What’s a good writing process for a new author?

It’s your new book, it’s daunting af, you have no idea what to do. You need a process, and I’m here today to offer you some tips to figure out the best process for you, from professional authors I’ve researched and from my own personal experience as a comedy writer.

Today we’re going to break the new-book writing process into three sections:

1. Planning
2. Time management
3. Completing the book

This will work for fiction, non-fiction, articles or any other type of writing – process is largely universal.

Let’s get started.

Part 1: Plan your new book

If you’re new to writing, taking the time to sit and think about it could help it from becoming long-winded, nonsensical or riddled with plot holes.

An outline – that is, a document that sets out the various story “beats” (plot points) in simple language – will help you stay on track, appropriately set up the story to come, and keep your characters going in the right direction. Strong character bios can also guide their interactions with other characters, and their reactions to drama.

That said, some authors don’t use an outline at all. Author Steven James is even quoted as saying an outline is “counterintuitive” to good process. Writing without a plot is more freeing, and allows you to put your characters in a situation, then follow their natural instincts to find the way out. You’ll likely come up with more interesting story structure this way, and perhaps a more realistic plot.

Key lesson: There are no rules, but you’ll need to find what works for you. If you’re struggling to see ahead in the plot, sit back and plan it out. If writing an outline is bumming you out, just go wild and write a chapter. You’ll know what feels right when you do it.

• What’s my process for planning?

I plan everything, then throw it all out the window when I write.

Before I wrote “Smack-dab“, and I’ve done this for my new book “Sievert & Gray, Detectors” too, I plotted out what the Waste looked like, who occupied it, what it’s history is, who my main characters are, and then a beat-by-beat outline of the plot itself. All of this helped me figure out what came before my story, so I could plan out what came next.

But, when I actually sat down and wrote the stupid thing, I threw most of it in the trash.

Personally, I find this to be the best balance – planning an outline to guide how you start and where you’re going, but allowing yourself to diverge from it if you think a character, now that they are fleshed out, wouldn’t act in the way you had foreseen.

Part 2: Manage your time

British novelist Zadie Smith suggests “[protecting] the time and space in which you write.” She recommends that writers keep other people away from this precious time, even if they are important to your life.

Writing takes time, and you’re going to find it difficult to balance this monumental task between working to pay the rent or mortgage, hanging out with your family and friends, raising children, or whatever other tasks life throws at you.

One thing to remember, though, is that while writing is important, all of these other things are, too. Isolating yourself from your family is going to make you as unhappy as not writing.

Key lesson: The real lesson here is to isolate pockets of time that are free to be isolated, then making sure everyone important knows and respects this time. From now until you’re rich and famous, this will be your book time.

• What’s my process for time management?

I learned about time management the hard way.

When I first set out to write “Smack-dab” in the second half of 2015, I was working full-time in a job that left me feeling drained after hours, and struggling to fit writing in with all the other things I enjoyed – not least of which was seeing my girlfriend, whom I began to inadvertently neglect.

The way through it for me was creating a routine. I moved from writing sporadically whenever I could to setting aside an hour each day to push forwards. At first it was after work, but I realised that before work was easier for me, and it made me feel good for the rest of the day. So now I get up at 6 a.m. each day and write for an hour before getting ready for work and leaving.

I also took the opportunity to change my working life to better suit my creative life. I changed to a four-day week about a year ago and now spend an entire day a week self-employed. Essentially, I didn’t wait for better opportunities to write – I made them.

Part 3: Get it done

No writer has ever succeeded without publishing their work.

Bestselling writer Jennifer McMahon, in a Writer’s Digest column, advises readers to stick with their project no matter what.

“You’ll be tempted to give up a thousand and one times,” she says. “Don’t. Finish the story. Then work twice as hard to revise it.”

Feeling shit about your work is part of the writing experience, and there’s a 110% chance you’ll hate what you’ve written after you’ve written it, then you’ll edit it, like it a bit, hate it a bit more, then edit it again. Maybe us writers are all slightly manic, but I suppose that goes with the territory when you’re scrawling a piece of your soul onto paper.

You don’t even need to publish your first book. McMahon wrote four before she finally published her first novel. I wrote most of a superhero book in 2014 before scrapping it entirely and moping for another year before attempting “Smack-dab” – but it was all a learning process.

Key lesson: Be like Rick Astley – never give up. Push through. Finish it. Finish something. Bloody anything, just finish it.

• What’s my process for getting work done?

First and foremost, I power through every doubt I have.

Sometimes I go back and heavily edit what I’m writing because I feel self-conscious about it, but I know in the back of my head that I can’t ever finish if I never move forwards.

So I remind myself of a few things (almost constantly).

1. This quote by Terry Pratchett: “The first draft is just telling yourself the story.” First drafts don’t have to be good, and goodness knows I feel deep sorrow for my girlfriend Nushka, writer Oxford J. Lamoureaux, and Smack-dab cover-designer Calum Beck for having to suffer through Smack-dab Draft One. It was ass on paper, but it got the story down and it meant I could begin shaping it into something better.
2. Leave the desk: If I feel exponentially shit, or I’m suffering mega writer’s block, I leave the desk. Go for a walk. Do some chores. Read a book or play a game. Hang out with someone. Basically, anything to take my mind off my work so I come back with a fresh perspective.
3. Get good feedback: It helps to have third parties read your work, especially other writers. Talk to your peers or go to writing workshops and engage with other people, who will give you feedback on your prose. I found that this showed me the things that worked and the things that didn’t, and sometimes the things that worked were things I thought didn’t, and vice versa.
4. It’ll never be perfect: I don’t believe I’ll ever feel my work is truly perfect, so I don’t strive for it to be. I work hard to make it good – to make it engaging, funny, and worth someone’s time and money. If I can achieve those three things, it doesn’t need to be perfect, just finished.

Do you have more ideas on good writing process? Leave your advice in the comments below to help out your fellow readers!