Nick's Journal · Craft Decisions
Okay, so you’ve decided to write a novel. Exciting stuff, hopefully it took you less than forty years to arrive here. Now that the easy part is behind you, how exactly do you start? Well, the good news is you start much like you start any grand venture, which is one step at a time. My personal technique, which I will make no claims to being anything other than that which I settled on, without a particularly significant amount of time spent on the topic, was to map out at least ten chapters ahead at all times.
At the start of the book I think I had closer to fifteen to twenty mapped out and then as I wrote each chapter I was reasonably diligent of keeping the running ten chapter tally, letting it drop down to five or six before building it back up to twelve or thirteen and rinse repeat. This accomplishes a few key things. One, it makes you understand the overall direction of your book. Two, it allows for your chapters to drop hints or arcs that are otherwise not possible without a view towards where you are headed. Three, it helps you to understand your pacing, to specifically map out chapters that will add levity after a particularly bleak or harsh arc, or to add tension when things have started to go a little too smoothly.
What you do not need, and will not ever have, is a map of the full book. To even attempt such an exercise would be detrimental to the end result, robbing it of the ability to flow naturally and to take turns that are warranted after you have written a few chapters but were impossible to see in advance. In fact, you will likely have far less of an overall vision of the book than non-authors would likely appreciate. You will likely know a few of your pivotal characters and what you want to achieve with them. You will know the general setting and an extremely rough plot. And you will know very little else.
My chapters probably averaged about twenty-five hundred words, with some of the longest pushing even into the six thousand word range at the extreme. My chapter outlines, in comparison, would almost certainly never have gone much past one hundred words, if at all. They are meant to provide the barest bones of the structure, to establish what are the main things that your character needs to accomplish in order to move the plot forward, to build relationship with other characters or to develop their own. Anything beyond that and you begin to infringe on the writing itself, risking forcing an outcome that would not have happened had you simply set the scene and gotten to work.
Most arcs will not push you out past the ten chapter lead, especially if you are focused on a more typical single narrative, single timeline story. If you veer off towards more uncharted territory, for example into multiple points of view and multiple timelines, then you may at times need to push well past the ten chapters in order to fully see the arc that you are working through.
We all have our preferences, but if you have romance in your writing then expect those arcs to weave much longer throughout your story. They need not be the focal point but romance, in both books and in life, deserves as long a runway as you can provide it. It requires the room to breathe, to yearn, to tease and to flare. Done properly, you will never focus solely on the moments of bliss, but will show the parts that we all look for, the ups, downs, despair and redemption. And if you intend to tell a story without romance, expect to have characters that feel a little less whole, as if a piece of them was left unwritten.
One more technique that I used and would recommend to at least consider, is that of a timeline. Picture a line that captures your entire book, from chapter one through chapter fifty. There might be one arc that runs the entire fifty chapters, perhaps even two or three. Interspersed though there will be many shorter ones, from chapter fifteen through thirty-two, or ten through thirty. These are no less important than the main arcs and you must weigh their inclusion carefully, as you only have so much room to work with. If you’ve spent a twenty chapter arc on characters that are written off, make that arc matter in a way that the reader agrees with, or you will have damaged their trust.
Do not be surprised if you add chapters as you go, looking back and realizing that you needed a prologue, or a glimpse into the past. Perhaps you did not quite build up an arc to justify the actions you need to resolve it. Worry not, you will rewrite every chapter, likely multiple times. If you don’t, you will almost certainly regret it. The authors who can pull off a single draft novel likely fit on one hand, and my gut says they still would have improved on their work had they taken a second or third pass.
So, if you are struggling to start the novel, or if you have hit a block and stalled, the chapter outlines is probably where you should put your time. Looking ahead and understanding where you want to go will often free you from stasis and allow you to write again, and the writing will do the rest.
It always does.
Much love as always,
Nick