
How to Write a Novel - samclemens
http://www.themillions.com/2016/07/planners-pantsers-write-novel.html
======
david-given
The absolute first thing to do is to get lots of words down and see what
happens. Then you'll know what kind of author you are, and where you need to
plan and where you can make it up as you go along, what sort of things you
like writing about, where your strengths and weaknesses lie, etc. It'll also
give you a corpus to look at and learn from.

(The first rule of writing is: hold your fingers slightly above the keyboard
and wiggle your fingers. Everything else is secondary. Unless words are coming
out of your hands, you're not writing.)

I can strongly recommend signing up for Nanowrimo:
[http://nanowrimo.org/](http://nanowrimo.org/) Spend the month of November
writing a 50,000 word novel. It doesn't need to be good, it just needs to be
50,000 words (more is acceptable). It gives you a structure to write within,
with motivating deadlines and a support group (I usually end up in a coffee
shop with other Nanowrimoers from my area), and most of all, a defined win
condition: once the month is over you get to stop. The goal is quantity over
quality, but if you have any talent whatsoever, you'll end up at the end of it
with at least some prose you'll look at later and think, wow. This is good.

(And yes, you _are_ allowed to write 'I am a fish' 12,500 times and call
yourself a winner. But that's really boring. Wouldn't it be easier just to
write prose at random and see what happens?)

I've done it several times; I started my first one with a vague idea and an
image of a few set pieces and ended up with something semi-coherent at about
55,000 words with some nice characters and, well, it was good enough to put on
my website. Subsequent attempts have been lots better. Some authors end up
with saleable novels...

~~~
kriro
I'm currently reading "On Writing" by King and he recommends 1k/day and allows
you to take a day off each week. He also recommends the obvious (room with a
shut door and no distractions) and lots of reading (he averages about 80
books/year).

I recommend the book, the first half is an autobiography of sorts which is
also interesting.

~~~
cstross
Can confirm: King's method works for me.

(Currently working on something like my 25th novel (that is, one sold
commercially to a major trade fiction publisher).)

------
raamdev
If you're writing fiction (or doing any sort of storytelling for that matter),
_The Story Grid_ by Shawn Coyne is an absolute must-read. The podcast is
amazing—it's the first podcast I've found worth listening to from the very
beginning—and it has opened my eyes so much, helping me understand the
fundamentals of story structure and how great novels "work".

I've read Stephen King's _On Writing_ and several other books on novel writing
and as a programmer what I really liked about _The Story Grid_ was its
analytical approach to storytelling, as opposed to a more emotional,
intuitive, "just keep writing and eventually the good stuff will come"
approach.

~~~
rayalez
There's a new awesome podcast called Rationally Writing made by Alexander
Wales and Daystar Eld([http://alexanderwales.com/rationally-
writing/](http://alexanderwales.com/rationally-writing/)). I highly recommend
it, I'm sure HN crowd will love it.

Also I recommend a fantastic course "Writing about Dragons" by by Brandon
Sanderson -
[https://youtube.com/channel/UCyUHzyUE31r16wUL4vEVRJA](https://youtube.com/channel/UCyUHzyUE31r16wUL4vEVRJA)

~~~
Kuiper
"Write about Dragons" is a video recording of one of the writing classes
titled "Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy" that Brandon Sanderson teaches at
BYU. He teaches the class every year, and frequently updates it with new
material, and most of the lectures are online (spread across myriad Youtube
channels). Here are several of the others:

* 2014 class lectures (via BYU English dept): [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRO9W1Nmh6clZP-IAhMeM...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRO9W1Nmh6clZP-IAhMeMpMru7vJaW7KJ)

* 2016 class lectures (via Camera Panda): [http://brandonsanderson.com/2016-sanderson-lectures/](http://brandonsanderson.com/2016-sanderson-lectures/)

He also delivered lectures at JordanCon in 2010 and 2011. I frequently
recommend his "description and viewpoint" lecture as the best tool for
competent non-fiction writers to understand what separates the skill of
fiction writing from non-fiction writing.

