So you want to write a book? In 2015, a YouGov survey showed that 60% of people surveyed in the UK said they would like to be authors; in America, it’s 81%, as surveyed in 2002.
In this blog, I’m going to show you how to write a book over an extended period of time, so to learn more come back again? (And my target is to write and publish at least one, perhaps two, articles each month!)
But, what sort of book are you thinking of writing? A fiction novel, a nonfiction book? Poetry? A self-help book? A memoir, or something else?
And what genre (and also see the glossary), historical fiction, thriller, horror, science fiction, fantasy, or what?
You really should decide on these two things before you start on your baby steps, as it will make things a lot easier for you.
And in writing there are no rules or formulas – despite what some people say! But, I do have certain things that I do with my own writing and before I sit down to write, but these are just for me, trying to be super-productive and not waste time dithering instead of writing.
This is my personal approach to how to write a book. I hope you’ll find something here that can change your game for you, or to help in starting your own writing. So, let’s dive in.
Part One: Baby Steps
These steps will help to get you writing straight out of the starting gate.
1. Set up your writing space
You don’t need a specific place in your home for a writing space, but if you’ve got one then it will help you. You could use the corner of the kitchen table, a windowsill – anywhere will do as long as your brain becomes accustomed to writing in a specific place. Treat your brain like a muscle, the more you exercise it, the healthier and better it will be! And this applies to life in general as well too! Use it, or lose it!
2. Assemble your writing tools
If you are a person who writes their first drafts by hand, don’t scrimp on paper, notebooks, pencils, pens, or erasers.
Don’t short-change yourself on a computer either. Even if someone else is typing your manuscript for you, you’ll need a computer for your research and communicating with potential agents, editors, and/or publishers.
Get the best computer you can afford, the latest, the one with the biggest hard drives and speed.
Try to imagine everything you’re going to need in addition to your desk or table, so you can get ready in advance and don’t have to keep disrupting your work flow to find and get things such as:
- Staplers
- Paper clips
- Rulers
- Pencils
- Pencil sharpeners
- Biros or other pens
- Pencil/pen pots
- Note pads
- Post-It notes
- Printing paper
- Paperweight
- Tape dispensers
- Cork, bulletin boards, white boards, big sheets of cardboard
- Reference works
- Drinks mug + plenty of drinks
- Tissues
- Anything missing that you will need?
Lastly, but most possibly the most crucial, get the best, most ergonomic chair you can afford. Some chairs look good from some stationers – but if you pay for an office chair as used in the offices of various companies throughout the world then it should last you years and support your backside and your back!
I bought an office chair from an office supplier 5 or 6 years ago, and its still supporting me, and has nothing wrong with it either.
As you grow as a writer and actually start making money at it, you can always upgrade your writing space and equipment.
3. Your idea
Your idea will need to be a belter, something that excites you and which you’re willing to spend months or even years working on! And it has to keep you motivated throughout that time period, otherwise your manuscript will remain uncompleted, and you feeling unfulfilled.
You may feel that you’re idea is good, but you can’t find a way in to it. But don’t worry, just put it on your mental back-burner, so that your subconscious can ponder it when you’re doing something else, like washing up, shopping, or hoovering.
I’ve been pondering a new book for a couple of weeks now, but I couldn’t see where the conflict was? What would the story keep coming back to, and I was just looking for the source of conflict, and I found it whilst washing up!
You need to write something about which you’re passionate, something that gets you up in the morning, draws you to the keyboard like iron filings to a magnet, and keeps you there. It should excite not only you, but also anyone you tell about it.
This step is very important. It may only be a ‘baby step’, but it is vital for the success of your project!
How do you know you’ve got a belter? Does it have legs? In other words, does it stay in your mind, growing and developing every time you think of it?
The right idea simply works, and you’ll know it when you discover it. Most importantly, your idea must capture you in such a way that you’re compelled to write it. Otherwise you’ll lose interest halfway through and never finish your draft.
4. Your premise
Start by distilling your big book idea from a page or so to a single sentence – your premise. The more specific that one-sentence premise, the more it will keep you focused while you’re writing.
You may have tried to write a book before, and failed? Perhaps your basic idea was flawed, or your premise non-existent?
Before you can turn your big idea into one sentence, which you can then expand into an outline, you have to decide on what your belter of an idea is, so if you’ve skipped step 3, please go back and have a go at finding your idea?
The book market is crowded, and the competition is fierce. And its YOUR competition! There’s no room for weak ideas. Your premise alone should make your readers want to know more, to draw them in, and from less than 40 or 50 words!
Part Two: Time to Start Writing.
5. Break the project into small pieces.
Writing your book feels like a massive project, and believe me, it is! But your book will actually be made up of many small parts, and you’re not working on all of them at the same time.
