by Ally Carter
You can fix the commas later. You can fix the grammar later. You can tighten up the prose and spruce up the dialogue. The things that are wrong today will still be wrong when it comes time to write draft two. So my goal is always to get to the end of draft one first.
3. TRY WRITING ON SOMETHING WHERE IT’S HARD TO REWRITE AS YOU GO. I used to have this very same problem, so that’s why I started writing in dollar-store notebooks. It’s really hard to totally rewrite something that’s written on paper (as opposed to something on a computer), so when I wrote my opening paragraph in that notebook, I didn’t really have much choice but to write a second paragraph. And then a third. And so on until I had my very first finished book. If I’d kept trying to write on a computer, I would still be reworking that first paragraph!
4. TRY TO HAVE SOME GOALS IN MIND WHEN YOU SIT DOWN EACH DAY. Start with a realistic word count goal. Don’t go crazy. It’s okay to start small—maybe 250 words or so—and build up once you realize what a good day for you looks like.
I’d also recommend you set some kind of story goal. For some reason, writing just seems so much easier when there is a point in the story I’m trying to reach or a couple of scenes I’m really excited to hammer out.
What if you don’t have any scenes you’re excited about or don’t know what to write next? Then I probably wouldn’t sit down to write just yet because sitting there spinning your wheels is just going to make you feel bad about yourself. So get up. Take a walk or clean your room while you try to think what you’re going to write.
Then sit down and write it.
DEAR STEPHANIE PERKINS,
If you could go back in time and give your younger author self one piece of advice, what would it be?
Aim for shorter working sessions (four to six hours) on a consistent schedule (Monday through Friday). Insane eighteen-hour marathons won’t get your book written any faster, because you’ll quickly wear down your mind and body, and that will actually slow down your progress. It’ll do a lot of other damage as well.
You’ve hit on one of the hardest things about this business: No one makes you do it.
Now, eventually, you may reach the point where you have editors and agents and other people counting on you to deliver, but even then—even now—no one is coming to my house every day to make me do this. I have to decide when I’m going to write and how much I’ve got to get done.
If it weren’t for my deadlines, I might never get anything written. So what are you supposed to do? Well, I’d recommend you give yourself some deadlines.
You might want to look around online, and see if there are any contests you’d like to enter from organizations like the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and the various genre organizations like the Romance Writers of America or Mystery Writers of America. Those contests have deadlines, and having a goal you’re trying to hit can be super motivating.
Or maybe you should make a deal with a teacher or a family member. Maybe if you tell a friend that you have to finish your first draft before your birthday or New Year’s Eve, then that will be the kick you need. After all, deadlines and goals are a lot easier to keep if you’ve got someone out there waiting to see the finished product.
This is an incredibly personal thing, and it will vary a lot, author to author. Personally, I don’t show anyone my first drafts until they’re finished. Then I will usually read them through and make sure they make sense before sending them off to my editor.
Now, a lot of authors wouldn’t be caught dead letting their editors see their first drafts! But my books have become so plot-heavy through the years that I need my editor to weigh in as soon as possible to help me decide what should stay and what should go.
Think of it like building a house. In the first draft, I’m pouring the foundation and putting up the frame. I want someone to come and have a look at things before I start putting in plumbing and laying down floors. I don’t want to spend a week hanging wallpaper in a room that’s going to get torn down or moved to the other side of the house! I need to know where everything is going to go—what’s going to matter and who the players are going to be—before I get too far along. I’ve found that, in the long run, it’s more efficient to let my editor weigh in early on. In general, my editor is cool with that, so it works for us.
Many authors won’t show their editors anything until they’re confident the book is close to perfect. So maybe they’ll work on their own. Or maybe they’ll show their work to a close friend.
Some authors might even have critique partners or groups—usually other writers they know and like and whose work they respect. They might read early drafts and offer feedback, and maybe you’ll do the same for them.
Personally, I don’t have a formal critique partner, but I love having friends I can brainstorm with and talk to about my (many!) plot problems. Amazingly, just the act of laying out my whole plot for someone usually allows me to see the problem for myself—a lot of times, that’s the most helpful part of the process!
But I want to offer one word of warning. When you’re starting out, it’s hard to know if what you’re doing is any good or not. I get it. In fact, I still feel that way a lot of the time. When you show your work to a friend or teacher or critique partner, listen to what they have to say, but also listen to your gut. Nobody knows your book better than you. Nobody knows your characters better than you. So take any and all advice and criticism that rings true in your gut and makes sense, but it’s okay to leave the rest. Nobody can write your book better than you can. It’s just up to you to do it.
So if you haven’t already noticed, the answer to pretty much every question in this book is “Well, it depends.” Nowhere is that more true than with process.