* JordanCon 2010: description and viewpoint [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3A1F631BCD668EDF](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3A1F631BCD668EDF)

* JordanCon 2010: plotting [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB2AB4CCF96ECB552](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB2AB4CCF96ECB552)

* JordanCon 2011: sanderson's second law of magic systems [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF9F2E7291F6FBFEB](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF9F2E7291F6FBFEB)

Brandon Sanderson is also one of the hosts on the weekly Writing Excuses
podcast: [http://writingexcuses.com/](http://writingexcuses.com/)

~~~
slowmovintarget
Jim Butcher (one of my favorite authors) lands squarely in the planning camp.

[http://jimbutcher.livejournal.com/](http://jimbutcher.livejournal.com/)

(Start at the bottom of that page and work your way up for Jim's "How to Write
a Novel")

------
cgriswald
What works for me* :

1\. Make a plan.

2\. Mostly ignore the plan.

3\. Feel. Feel what your characters are feeling. Feel what you want the reader
to feel.

4\. Write, even if you aren't feeling.

5\. Iterate. Be fearless in throwing things out that don't work. Rewrite an
entire work if you have to.

Some of these "greats" act like they completely wing it. Stephen King, for
instance, has some really great writing. He's a man really in touch with his
emotions and can, through his writing, cause those feelings to resonate in
you. But, his lack of planning leads, in my opinion, to weak endings that are
emotionally unsatisfying and sometimes nonsensical.

*By works for me, I mean my best fiction writing comes out of this, not that it's any good or published.

Edit: Formatting

~~~
jacobheric
I always thought King's writing could stand to be edited down (a lot). But I
feel that about most genre fiction. I find it stifling as a reader especially
when characters thoughts and emotions are over described. Usually a simple
detail about their appearance, their manner, or similar is sufficient to clue
me into what's going on inside. And the uncovering of those clues makes for a
much more enjoyable reading experience.

~~~
bovermyer
Have you read anything by Robert E. Howard? I imagine you might rather enjoy
his works.

~~~
jacobheric
I'll check it out. Thanks! Some of my favorite reading is genre fiction that
trims the fat and floats above the rest of the genre. This seems to fit that
bill.

~~~
rpgmaker
Any recommendations?

~~~
jacobheric
Yes, I recently stumbled upon Black Wings Has My Angel by Eliot Chaze. Great,
obscure and underrated crime/noir/pulp novel. It transcends the genre. It's
somehow both more gritty and more literary than the more famous Hammett and
Chandler and similar stuff.

------
innocentoldguy
I've studied various methods (e.g. "pants-ing," Snowflake, outlining, etc.)
and for me, a combination of outlining and pants-ing works best for
structuring my novels.

Having said that, I don't think the method you use for structuring your novel
is nearly as important as how you write. I studied writing in college, and it
always amazed me how many people would use passive sentences; had no grasp of
tenses, spelling, punctuation, or grammar; didn't understand plotting, or even
the three-act structure; mixed up their points of view; couldn't write
dialogue; broke the "show don't tell" mantra; never bothered researching their
topics; etc.

If you cannot write to begin with, no amount of structure is going to make
your novel worth reading, so solve that problem first. I would recommend
Million Dollar Outlines, by David Farland, Write That Novel, by David Farland,
and On Writing, by Stephen King, as good places to start. I would also
recommend joining a writing group, and encouraging your peers to critique the
hell out of your work.

~~~
magic_beans
I find it interesting that many people who want to write a novel don't
actually read very much, and so their writing isn't very well developed.

------
Artlav
In all my worlds, there are no people. They have shape, structure, geometry,
the physics and the backgrounds. Places, regions, cities and borders,
architecture and machinery.

But there is no one. No characters or villains, no random strangers, no gods
or myths. Not even faceless masses. At most there can be vehicles in the
distance, or a general, indistinct feeling of inhabitation.

This might be the reason i never really wrote any stories, despite always
wanting to. For all the verse, there is no one to write about.

Not sure how to fix that, other than considering a different media. VR,
perhaps...