Try to get your mind off your book as a 300 page monster! Something that you’re aware of sitting in the corner of your room, just out of your sight, and that you’re afraid of!
But your book won’t be written all at once.
See your book for what it really is – a story made up of sentences, paragraphs, scenes, chapters, and then pages. Those pages will begin to add up, and though after a week you may have only written 200 words, a few months down the road you will be well into your second hundred pages, and so your story will grow.
So, keep it simple!
6. Build your outline.
Starting your writing without a clear idea of where you’re going will usually end in failure. Its like wanting to drive to Newcastle from London, you know Newcastle is in the north, and that you can drive there, but other than that, you’re clueless!
You don’t have to call it an outline if you don’t want to. Call it a ‘scene list’, a ‘plan’, a ‘mindmap’, whatever – anything that you can refer back to, to guide your writing in the time ahead.
Please note – if you’re writing a nonfiction book, you need an outline. In fact, you MUST have an outline, as potential agents or publishers need this as part of your proposal. They want to know where you are going, and they want to be sure that you know. What do you want your reader to learn from your book, and how do you make sure they learn it?
Fiction or nonfiction, if you usually lose interest in your book somewhere in what people call the ‘sagging middle’, you very likely didn’t start with enough good and/or exciting ideas. But, it is possible to resurrect your story, but we’ll talk about that later.
That’s why an outline (or whatever you call it) is essential. Don’t even start writing until you’re confident your outline will stand up right through to the end.
7. Set a writing schedule.
In an ideal situation you will write every day for several hours! But, please note, I say ideal situation! This takes no account for picking up the children after school, changing the bedding, cooking tea, helping the children with their homework, hearing your youngest child reading, taking the dog for a walk, etc!
So maybe you ought to schedule at least umpteen hours per week to write? But, this is not set in stone, write as often as you can, and preferably regularly too so that it becomes a habit. You’re umpteen hours are what you feel you can comfortably write. The idea is that you feel comfortable in your writing, and that you feel happy and excited about writing, because if isn’t fun, why should you write?
Say you decide to write for six hours a week? You might decide to write in three sessions of two hours each, or two sessions of three hours, or six one-hour sessions – whatever you find works for you.
But, this needs to be something you do regularly, so that it becomes a habit. You need to be writing at least six hours so that you can see that you are progressing.
Do you find it difficult to find the time to write your book? But you shouldn’t ‘find’ the time, you need to make the time, and here’s one way in which you can do that.
Something in your calendar or schedule will probably have to be sacrificed for your writing time. But please ensure that it isn’t your family, as they should be more important than your writing.
But beyond that, we can always find time for something we really want to do.
Many writers insist they have no time to write, but they always seem to know about the latest Netflix series, or go to a big Hollywood film. They always enjoy concerts, parties, football matches, drinks in the local pub, you see the idea?
To be a successful writer you need to make the time to write. Some people say they didn’t make the time, but instead carved it out of their schedule!
8. Establish an unbreakable deadline.
If you’re writing your first book, you need to ensure you actually finish the book, so set yourself a deadline – then consider it as an unbreakable deadline! Some folk even feel that this deadline is even ‘sacred’.
Tell your partner, loved one, or those you live with, and ask them to hold you accountable, that you will be writing between the hours of ??? for about an ??? or so, so please don’t disturb me during those periods?
Now decide and mark on your calendar – the number of words you need to produce per writing session to meet your deadline. If it looks unrealistic and unachievable, then you may probably need to change your deadline.
If your target is to write an 80,000 word book in six months, then you need to decide how long you are going to write per week, and if you are going to write every week, even if you’re away on holiday?
For example, if you only wrote on weekdays, every week you’d only have to write 667 words per day! It sounds a lot but in reality it isn’t, once you get into your writing mode you’ll very likely exceed that daily word count!
Generally you have 250 words per page in a book, and although some writers use number of pages for their progress, I prefer counting the words and entering it on a spreadsheet. My writing target is to write 90,000 words in 90 days, and my spreadsheet is set up to help me accomplish this.
It is also wise to have some time off from writing every week and this should also be reflected in your planning, this will help you to avoid burning out, and being put off from writing ever again.
9. Eliminate anything that will be a distraction so you can stay focused.
Are you as easily distracted as I am?
Have you found yourself writing a sentence and then reading your emails? Writing another sentence and checking Facebook?
So, what’s the answer to these insidious timewasters?
Look into these programs that allow you to block your email, social media, browsers, game apps, whatever you wish during the hours you want to write. Some carry a modest fee, others are free.
- Freedom app.
