Can you write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days?

You’ve just finished a novel. Maybe you wrote it as part of November’s National Novel Writing Month. Either way, you’ve got this first draft happily sitting there and you’re wondering… what happens next?

First, let it sit. Then sit down and do some serious revision and editing until your book is as good as you can make it on your own. Then it’s time to put your baby where it belongs: in the hands of readers! I’m not talking about publishing… that’s a discussion for the next post. I’m talking about giving your book to readers to get feedback on what you should do with it going forward.

Sending your book out in the wild to be read by people that aren’t you can be very nerve wrackin! But getting commentary from real, live readers can be invaluable and your book desperately needs those outside perspectives. The comments from your readers about what they liked and didn’t like, which parts were slow or boring and even where they laughed will all help as you do your final edits.

Warning: Some people will have less than complimentary things to say about your baby. Read more. . . »

You’ve just finished a novel. Maybe you wrote it as part of November’s National Novel Writing Month. Either way, you’ve got this first draft happily sitting there and you’re wondering… what happens next?

First, let it sit. Then…

Edit and revise

If you’ve never edited a book before and aren’t sure where to start, I’ve got a road map for getting started here.

“…with pen, ink, scissors, paste, a decanter of sherry, and a vast reluctance, Mr Earbrass begins to revise. This means, first, transposing passages, or reversing the order of their paragraphs, or crumpling them up furiously and throwing them in the waste-basket. After that there is rewriting. This is worse than merely writing, because not only does he have to think up new things just the same, but at the same time try not to remember the old ones.” -Edward Gorey

When people ask what editing is, I almost always answer this: Editing is making your book as good as you possibly can on your own. It’s going over every scene again and again, sometimes doing minor tweaks, sometimes overhauling huge sections until you reach the point when it either is exactly how you want it or you know you need outside help. It means completely rewriting some parts. It means cutting large sections, rearranging scenes, even changing the original plot… whatever it takes to turn that first draft into the best story possible.

I’m not going to lie… editing is a lot of work, usually more work than writing the first draft. But, in many ways, editing and revising can be even more fun and rewarding to a writer because that’s the stage when you actually make the book as amazing as you see it in your head. That’s the stage when you make your messy first draft into a sharp and polished draft you’d be proud to show to anyone.

Now, maybe you just wrote your book for fun and don’t have any plans for publication. I still think you need to go back and re-read your work and do some editing even just to clean up the typos. For starters, you may be surprised at the quality of what you wrote and that may change your plans. But even if you decide you still would rather this book never seen the light of day, it’s still helpful to your writing life to revisit what you wrote to see what you produced and to help you understand how to improve.

Once you’ve edited your book into literary gold (which, for the record, ALWAYS takes longer than you think it will) it’s time to take it to the next step…

You’ve just finished a novel. Maybe you wrote it as part of November’s National Novel Writing Month. Either way, you’ve got this first draft happily sitting there and you’re wondering… what happens next?

Before you do anything else…

Let it sit.

No matter what your future plans for your novel, your first step should always be to let it sit for at least a month. You just spend a ton of time throwing words down and you’re too close to both the story and the draft to be able to effectively do anything with it. I highly recommend starting something else during this time be it another novel, a short story or a completely different artistic project such as a painting.

This time away from your novel will give you two big things.

• The first is enough distance from what you wrote to be able to look at it objectively. Being able to look at your writing without too much emotional attachment is what will enable you to effectively edit and revise your story. Words you don’t remember writing are much easier to cut or change then words that still feel like your babies.
• The second thing you’ll gain is the chance to let your subconscious work on your story in the background. While you were writing your book, you were actively shaping your characters and story. You were so focused on each tree that you couldn’t see the whole forest (to use a cliche). Now you’re going to let your subconscious play with those elements while you purposely don’t work on your story. Sometimes this time away from your novel can be exactly what you need to figure out how to best tell your story and, when you finally do go back to it, you’ll discover that you’ve already worked out some of the biggest issues.