~~~
labster
And here I am imagining what it would be like to first astronauts landing on
one of your worlds. What would an explorer feel upon seeing vast cities and
machinery, but seeing no trace of the people who built it. Was the city built
by a species who all died in a plague 1000 years ago? Is it an abandoned City
of the Gods, who were destroyed by another pantheon? Did the inhabitants all
leave to a higher plane of existence? Was it built by nanotechnology in
anticipation of another alien species' arrival? Add a character who is driven
to find out the truth and let them explore.

Or you could always go with the "the world really is empty" existential
horror, like in _Yume Nikki_. As a world with only one character and very few
monsters, it still manages to be terrifying.

~~~
bollockitis
> And here I am imagining what it would be like to first astronauts landing on
> one of your worlds. What would an explorer feel upon seeing vast cities and
> machinery, but seeing no trace of the people who built it.

This reminds me of Clarke's _Rendezvous with Rama_

------
programminggeek
There was only one thing that worked for me to finish my first book. I showed
up every day and wrote something. Then I edited the hell out of it (like 8
passes).

The rough draft was 100+ pages. The final version is 64.

There is no shortcut to writing and editing a book. You have to put a lot of
time in and just write the damn book.

My book if you're interested:
[http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0163BAUWC](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0163BAUWC)

------
egypturnash
This worked for my graphic novel:

1\. Start with an interesting situation and image. Explore it for a while, ask
questions about the situation and weave the answers into the story.

2\. Figure out where you want it to end.

3\. By now the characters will have established themselves and their desires.
Figure out ways to drop situations on the characters that motivate them to go
where you want them to. If they refuse then keep trying.

4\. Continue until the story's finished.

5\. Publish it, for whatever values of "publish" you're comfortable working
for - online, self-pub, submissions to publishers/agents, whatever.

6\. Take a break. If you enjoyed it then start again.

Or, in the language of the OP, switch between pants-ing and planning. Neither
one will cover everything you need IMHO.

Also:

0\. Read a lot. In whatever genre you want to work in, and outside of it. Read
great stuff, good stuff, bad stuff. Be able to tell the difference; apply that
critical eye to your own work.

~~~
jessedhillon
In case anyone needs some prodding, read Margaret's bio and check out her
work. I just started Decrypting Rita -- it's a captivating story, innovatively
told:

[http://egypt.urnash.com/rita/chapter/01/](http://egypt.urnash.com/rita/chapter/01/)

~~~
egypturnash
Thanks! <3

------
dogprez
There are techniques for writing for role-playing games that are a hybrid of
planning/winging. You want to plan a hook, how the story get's started, who
are the main agents and their motivations, then you just let the story unfold.
It seems there is room for something in the middle.

~~~
aethertap
> _There are techniques for writing for role-playing games that are a hybrid
> of planning /winging._

That sounds very interesting. Do you have any links you could share with more
details? I've been trying to come up with a way to get some friends involved
to play out some of the scenes in a book I'm working on and those techniques
might really help. The only thing I've seen that sounds related is a game
called "Downfall" [1]. I think it's a little too structured to use for this
purpose, but I liked the concept.

1\.
[https://lessthanthreegames.com/downfall/](https://lessthanthreegames.com/downfall/)

~~~
Jtsummers
Regarding playing scenes with friends:

What's the genre of your book? I have a couple lighter-weight RPGs to offer as
suggestions.

FATE - you have skills ranked as things like mediocre, expert, poor, etc.
(don't recall exact terms). You roll dice to determine how well you do as
modifiers (+/-/0) to your skill or attribute when appropriate. Fairly freeform
character creation and play. Genreless. You can make it fit almost any genre.

Dread - This is horror focused. The mechanic is a Jenga tower. If a player
wants to do a non-mundane task, they pull a block, if the tower falls, that
character is out of the game (dead, went mad, whatever, you choose). Tension
develops as the tower gets harder to pull from. Ebook is $10-20, can't recall,
got it for free for buying the print book at a convention. Very lightweight,
while horror focused it is otherwise independent from your setting. Create
character sheets describing their history, their skills then are "what does it
make sense for them to know". Does it make sense for the programmer to be a
sharpshooter? Maybe not, maybe a difficult shot requires two pulls for them.
OTOH, a soldier character may only need to pull if the shot effects the story
more significantly. You can wing it, but be consistent with your players.

