Have you ever wanted to write a novel? Maybe you’ve tried, but you’re just not sure how to get past the first few pages. Or maybe you’ve had an awesome idea floating around in your head for years and you just aren’t sure how exactly to write a novel. Alternatively, maybe you’ve never had an interest in writing a novel, but you’d love to find out the cool behind the scenes processes surrounding how that works?
If any of those apply to you, then the next few posts are definitely something you should check out! As you know, I post every other Saturday, and for the next four posts I’m going to be walking you step by step through the process of how I write a novel. And, if you’re more of a visual learner, you can go subscribe to my Instagram account, @l.e.levens_author, for reels and stories pertaining to the process of novel writing!
Now, let’s jump into it!
Every writer has a different process of creating a novel. The Young Writer’s Workshop (an online writing community for Christian Teens that I highly recommend) describes the average writer as fitting into one of two categories: Planner or Pantser. A Planner is someone who spends days deciding on a character name, meticulously planning the course their novel will take, and researching every possible thing they’d need to know. A Pantser is spontaneous. Creativity flows best when they jump in with an idea and little to no idea how to get there. While you may be a good mixture of the two, it’s good to identify which category you fit into.
I’m a Pantser, and the biggest downside of that is if I get stuck, the novel is completely on hold. The upside is that my work almost always feels fresh. Similarly, there are good and bad things about being a Planner.
Something I have learned to do as a Pantser, however, is to write a loose outline. For me, that means writing a list of chapter names that describe what I need to happen. For instance, with my last novel this was the first four chapters in my outline:
Haircuts
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Village of Rudental
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Sigmund’s Assignment
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Eva’s Decision to Go
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I actually didn’t end up using those titles for the most part, but it gave me a loose idea of a track to follow that still left me the freedom to be creative while also keeping me on track. If you’re a pantser, I’d highly recommend trying out this tactic if you find yourself getting stuck after the first few pages.
So once you have your idea, write a loose outline of how you’d like it to go, and then it’s time for a more fun step:
Developing characters!
That's it for this week! Until next time, Ad Lucem.
-L.E. Levens
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