That’s why I wanted to poll some of the most respected writers out there to show you how many processes there are. There really, truly is no one way to write a book.
I think the hardest part about process isn’t just that it varies so much writer to writer but that it can also vary book to book.
I don’t know what your process is right now or what your process will be after reading this book, but I can pretty much guarantee you it’s going to vary over the course of your life and your career.
Maybe you’ll start a book that just cannot (or will not) be written chronologically. Maybe you’ll get a new job or have triplets and go from being someone who writes 5,000 words a day to someone who writes 500 (and all of them at two in the morning).
You may not know what your process is. You definitely don’t know what your process is going to be. But the most important thing to remember is that it’s not the process that matters. The book that comes out of the process is the only thing that counts.
People talk a lot about opening lines, but in my opinion, a first sentence has one job and one job only: to make someone want to read the second sentence.
When I was twelve, I broke my leg jumping off the wall between Canada and Germany.
That’s the first line of my novel All Fall Down, and it’s my favorite of my first lines for a number of reasons.
Go ahead and reread the sentence above and think about it. What kind of twelve-year-old willingly jumps off walls? And since when are Canada and Germany next to each other? And why is there a wall between them?
That sentence tells the reader that our main character is something of a daredevil and this book is set in a world that’s not quite like our own. That sentence also tells the reader that if they want the answer to those questions, they’re going to have to read the second sentence!
It’s easy to get hung up on first sentences, I know. I do it, too, and I always have trouble starting a draft until I have a good one. Sometimes they change a little (or a lot), but I can’t start writing until the first sentence pops into my head (usually while I’m cooking or swimming or folding laundry or doing something that totally isn’t writing-related).
But if you’re having trouble with your first sentence, don’t worry. De
finitely don’t let it keep you from writing. Just put something down and come back to it. You can rewrite it a million times if you need to.
DEAR ZORAIDA CÓRDOVA,
What’s the hardest part about writing a book?
The number one thing is the doubt that creeps in while you’re drafting. This feeling didn’t exist when I wrote my debut novel, because I was writing that book for myself. There were no expectations, no deadlines, just me and the page. After the first book is out in the world and you’re ready to try again, things are different. Some of those things are good—all of a sudden you have a community of other authors going through the same thing. But the doubt is there, waiting like a creepy little monster looking over your shoulder. It manifests itself in different forms. It tells you you’re not good enough to write the next book, or the one after that. Luckily, the community part is stronger, and you know that you aren’t alone in this wild business of writing books.
In many ways, the first few chapters of your book are the most important. After all, if readers are bored in chapter 1, they may not read chapter 2. If they’re not pulled in by chapter 2, they probably won’t even try chapter 3, etc., etc.
I think the biggest mistake that most new writers make at the beginning of a story is to think they have to spell everything out right then, right there. Look at all the cool stuff I’ve thought up!
Instead of hinting at a character’s mysterious backstory, a new writer might go into detail about it as soon as the character steps on the page. Instead of layering in details of the world little by little, they might have long paragraphs or pages talking about every single aspect right up front. (This, of course, is called “info-dumping.”)
As a rule, I like to live by the “get in as soon as it gets interesting, get out before it gets boring” school of storytelling. Make sure those early scenes introduce your characters and your world, but don’t worry about introducing every little thing right then.
It’s okay for your reader to have a few questions. You just don’t want them to be confused.
Now, I’m going to let you in on something that I’ve noticed, not as a writer but as a reader. I start a lot of books. I quit a lot of books. One of the things that I have noticed is that a lot of the books I put down have long sections of information and no scenes.
As a reader, I want to be grounded in the story. I want to know who the characters are and also where they are. Are they standing on the deck of a ship? Are they in gym class? Are they lying in a hospital bed? Too often I don’t know. Or maybe the character isn’t anywhere at all, and it’s the author/narrator who is “telling” us backstory and character details and I’m afloat again.
In other words, the author proceeds to tell me what’s important.
In the books I keep reading, the authors always show me what’s important.
I’m not reading paragraph after paragraph about how important Prim is to Katniss and how the Hunger Games work. No. I’m watching Katniss smooth Prim’s hair and tell her everything’s going to be okay even though it’s the day of “the reaping.” What’s the reaping? Well, you better believe I’m going to keep reading and find out!
So a good practical tip for new writers is this: When in doubt, make your opening chapters as scene-based as possible. Put your character in a place doing a thing. When you ground your characters you also ground your reader, pulling them into the story.
Are there phenomenal books that have opened with a more omniscient overview? Absolutely! The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart is my personal favorite. The voice of that novel is spectacular, and it grabs you by the collar on page one and won’t let you go. It’s like a siren song. I just have to keep listening. Which, again, is what you want in an opening chapter.