~~~
david-given
A word of warning about RPGs; basing a book around a role-playing campaign can
lead to books which read just like they're based around role-playing
campaigns...

The classic example is Raymond Feist's _Magician_. There's a scene near the
beginning where our characters choose what class they're playing, and then you
can watch them level up throughout the rest of the book.

(Not that it's a bad book; I like it a great deal. But once you know what to
look for, the signs are everywhere. It is fascinating to see his writing skill
get better throughout. It's also interesting to read the original version with
the Author's Preferred Edition, where he put back all the bits that his editor
cut out, and realise exactly what editors are paid for. The original is so
much better.)

~~~
Jtsummers
I agree and would point to the same book. It can offer an interesting way to
explore characters and ideas, however. Flesh out the world, for instance, if
the book is less based on the RPG but happens to exist in the same world. An
opportunity to explore different areas that may impact others. Or just play
and don't base the book on it in a literal sense. Make a scenario to see what
the characters might do and discuss what they should actually be like, then
use that to inform their story decisions in other scenarios.

Also a benefit of the lightweight systems for this as they usually don't have
a notion of classes. Maybe an idea of competency in some fields instead.

------
qznc
I like the snowflake method [0]. It gives you a very strict plan.

Disclaimer: I have not written a novel yet.

[0] [http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-
met...](http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/)

~~~
ggambetta
I have! Followed the Snowflake Method relatively closely to write my first
(and so far, only) novel, The Golden Legacy
([http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QPBYGFI](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QPBYGFI)).

------
armenarmen
Wrapping up with my first novel now. Very much fell into the gardener/pants
faction. I had a concept "start up guys can't raise money so they sell
cocaine" and just let it unfold from there. Any other fiction folks here
subscribe to the planning method?

~~~
petewailes
Very much so. I'm currently in the process of writing a trilogy of trilogies,
for which there's a loose outline of each book and the major plot points.
However, the detail of exactly what happens is left up to me as I find it in
the moment.

It's something several acquaintances of mine who are published, successful
writers subscribe to. One recently summed it up nicely as "plan the mountains,
write the valleys".

The major advantages are that it gives you the ability to write the ending
first, so you don't get to the end and discover that you need to dig yourself
out of a hole, and that you can keep things internally consistent, ensuring
people don't magically teleport around the world (unless of course that's
actually a thing your characters can do).

There's something to be said for not over-planning, but also for giving
yourself enough time and room to be able to spot problems ahead of time so you
don't write yourself into a corner.

~~~
armenarmen
This "plan the mountains, write the valleys" seems like a pretty decent
approach. I suppose that I did something of a hybrid. I had plot points that
came to me at different stages that I wanted to get to. But again it was
mostly by the seat of my pants. Is the first part of your trilogy out yet? I'd
love to checkout a fellow HNers work!

~~~
petewailes
Not yet. I'm planning to write until book six before I start publishing (I
expect my life to get busy during the writing of the last three, so I want a
buffer in place).

That said, I'll add you to my list of people to contact when they start being
published (probably end of next year).

------
swsieber
I'm in the middle of the "Wheel of Time" books. That must have been the most
planned out series ever. Or reworked like a million times. At least, that's
what I gather from people who have reread the series and praise the amazing
foreshadowing in the first half of the series (even books 1 and 2).

For those who don't know, "The Wheel of Time" is 14 books plus a prequel.

~~~
wccrawford
I think the writer had a vague plan at the start, but nothing beyond that.
This is pretty much proven out in books 5-10 where he rambled on and on about
basically nothing. When called on it, he said he'd do better and he did on the
next couple, but then fell ill.

He managed to write up his ending notes and hand his notes to Brandon
Sanderson before he died. But I don't think those notes were written before
that.

