the story rather than the business of it.
To end let me say this — there is no reason for you not to write fiction. You absolutely can do it and you absolutely can improve through practice. You do not need to spend backbreaking amounts of your money on tuition to consider yourself a writer, you need only to write and write often.
Amen!! 👏👏👏 I started by heavy outlining and plotting with my first two books (memoir and first novel) and now I basically just pant. And I think my overall work is better when I pant or discovery write as the say.