Wild Pines Press

You, too, can write a novel.  Just write one page a day, every day, for a year.  Have your interesting, sympathetic protagonist solve one of the major questions of her existence, then wrap up your story with a satisfying conclusion – not too happy, not too sad – and it's best to include a surprise that seems inevitable.  By the way, your prose must embrace the rudiments of grammar as well as be pleasant to read. 

Anyone could do it.  Why haven't you done it already?  It's so easy.

Not so easy.  We've all read these "how to write" books that extol such formulas.  A page a day for a year…it seems so little.  And it would be, except that it may take you the first hundred pages to discover which major question of existence your interesting, sympathetic protagonist is actually solving.  And once you realize that, you may have to toss out those first hundred pages to begin at the new, true beginning of your novel.  Do that, however, and according to the formula, you're now 100 days behind schedule.

It doesn't help that reading a good novel is deceptive, even for those who understand how they are built; no wonder anyone who can hold a pen believes writing a novel is so undemanding.  Reading well-crafted fiction is like listening to your best friend tell you a wonderful story – the words flow like fine wine, you laugh, you cry, and you're left with a sense of completion and the certitude that even if all things aren't right in the world, something, somewhere, must be.

A good piece of fiction seems effortless on the author's part, in the same way a piano concerto can seem to spontaneously erupt from the pianist's fingertips.  That façade of ease misleads, though.  Every published page might represent many others that were discarded.  A chapter might have been rewritten several times before the character's occupation was even settled upon.  I know of one novelist who completely rewrote the second half of her book 14 different ways.  It takes far more than 365 pages to make a novel.  At least that many pages can be tossed aside, proven unnecessary in revision as better, more exciting, more cohesive ideas occur during the process of writing itself.

There is no other way than this, however, to find your way from Page One to The End.  Even authors who plan outlines for their novels before the first draft admit to being surprised when their characters take over, incidents happen they hadn't anticipated, or someone up and dies.  As an author, you just have to keep drafting, piecing together sentences and paragraphs that work, discarding those that no longer fit, and realize that every word you write whether or not it ends up in the finished novel, is another step towards solving the major question of your own existence:

You, too, can write a novel.

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Also see my Links for Writers.