Congrats on Writing Your First Book! Don't Publish It.

The Thrill of the First Novel

I wrote my first book during NaNoWriMo 2007. I still have the T-shirt. For those not familiar with it, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, a personal challenge event where people all over the world attempt to write a 50,000-word novel during the month of November.

The feeling of exhilaration when I hit that goal, and again when I finished that rough draft, was powerful. Writing a novel is no easy task. Right away, I wanted to share my amazing creation with the world. I still feel this way when I finish a rough draft.

I see a lot of posts on social media from newbie authors, awash in the euphoric throes of accomplishment, saying, "I just wrote my first book. How do I publish it?" It is often followed by a rambling, convoluted, sometimes incoherent, explanation of the plot.

But despite the urgent desire to want to show a rough draft to the world, especially the rough draft of a first novel, my most fervent advice to anyone having completed such a momentous task is "Don't!" More specifically, "Don't publish it!"

By all means, bask in the glow of your accomplishment. Writing a book is not easy. But you are just getting started. Writing is a craft with many skills to master (story structure, scene structure, dialogue, character development, etc.) and many pitfalls to learn how to avoid (info dumps, "as you know's", clichés, etc.) It will take you time to learn them. And to do that, you will need to study your craft. You will need to get honest feedback from fellow writers and editors. You will have to write a lot.

Study Your Craft

I have read dozens of books on the craft of writing. Some of my favorites are Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Journey, Jordan Rosenfeld's Make A Scene, and Blake Snyder's Save the Cat. Other good books for the budding writer are Stephen King's On Writing and Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird. Finding a good book on grammar is also invaluable. Each one of these books offers a different perspective. Some focus on a specific skill, while others are more general.

At the same time, I read heavily in my genre, which happens to be crime fiction. This includes the classics like Sherlock Holmes and the works of Agatha Christie; the works of seasoned veterans like Lawrence Block, Sara Paretsky, and Sue Grafton; and books by newer authors including Kellye Garrett, Vivien Chien, and Thomas Pluck (just to name a few). I also read books outside my genre, including romance, sci-fi, fantasy, and literary.

Reading the books on craft gives you the theory, while reading in your genre (whatever genre it may be) shows you these skills in action. You begin to recognize the patterns, the tropes, and what writing looks like when it is done well and even not so well. 

A writer who doesn't read is like a boat with no rudder. Lost, directionless, and ultimately doomed.

Get Feedback

When we are riding that rush of excitement having finished a draft, the last thing we want is to be told everything that is wrong with it. Talk about harshing your mellow. But it is very much needed. Better to be told what's wrong by a fellow author or editor before publication than in a review on Amazon.

Don't look to get feedback from your family or friends. Unless they are writers themselves, they will just blow sunshine up your ass because they don't want to hurt your feelings. Believe me!

For newbie writers, I suggest joining a local critique group, where each member lets the others read a short story or a chapter (not the whole bloody manuscript) and tells you what works and what doesn't. Meetup.com can be a great way to find such a group.

Each critique group is its own animal with its own rules and experience. Some require members to read their work aloud, while others swap work and read silently. Most I've found offer good insights. Sometimes you can get conflicting advice. But it's a starting point.

Don't take critiques personally. No one is judging you. The goal is to help each other improve their work.

Once your story has been critiqued by the group, you might want to look at beta readers. Beta readers may or may not be writers. Ideally, they should be well-read in your genre and be willing to read the whole book and give you honest feedback. Again, the goal is to make you aware of problem areas in your story. Beta readers may or may not know how to fix them. They may just tell you they don't like a particular character or how a certain scene plays out.

At some point, you may want to hire a freelance editor, even if you intend to go the traditional publishing route. Hiring an editor isn't cheap. For a 100,000-word novel, it could cost you a $1,000. Maybe less, maybe more, depending on what level of editing you are looking for.

I would suggest starting out with just a developmental edit. It's a bird's-eye view that will give you insights into the major areas where your story is lacking. The focus isn't on typos or punctuation.

Later on, if you decide to go the self-publishing (or indie) route, you may want to hire an editor to do a line edit (also called a copy edit) that focuses less on story structure and more on sentence structure and word usage. From there you would hire a proofreader to fix typos and punctuation.

Write a Lot

There is a saying that a new writer should write a million words before they are ready to write anything worth publishing. The point is that your first novel probably isn't worth publishing. Even if you hired the finest of editors to help you polish it. But do work with critique groups, beta readers, and maybe editors to get it as polished as you can. Learning the various stages of writing and editing is as important as learning a three-act structure or when to use a semicolon.

Before I wrote Iron Goddess, my first published novel, I had written multiple drafts of two complete novels and several short stories. Was writing them a waste of time? No! It was practice. Skills require practice to learn. Each story was a way to learn how not to write a story so I could do it differently the next time.

I realize setting aside a first book or a second book, stashing them forever in a drawer (or folder on your computer), can feel like you are abandoning your work. But this is a vital part of the process. Learning when to move on to the next story.

Taking the Leap Into Publishing

I spent eight years honing my skills before I was ready to get series and writing something worth publishing. That's a long time. Maybe it won't take you as long. Or maybe it will take you longer. Each writer's journey is unique. But it will take time.

Eventually, you may decide it really is time to publish. Now you are faced with a decision. Do you go the traditional route and try to get published by one of the Big Five or perhaps a small press? Or do you brave the ever-change waters of indie publishing? Well, that is a discussion for next time.