- FocusWriter
- StayFocusd
- WriteRoom
I personally avoid Facebook as it seems to me to be a sink that is never full, and it just soaks your attention up, so that an hour or so later, you wonder what happened to your writing that morning!
But I do have these rules for my own writing –
- Before I write, no viewing of websites, listening to the radio or watching TV, at all, on the day that I’m going to be writing.
- No editing as I write, although once I’ve ended my time writing, I do go back and correct my words that are very obviously spelt incorrectly.
10. Do your research.
Yes, research is a vital part of the process, whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction.
Fiction means more than just making up a story. Your details, technical and historical details must be right for your novel to be believable.
The last thing you want is even a small mistake due to your lack of proper research.
Regardless of the detail, you will hear from readers about it. (Or from your beta-readers, and I speak from experience here!)
Your credibility as an author and an expert hinges on creating trust with your reader. That dissolves in a hurry if you commit an error.
My favourite research resources are:
- The Merriam-Webster Thesaurus: The online version is great, because it’s lightning fast. You couldn’t turn the pages of a printed copy as quickly as you can get where you want to onscreen. But! Don’t let it be obvious you’ve consulted a thesaurus. You’re looking for that common word that’s on the tip of your tongue.
- DuckDuckGo – This is a search engine that does not collect or share your personal data with third parties! Unlike others who will remain nameless!
- Some form of AI: It could be ChatGPT, Google Gemini, or something like GPT4All (my favourite). I use these for finding out various details, but be aware, not everything it tells you is correct. And one thing you do need to know from your AI program, ask it its knowledge cut-off date? This is the date that the large language model stopped being updated and trained with various sorts of information.
11. Start calling yourself a writer.
Your inner voice may tell you, “You’re no writer and you never will be. What do you think you’re doing, trying to write a book?”
That may be why you’ve stalled at writing your book in the past.
But if you’re working at writing, studying writing, and practising writing, that makes you a writer. Don’t wait till you reach some artificial level of accomplishment before calling yourself a writer.
A policeman in uniform and on duty is a policeman whether he’s actively enforcing the law or not. A carpenter is a carpenter whether he’s ever built a table.
Self-identify as a writer now and you’ll silence that inner critic – who, of course, is really you, you’re subconscious. Talk back to yourself if you must. It may sound silly, but acknowledging yourself as a writer can give you the confidence to keep going and finish your book.
Are you a writer? Then say so!
Part Three: The Writing Itself.
12. What do you write in?
Most writers use some form of word-processor on their computer, and some people swear by Scrivener, Microsoft Word, Macintosh Pages, or something else.
I use Emacs, because I can have a drawer after my scene or chapter heading, in which I can put some notes or part of my scene list to remind me what I’m going to be writing about, and it doesn’t affect my word count! And I have one file which contains all of my research, character and place descriptions, all in the same file as my writing, so that its all easily accessible to help keep me writing.
13. Write the last chapter!
It might sound very strange writing the last chapter before you’ve even written the first, but, remember back to the outline and the idea of going from London to Newcastle, well you’re writing your target, where your story’s going to end! Don’t worry, its not set in stone, you’ll be able to rewrite it whenever you want.
14. Fill your story with conflict and tension.
Your reader wants and craves conflict, and yes, this applies to nonfiction readers as well.
In a novel, if everything is going well and everyone is agreeing, your reader will soon lose interest and find something else to do – like watching paint dry, or thinking what they’re going to have for dinner.
Are two of your characters talking at the dinner table? Have one say something that makes the other storm out.
Some deep-seeded rift in their relationship has surfaced. Is it just a misunderstanding that has snowballed into something far worse or become an injustice?
Thrust people into conflict with each other. That’ll keep your reader’s attention.
Tension is the secret sauce that will propel your reader through to the end. And sometimes that’s as simple as implying something to come.
15. Turn off your internal editor while writing your first draft.
Many of us are perfectionists and find it hard to get a first draft written – without feeling compelled to make every sentence exactly the way we want it.
Your internal editor is that voice in your head that questions every word, every phrase, every sentence, and makes you worry you’re being redundant or have allowed cliches to creep in – well, that’s just your editor alter ego.
He or she needs to be told to shut up.
This is not easy, but becomes easier as you learn more about writing and write more too.
16. Find yourself a mentor.
Get help from someone who’s been where you want to be.
Imagine having the backup of a mentor who can help you sidestep all the pitfalls that show you as an amateur, and potentially stop years of painful trial-and-error.
Just make sure it’s someone who really knows the writing and publishing world. Many people masquerade as mentors and coaches but have never really succeeded themselves.
Look for someone preferably widely-published who knows how to work with editors, agents, and publishers.
There are many helpful mentors online, the hardest part is to find them!