6 Tips For Finishing Your First Draft
Finishing the first draft of your first novel is a huge accomplishment. I should know; I recently finished drafting my first novel, a young adult fantasy I very well may never publish. Previously, I have outlined and written first chapters for countless million-dollar ideas (ha) but my kryptonite has always been a lack of direction with the plot and procrastination that leads to waning motivation as new ideas inevitably pop up.
So what was different this time? Maybe the planets just aligned or maybe I happened to do everything right but since I can’t say with certainty what factor allowed me to finish this one, I’m going to share with you six things I did differently this time and how they can help you finally complete that story.
Have stream-of-consciousness brainstorming sessions.
If you’ve never done stream-of-consciousness writing before this may take a bit of practice, but the basic idea behind it is to write without taking the time to evaluate or analyze your ideas as you go. Write anything and everything that pops into your head. Don’t let your pen leave the paper or your fingers stop clicking the keys. No one ever has to see this, so if all that comes out is “I can’t think of anything, this is dumb, why won’t my brain work”, etc. that’s ok! Write it down anyway. With practice you’ll be able to focus your sessions onto your work in progress. Use it to brainstorm as an initial step for developing plots and back stories.
This type of brainstorming is also useful when you hit a block while writing. Not sure what your main character will do next? Time to break out the stream-of-consciousness! Remember: don’t worry about the quality of what you write in these sessions. Most of what you put down will be bad, terrible even, but one idea might be perfect. I recommend keeping a dedicated notebook and pen next to your computer or wherever you write for this purpose.
Skip around as you write.
I’m going to let you in on an open secret among authors: you don’t have to write your book in order. In fact, you don’t have to publish your book in order either as non-chronological books can be very popular, but that’s out of the scope of this story. Let’s assume you want readers to read your book in chronological order. You have an exciting action scene towards the middle you’re just itching to write but you need to get through this scene where your character has a critical conversation with their mother and you’re so bored.
Skip it. For now, that is. It’s ok to write the scenes and chapters you’re excited about first and come back to the less exciting ones later. It’s not cheating and in fact can be helpful; if you find a scene boring to write there’s a good chance others will find it boring to read. By waiting and writing other parts of the story first you may find you don’t actually need to include that boring scene after all. The biggest challenge with writing your book or story out of order is staying organized enough to fit it all together when you’re done. Which, conveniently, brings me to the next point.
Stay highly organized — or don’t.
The ways in which we organize and keep track of a novel-length document while writing is personal to each writer and there are endless articles written about the different ways to organize your writing and the benefits of each. I encourage you to try many of them and find what works for you but I won’t get into the many different methods here. The most important thing to remember here is that there is no right way to organize your writing. If you thrive in chaos by all means, write chaotically. But if chaos doesn’t work for you, I’d like to offer a simple idea that made all the difference for me.
Create a chapter-by-chapter outline. It’s a game changer. This outline, of course, is malleable and should grow and change as you write. But by plotting my whole novel out in chunks, I had a reference point from start to finish should I run into any roadblocks (spoiler alert: I ran into many roadblocks). It was also tremendously helpful in facilitating that non-chronological writing I mentioned earlier; I simply highlighted any chapter I skipped in my outline and continued on, coming back to the skipped chapters later. If you’re not able to mentally separate your story into chapters until it’s written (and a lot of people can’t), replace “chapter” with “scene.”
Of course, if you’re a pants-er this advice is probably making you cringe or sweat with anxiety. That’s ok! The beauty of writing is that we all get there in our own way and you should always take writing advice with a grain of salt. If something doesn’t feel right then it’s probably not for you, but you won’t know what is without some trial and error.
Allow yourself breaks, not distractions.
We all have days, weeks, even months when we’re not in the mood to write and it feels more like a chore than a passion. Sometimes the words just don’t come. Rather than frustrate yourself trying to write what isn’t working, step away and take a break.
That said, try to make your break productive (unless you’re breaking specifically for self-care or mental health. Allowing yourself mental health breaks during which you don’t think about writing at all is so important). Read authors you admire in your genre or others. Provide critique for fellow aspiring authors. Try your hand at a short story in a new genre. Consume narratives in other forms of media: movies, comics, audiobooks, etc.
One thing I don’t advise, however, is starting another long-term project while taking a break from your work in progress. Some people can manage to work on two or more novel-length projects simultaneously but the fact is your attention will be split no matter how much time and brain power you devote to each. There’s nothing wrong with taking your time to write your novel and enjoying side projects along the way but if you’re reading this you’re likely eager to get your novel finished and starting a new, exciting project halfway through is unlikely to be conducive to that goal.
Don’t edit until you’re done.
This is writing advice so oft-repeated I debated including it at all, but despite feeling like I’m beating a dead horse I do think it warrants inclusion here. There’s no quicker way to lose focus and get trapped in Unfinished Manuscript Hell than stopping to edit a previous section before you’ve written the next.
This is advice I didn’t take to heart until this most recent project and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this is the first one I’ve seen through to the end. In the best case scenario, editing while writing takes the exact same amount of time it would have to save your editing for the end and you’ve gained or lost nothing. Worst case, you edit every scene as you go, doubling the time it takes to finish and in the end you realize things aren’t working and you need to rewrite every scene from a different character’s perspective or completely overhaul the setting. Most likely you’ll end up somewhere in between and will pre-edit some scenes you ultimately have to cut. Don’t waste your time.
Find a cheerleader and keep updates limited to that person.
Find yourself a cheerleader or support person in the form of one or two friends, classmates, online acquaintances, anyone excited to read your writing who can give you a “Keep going, you got this!” when needed. You can even choose someone you can mutually bounce ideas off of to give each other feedback on character names, plot decisions, etc.
However, be very wary of talking too much about your book to too many people before it’s done. Most people will react in one of two ways: disinterest or congratulatory praise. The former of course runs the risk of being incredibly disheartening and demoralizing but the latter can be just as dangerous. Any kind of praise triggers the same feeling of accomplishment. Our brains can’t differentiate between “Congratulations, you’re writing a book!” and “Congratulations, you’re a bestselling author!” so it throws us more or less the same dopamine-fueled feeling of success either way. A lot of people (including me!) react to this preemptive praise by losing motivation to continue, as paradoxical as that may seem. After all, why keep writing when the animal part of your brain is telling you you’ve already accomplished your goal?
Not everyone reacts to praise this way of course, and it’s possible to continue on through a lack of motivation but keeping your updates to a few people who understand how to critique instead of praise can make all the difference in finishing what you’ve started. As hard as it can be, you’re more likely to follow through if you keep your info sharing brief while you’re writing and save the detailed synopsis for pre-orders.
All my previous attempts at writing a novel did not include these six aspects that I now know are crucial for me to follow in order to complete a draft. You may find these work for you, or not. As with any advice you read on the internet, take what works for you and discard the rest.
