5 Tips On Writing The First Draft Of A Novel

A pulsing cursor on a blank screen. Fingers hovering over the keyboard. Ideas swilling around your head. Where. To. Start?

Starting off a novel is tricksy. But here's a few things I've learned as I plough into the first draft of my sixth novel.

1. YOU DON'T NEED TO START WRITING YOUR FIRST DRAFT AT THE BEGINNING. Start with the bit you feel like writing. Could be the end. Could be a scene in the middle. Could be a bit of dialogue. Just start writing.

2. SOD THE SPELLING. PAH TO PUNCTUATION. It's more important to get ideas down at this stage rather than have accurate spelling and beautiful punctuation. That can come later.

3. DON'T EXPECT MUCH OF THE FIRST DRAFT TO MAKE THE FINAL CUT: Writing is rewriting someone more talented than I once said. First drafts are there to be bettered, expanded upon, get the red pen treatment. It's the foundation of your novel. Sure, some of the story you write here will make the final draft, but you'll say it better in subsequent drafts. This is the skeleton. The first layer. Don't worry about how bad it is. It's a start.

4. IT'S GOING TO BE MESSY. All over the place. You might not know exactly how your story is going to pan out at this stage. You don't need to. This first draft isn't going to get published. You just need to know the sort of story you want to write, and an idea of how it should start and end. Whether this is how your story will actually start and end, well that's likely to change.

5. WRITE THE BLURB AFTER EVERY DRAFT. It's a great way to hone your story. Once, after I thought I'd finished writing my novel, I wrote a blurb that told a better story than the one I'd actually written. So I went back and rewrote the story to fit the blurb! The book was better for it. You're going to have to write a blurb at some point. Doing it as you go along is a really good exercise.

Writing The First Draft Of A Novel

All over the place.

That's how the first draft of the third novel of the Jake Rodwell trilogy is right now.

I've written two versions of the end. The start I have right now I know won't be my start when I come to publish this. And in the middle, some chapters are written, others are in note form and yet more just aren't there yet. The fonts are all over the place. There are typos.

It's a mess. But so it should be.

Because no one's going to see this first draft except me.

At the moment I'm writing the bits that I feel like writing. Starting off the writing day by re-reading something I wrote yesterday. Just to get into the groove.

And when I do get in the groove I just type. I don't care if I mistype or misspell. I just need to get the idea down. No punctuation. No speech marks at this stage. It's about writing what I want to happen in the story. Not necessarily in the way I want to say it. That can come later.

There are some bits that I can't write at the moment. Either I don't know enough about what I want to happen, or I just don't feel like writing that bit.

That's fine. This is the first draft. I'll write those bits another day, maybe later today. Right now, I will focus on writing the bits I'm motivated to write. Tomorrow it will be another bit.

I trust the process. I know it will come together in the end.

It's the first draft! Did I mention that?

It's meant to be messy. It's for my eyes only. It's not going to see the light of day. It's the springboard to the rest of the story that I will develop, and hone over the next few months.

Hopefully!