Whichever approach you choose, just know that it’s going to get a lot better—and easier—with practice.
First, good for you for starting your book! That’s the first step!
Second, there is no right or wrong length for a chapter. Some authors write very long chapters. Some authors (or books) have incredibly short chapters. And short chapters can be great, especially for reluctant readers who feel good every time they finish a chapter.
So, short chapters aren’t really a problem! That’s good news.
Finally, don’t ever feel like you need to “pad” anything. Ever. In my opinion, padding is very, very bad. And boring. And … skippable. So make sure your scenes have enough conflict, that your characters have a goal that they’re working toward and plenty of stuff standing in the way.
When you’ve completed a scene or reach something that feels like a natural break, it’s probably time to start a new chapter. Another good time to break would be if you’re changing points of view. Or locations. Or skipping over a period of time. (Like if chapter 12 happens on Tuesday and your next scenes take place on Saturday, then that might be a good breaking point.)
My favorite time to insert chapter breaks is when there’s been a big change in the action. The villain shows up! The getaway car explodes! The trajectory that our characters were on changes suddenly and putting a break between those two chapters will accomplish two things: First, it’s a mini cliffhanger, and your reader is totally going to want to keep reading. Second, it signals to the reader that the tide has shifted somehow and you’re entering a new phase of the story.
Ultimately, there really is no right or wrong way, and you will need to do what feels natural to you.
Sure. Grammar, vocabulary level, sentence length and structure—all of these things (and more) add up to the “voice” of your novel. And voice is very important!
Just make sure that you don’t overdo it. You should make your character’s voice feel authentic and unique, but you don’t want it to be hard to read and you definitely don’t want it to take away from the story.
So a good rule might be to add enough funky spellings and wacky punctuation and bad grammar to make your character’s voice shine through, but stop just shy of making your reader confused or distracted.
(And FYI, we’ll be talking a lot more about voice a little later!)
Here’s the thing about writing humor:
1.It’s really, really hard.
2.Funny people usually don’t know why they’re funny. They just are.
3.There’s nothing less funny than someone trying super hard to be funny.
So, in answer to your question: Yes, I think humor is something that comes far more naturally to some people than to others. If you want to write funny books, my best advice would be to read (or reread) books that you think are funny and then annotate them carefully. Write down or highlight the funny parts and ask yourself why that line made you chuckle or that scene worked for you.
And remember, comedy—far more than romance or drama or action—is subjective. Just keep writing and eventually you’ll find your voice.
What’s the best writing advice you ever got?
Gordon Korman Every single line doesn’t have to elicit hysterical laughter.
This is a question that so many people asked when we announced this book! Seriously, a lot of you have this question, which I think is really interesting. And it actually touches on a pet peeve of mine.
Years ago, I was on a hiring committee for my day job. We got a lot of applications, but one in particular stood out. This guy had a perfectly fine résumé, but his cover letter was … interesting.
It was as if he’d written a regular letter, then got a thesaurus and changed every word to something he thought sounded more impressive. Or fancier. Or smarter. But in the end, he just sounded kind of like an idiot who didn’t know that I’d love to talk to you about this job is just as good as I would endeavor to dialogue with your institution regarding this employment opportunity.
So I am not a fan of using big words just to make yourself sound smarter. In my experience, that almost always backfires.
But it’s important to say that this is yet another question that doesn’
t have a right or wrong answer because the words an author uses are personal. They are a huge part of that author’s voice, and voice is maybe the most abstract thing we’ll talk about in this book.
Just know this: Good writing isn’t determined by the level of words you use. It’s determined by the way they make the reader feel. Sometimes the perfect word is something that might be unfamiliar to some readers. Sometimes that fits with the character and the voice and the tone of the book overall. That’s why this is something that’s going to vary every single time.
Now, if you wanted to write a book for really little kids? Yeah. Then this might matter. But other than that, if you sit down to write and the book comes out in big words, fine. If it comes out in more basic words, also fine.
The key is choosing the right words. Always.
These are just four of the (many, many) questions we got on this topic, and I wanted to include them all here because I think this is a hugely important point.
Are you ready?
It’s going to change your life …
Okay.
Here’s the thing, folks: You should only be writing the good parts.
I remember when I was writing what would become my very first published novel. I still had my day job, and I was trying to cram as much writing as possible into the weekends, and I kept thinking, I wish I didn’t have to write all these boring scenes … I wish I could just skip to the interesting scenes!
And then one day it hit me: Any scene too boring to write is probably a scene too boring to read.
It was a huge light bulb moment for me and one that changed pretty much my entire outlook. Never again would I let (or make) myself write “filler,” and you shouldn’t either.