------
jacobheric
Here's what I do. I usually start with a dream. When I wake up, if I've dreamt
something interesting I write down a brief sketch or scene or even just an
image in a google doc. Then I mull it over for a few weeks, adding new ideas
and details to the doc. I love to use the time that I'd otherwise be using for
insomnia. If I find myself awake in bed, I spend time tuning the idea or the
scene until I fall back asleep. Then I write it down in the morning. Pretty
soon I have a plot or a basic outline or just an idea for a beginning or an
end. Then I continue to chew on it until a specific first sentence strikes me.
Then I drop everything and start writing like a maniac. When I'm going on the
writing, I try to let the characters live and let the story go where the
characters take it, knowing that they'll eventually end up at the signposts
I've set up in the initial sketch. I always use a trick that Hemingway used:
stop writing for the day when you know what's going to happen next. That way
you'll start right off again tomorrow and not get stuck.

I've written three books this way and I'm writing two more now. I've started a
publishing company and published one so far. I'm working on ushering two more
through that process (editing, editing, editing, typesetting, etc). That's a
whole other story, and just as important.

EDIT: I have a day job (most of the time) as a developer, I do this in my
spare time and between gigs.

~~~
6stringmerc
That is awesome, I really appreciate you sharing how you approach capturing
your fog of creativity. I've had to do similar disciplined efforts, especially
during revision, following my subconscious apparently working some things out
for me. Great advice in your post, thanks.

------
erdevs
I've always wanted to write a novel, and I hope to some time before I die (or
afterward, I guess.. but who knows what's possible then).

I like the way this article describes architect vs gardener writers. I've
always felt this internal conflict of modes when trying to write. I actually
think there is a similar spectrum for coders. As a programmer, I definitely
architect-first (within whatever scope I'm in) as opposed to feel-it-out-as-I-
go. Yet great programmers I know just get started and sort of see where they
land. (Iterative refinement is key in both styles, in my experience, and I'm
sure the same is true of writing.)

In writing, I always _think_ I should architect the story and setting, so as
to validate whether it will be interesting or not at a high-level. But when I
try to do this, I seem to end up with uninteresting, low quality results and
the process itself feels contrived and burdensome. When I free flow, I seem to
do a lot better. But I'm not sure if that's because I just don't have practice
in trying to hold all the bits of a story in my head and craft it into a good
outline which I can then flow from, and/or if it's because I only write short
bits of material (ie the free flow might become unwieldy at length).

Curious what others think about the architect vs gardener coder bit, and also
how those who write relate their writing approach to their coding approach.