Until then, focus on your writing. Ass in chair, hands on keyboard.

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Dharma Kelleher writes gritty crime fiction with a feminist kick series and is one of the only openly transgender voices in the genre. 

She is the author of the Jinx Ballou bounty hunter series and the Shea Stevens outlaw biker series. You can learn more about Dharma and her work at https://dharmakelleher.com.

Story Structure Chart

from Robert Carlson

Being a Fly on the Wall in 1978

Thirty-five years ago tomorrow, the creators of Jaws and Star Wars introduced the world to the Ultimate Hero in the Ultimate Adventure. His name was Indiana Jones and the movie was Raiders of the Lost Ark.

It’s a safe bet that Raiders is on most people’s list of greatest movies of all time. It’s on mine. Top 5 for sure, probably Top 3 or so…but I can’t really think of another I like better. Well, except Star Wars. But as a movie, Raiders is probably tops for me.

Many readers who come to DoSomeDamage are also creators. We know what it’s like to hole up in a room and create our stories out of our imaginations. We can look at a movie like Raiders—which seems so effortless—and wonder how the magic was made. We long to be a fly on the wall during story conferences.

Well, guess what? You can. (And you can also go back in time!)

In January 1978, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and a young Lawrence Kasden met for a few days to talk over this new movie featuring the hero Indiana Smith. It is utterly fascinating to read the transcripts of these meetings and see how much effort went into a final product that, as I said, feels so effortless. When I first learned about this PDF back in 2009, I eagerly devoured the entire thing.

You want to know how genius ideas happen? Hard work. Long work. And a few sparks of inspiration

.

Here’s the link. It’s a PDF.

So, celebrate the 35^th Anniversary of Raiders by watching the movie and then read the story sessions.

Oh, and I’m doing something interesting: I’m reading the novelization. I either never have or did and can’t remember. That was the summer between sixth and seventh grade. I want to see what, if any, liberties Campbell Black took with the story and the character before Indiana Jones exploded and became what he is today. I’ll report back when I’m done.

Under Construction

by Holly West

I've been struggling with structure lately. As in, how in the hell do I structure this godammed novel?

Back in October I had my current WIP professionally edited and one of the questions that came up was whether I'd waited a bit too long to introduce the dead body. I suspected it might be an an issue when I turned in the manuscript but by the time I realized it I didn't have time to re-write it. Now I have lots and lots of time to re-write it but no clue as to how to actually do it.

Have I mentioned how much I hate revising? If not, consider it said now. I HATE REVISING.

At least, I hate revising at this stage. When the book is just slightly past the first draft stage and needs a major overhaul. When you break it up into chunks and move them around, then have to go back to the beginning and fix everything so that it makes sense with the new arrangement. When you have trouble keeping track of the story because its so unwieldily and you have to pay attention to every detail for the sake of continuity. Writing a first draft is so much more fun because it's messy and you don't care because you know you have to go back to polish it anyway.

Unless you're one of those writers who write clean first drafts. I don't know how to do that.

I don't mind revising the third or fourth (or more) drafts too much because usually, by then, you've got your structure nailed and you're basically just fine-tuning. It's like staging a house--the bones of the house are there and now you get to do the fun stuff like picking out curtains and pillows and paint colors.

But right now I'm in the middle of a full-scale renovation and just like with residential renovations, it's taking three times longer than I budgeted for. Going into it, I knew my first job was fix it so that the murder happened sooner in the book. But how much sooner?

In cozies, it's pretty much a given that a dead body will show up in the first chapter, if not on the first page. But I don't think that's necessarily the case with other crime fiction sub genres. In the first draft of my WIP, the murder occurs about 15,000 words in. In draft two, I determined I'd move it to the first 10% of the book, so around 8,000 words in. After three months of half-assed work, I decided that the murder had to happen at the end of the first chapter and that's where I am now.

It's definitely a better book because of it.

The question now becomes, what do I do with the previous beginning chapters now that they're now mainly backstory? It's something I've always struggled with: balancing exposition and moving the story forward. I've solved part of the problem by re-writing some of the passages so that they simply happen in the present. That's easy. But other things, like establishing the characters and their relationships as well as some of the events leading up to the murder, are harder to incorporate. I've had to cut a lot of it altogether.

One way to approach this problem is to write a prologue. Put the murder front and center then go back in time in Chapter One and tell the story from there. Back when I started writing MISTRESS OF FORTUNE I read somewhere that prologues were frowned upon so I've never used them--they feel a little like cheating to me. But I see plenty of books by high profile authors that use prologues so it's tempting to write one for this book.

Another option is to have the action in Chapter One happen in real time then go back in time in Chapter Two. This, to me, is just a prologue by another name, but I've seen it done plenty of times. I'm just not sure it's the best way for me or for this book.

Finally, and this is the hardest way to do it, is to start the book with the murder and then fold in exposition with a light hand. It's how I've chosen to do it but right now it feels like I'm editing with big ol' Hulk fists.

Obviously I'm not the only writer to struggle with this. This is what revising is all about--figuring out the best way to tell your story. Finding the right place to begin it is crucial, so it's right that I'm taking time to experiment with it. I just need to hurry up and finish so that I can move on to installing the hardwood floors.

My question for you is: how do you feel about prologues? As a writer, do you use them? As a reader, do you mind them?

I've already answered the first question: No, I don't use them (or haven't yet). As a reader, I'm not too bothered by them but I prefer a story to start at the beginning (whatever that may be) and then go forward.