5 Top Tips To Get You Started On Smashing Out That Debut Novel in 2021
By: Glyn Bawden
Tags: Writing, Tips, New Year, Novel, Writing Tips

It’ll soon be a new year and to be honest, it can’t get here fast enough. I’m sure that given what a huge disappointment of a year 2020 has been, many of you out there will be planning on what you can do to make 2021 great.

For many of you budding writers out there I'm guessing this will be the time you’ll be writing down your affirmations about how 2021 will be the year that you finally sit down and write that debut novel you’ve been thinking about. Well, I’ve got some tips for you that may make that decision a bit easier.

#1 Don’t think of it as a novel

The first tip is to get any ideas you have about writing a full-scale novel out of your head.

Why? Because it’s too big.

Writing a novel is up there with running a marathon or learning a foreign language. As a goal, it’s just too big for our brain to get to grips with, especially if you’ve never done anything on this scale before. However well you plan it, as soon as you start to slip on your monthly or weekly benchmarks, then you’ll more than likely give up.

It’s far better if you chunk your work down. I know ‘chunking down’ is nothing new, but it’s so much easier if you give yourself a manageable goal to achieve, like 500 words a day. Think about it, even 200 words a day, which would take about 10 minutes, if carried on for the entire year would net you about 73,000 words, which is way more than you’d need for a sizeable novel.

It’s just about starting that chain and never giving up.

#2 Let yourself go

Remember the best and most prolific writers change and develop over time. Stephen King wrote ‘Carrie’, a small manageable 150-page novel. He also wrote ‘The Stand’ which at over 1000 pages is at the complete opposite end of the spectrum.

Allow yourself to change with your novel. If it feels right to expand certain areas, then go ahead and do it. Do what feels right to you.

I don't know how you write, but try not to plan things out too prescriptively and let your plot and characters drive what you write. When you read what some writers say about plotlines or characters in stories, you’d be as surprised as they were when characters take on a life of their own and take the story in a completely different direction.

I distrust plot for two reasons: first, because our lives are largely plotless, even when you add in all of our reasonable precautions and careful planning; and second, because I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren’t compatible.

— Stephen King

#3 Remember, first drafts suck

Unfortunately, because our minds will already have an image of what the novel looks and sounds like, when we read a first draft, it scares us a bit because it’s so…bad.

That, I’m afraid is a universal truth of the first draft. Some novels will go through dozens of drafts before they are set loose on an unsuspecting world.

Markus Zusak redrafted his worldwide bestseller ‘The Book Thief’ an astonishing 200 times before it was published and sold over 8 million copies.

#4 Slow down. Take a breath

Unless you’ve got a really pressing engagement that means you have to finish by a certain time( in which case, why have you left it till now?). Take your time and enjoy what’s going on.

When you come back to edit your work when it’s finished, be prepared to come across some howlers of mistakes. I’m not just talking about spelling mistakes, I mean plot holes, characters acting strangely and well, out of character. That’s what editing is for.

Ignore the voice that tells you it’s no good. Guess what, I doubt if there’s a writer alive who hasn’t read at their latest piece of work and thought; ‘Well, this is a heap of junk.’ Every writer is their own worst critic.

#5 Edit when you’ve finished your first draft

That’s all. Just edit. Every writer alive has to edit, from the very best to the very worst. So don’t be afraid of getting words written down. They can always be changed later.

And remember, every single writer out there was exactly where you are now, wondering whether they should put pen to paper or not — because they had an idea and they weren’t sure if it would work as a novel.

You can do this. Make 2021 a writing year to remember.