~~~
Avshalom
Do you want to write a novel or do you want to write a good novel? I mean
either way it's pretty easy. Just start writing and don't stop. That's kind of
the whole NaNoWriMo thing. To write a good novel you just need to write like a
dozen shit ones first. Ray Bradbury says ~a million words of bad fiction.

~~~
erdevs
Heh. :-) I'd love to just accomplish writing one, even if it's shitty. But of
course would prefer a good one, at some point.

The issue for me at the moment is just carving out the time / paying the
opportunity cost to go for it. Not quite ready to dive in yet, but I think
about the methods once in a while.

Thanks for the reply and advice! I think it'd be sage to bear in mind if/when
I start.

------
6stringmerc
Collecting a bunch of anecdotes about writing from a litany of disparate
writers seems rather odd to me. A little bit of a disingenuous title maybe?
This is how "successful" writers wrote novels.

Personally I think the novel is on its way out to pasture the way Sonnets are.
How many people read Sonnets? Back in the day, plenty. Look at the names on
that list and a significant number either work in relatively well defined
genres (King, Gaiman, Martin) or were working in a pre-TV time when reading
was an essential pastime (Twain, Proust) and audiences were engaged at a much
higher level. That may not seem like a direct connection to "how to write a
novel" but it certainly applies to "why write a novel."

I always preferred short fiction. This is why I've pursued screenwriting with
much more discipline of late (just entered Shore Scripts, will wait for
Nicholls & others next year) trying my hand at TV series (stoner golfer
comedy, toy company workplace comedy) and various film ideas.

Honestly I think writing Novels is like writing every part for a Symphony.
Even if some of the parts are absolute genius, they're easily drowned out by
slop or chaos. Very challenging discipline, and if you feel it's a good fit
for you, I do say "You've got nothing to lose but your time and your mind by
trying!" Seriously though, happy writing to all.

------
losteverything
I love to create words and found using my fingers to create words is so
inferior to simply talking them.

I would never have thought that the greatest feature of my phone is not the
camera but the microphone. I wish I had voice recorder when I wrote my diaries
40 years ago.

I still write with pen and sometimes fingers to help me uncover how I feel
about deep subjects. Often I am surprised my initial thought becomes the
opposite to my final conclusion. I recall reading Justice Roberts said
something similar. So for me actually writing something ( out) is more
formation of thought. My biggest surprise was the hundred 180 degree turn I
made on the Karen Ann Quinlan episode.

------
joeax
I wrote a book called _The Final Six Days_. It is a full length novel about
438 pages. Note that I am a software engineer by trade and not a writer, but I
took a stab at it since I've always wanted to write a book.

Here are my takeaways:

1\. If took me 8 months from idea to published novel (self-published on
Amazon).

2\. I used a variation of the snowflake method, as my analytical and natural
tendency to architect solutions was a good fit for me. The process was:
paragraph, outline (by chapter), short story.

3\. Writing the book itself is fun and mind stimulating, it only took me 2
months (about an average of 2 hours per day). It was my favorite part of the
process.

4\. Editing took me 4 months, and it was the most painful, dreadful,
unstimulating, and daunting task I ever had to do. Imagine writing code for
months, then self-QA'ing your code. Yes, it's that bad. Hire someone (even a
spouse or loved-one) to help you.

5\. You will find when you go from short story to full story, your story will
mutate into something far more beautiful and deeper than you can imagine. It's
because when you write continuously without stopping, ideas just flow out from
your subconscious.

6\. No matter how many times you read your own novel, you will never, ever,
ever find every possible mistake, syntax (i.e. misspelling, misused word,
etc), or otherwise. Get a pro to help you.

7\. Every reader you invite to read your draft will inevitably come back with
a ton of feedback, much of it negative (and unnecessarily nitpicky). Ignore
most of it. Write the novel you want to write.

8\. No matter what, don't give up. If you get writer's block just have a beer,
and come back to it tomorrow.

9\. Have your cover professionally designed. Yes, a cover does matter.

Bonus: I read a book called Writing the Breakout Novel that was a huge help,
perfect for an engineering mind. It's very technical in nature and deals with
ensuring each chapter has enough intrigue. It also takes about character
development, POV, etc. I rewrote many areas after that. Everyone I know who
read my book has done so from beginning to end so I did something right.

I planned on writing an article on Medium at some point getting into more
details about the process, specifically from an engineering point of view.

[https://www.amazon.com/Final-Days-Time-Crossers-Book-
ebook/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Final-Days-Time-Crossers-Book-
ebook/dp/B01HYJ6D32)

------
stewbrew
I think the more interesting questions would be:

\- How to write a novel that is actually a worthwhile read?

\- Why should you invest your time into an endeavour that will most likely
fail and have no significant outcome?

~~~
jacobheric
If you consider a novel a work of art, then creating it is an act of artistic
creation that has some intrinsic value. There is a benefit to expressing
yourself carefully, to telling a story that says something about the world
that you think needs to be said. Those outcomes are "significant" even if the
novel has a small audience.

~~~
stewbrew
Once you discuss rulesets and guidelines, it's probably rather a craft. Just
because it looks like art from the past century doesn't make it art.

~~~
e12e
Most art takes craft.

------
madhadron
I have found that most folks who have not written a novel but feel that they
would like to have a useless preoccupation with process. A novelist's process
is how their habits of mind were adapted to the problems of writing an account
of a social simulation that is too large to hold in your head at once (i.e., a
novel).

For example, I'm not comfortable starting a work without knowing how it will
end. It's a psychological crutch after I found myself without the skill to
wind up a couple of works that had gone astray. I got lucky in that my first
novel ([http://madhadron.com/monologue-
sample.html](http://madhadron.com/monologue-sample.html)), and the only one
I've actually put out, had a clear ending from the beginning of its
conception.

I know that I sit down and usually start writing in the middle of a chapter,
work to the end as its structure takes form, go back and write the beginning
and rewrite from middle to the end to make it hold together. That didn't
emerge by plan, just from day after day of writing.

My chapters tend to involve lots of flashback and switching of time. It's how
I solved a set of problems about keeping the intensity of the prose constant
even though events in the story might be spread around in time. It drew on
techniques I had learned to handle for music composition many years before.

But that's me. There's no reason to think that you'll be anything like me. Or
like Mark Twain, or Henry James, or Jane Austen.

Don't worry about the work habits of those authors. Instead, study their
works. When you have a technical problem, pause and think about places in well
written novels where a similar problem arose, and then go analyze how they
handle it. For the basic technique of novels, pretty much everything you need
is in Jane Austen's 'Persuasion' and 'Pride and Prejudice.' 'Emma' is her most
technically perfect novel, but you can't learn from it. Go to Twain for
handling dialect. Take your pick of some modern novelists for flashback and
the like. I mostly use Ford Madox Ford's 'Parade's End'. I don't really go to
Henry James's novels much, but his collected prefaces, also published as the
Art of the Novel, or available online at
[http://www.henryjames.org.uk/prefaces/home.htm](http://www.henryjames.org.uk/prefaces/home.htm),
are essentially a textbook on writing novels. Dig through the purple prose.
There are utter gems that explicate what the craft is about. Reading the
opening chapters of Ezra Pound's 'ABCs of Reading' may also be a useful
reference on how to approach learning technique from novels. Writer's block is
usually your subconscious telling you that something you're doing isn't going
to work. It's a useful message.

I haven't found much else worth the bother. King's 'On Writing', for example,
seemed mere exhortation to me. For nonfiction, Williams's, 'Style: Toward
Clarity and Grace' is worth your time, but for fiction I really haven't found
anything.

------
gkya
I recommend _the Art of Dramatic Writing_ of Lajos Egri to anyone who wants to
write fiction in any genre and of any type.

------
akeck
Those here who write, do you use plain text with source control? If so, what's
your work flow?

~~~
ggambetta
Markdown, vim and git, plus spreadsheets for notes and The Plan (list of
scenes, etc). Wrote some scripts that use pandoc to take the markdown files
and generate both epub files for the Kindle version and OpenOffice files that
I later save as PDF for the print version.

I should write an article about my workflow. From Markdown to Amazon using
100% open source :)

~~~
awesomebob
I would like to read that article. :)

~~~
ggambetta
Here it is! [https://medium.com/@gabrielgambetta/how-i-wrote-my-first-
nov...](https://medium.com/@gabrielgambetta/how-i-wrote-my-first-novel-during-
my-daily-commute-e1d02c9447b9)

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lkrubner
This surprised me:

"Mark Twain too, insisted that a book “write itself” and that “the minute that
the book tried to shift to my head the labor of contriving its situations…I
put it away…The reason was very simple — my tank had run dry; it was empty"

I'm surprised that the phrase "tank had run dry" was already established
during Mark Twain's life. The metaphor refers to automobiles. He died in 1910.
Automobiles began to become popular during the early 1890s, but they were
still the toys of the rich. The first Model T was built in 1908, and this was
the first car built "for the masses".

It's interesting that Twain did not use a steam engine metaphor. "The boiler
needs to be stoked." His life overlaps entirely with the peak of the
railroad/steam engine. But he uses a metaphor from automobiles?

~~~
jccc
The word "tank" as a container for fuel dates at least back to 1902:

[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=tank](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=tank)

And "tanks" had been used for things other than fuel for centuries, such as
water, that would have "run dry."

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chatmasta
Story submitted to HN by samclemens, nice. :)

Samuel Clemens was the actual name of Mark Twain, for those who don't know.

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beccabb
HN people trying to write a novel is somehow funny to me!

~~~
quantumhobbit
Is writing a novel all that different from writing a compiler from scratch or
hacking on obsolete consoles like so many posts here. We are all drawn to long
involved, possibly solitary, intellectual exercises. Sort of a hacker
personality trait.

~~~
rpgmaker
> Is writing a novel all that different from writing a compiler from scratch
> or hacking on obsolete consoles like so many posts here.

Yes it is. But you're mostly right about your other affirmations.

