Dear Ally, How Do You Write a Book

by Ally Carter

  And most of all, remember you can’t rewrite a blank page. Ever. So get to writing.

  How long does it take you to finish a first draft? How many drafts do you usually do? How long does it take for you to finish a book?

  Shannon Hale Depends on the type of book, since I write early chapter books as well as novels. One week to four months. A dozen. First chapters might get thirty to fifty drafts. Two months to seven years.

  Marie Lu Fastest: Two months. Slowest: One year. Five. Fastest: One year.

  Slowest: Two years.

  Melissa de la Cruz I think the average is three months, but I can do it in six weeks if needed. I once wrote a book in two weeks. I don’t recommend it! I usually do three. One full manuscript turned in, one after notes from editor, and one copyedit. But my first drafts come in really clean. Six months on average, I would say.

  Daniel José Older Between three months and two years. One and a half. Six months.

  Elizabeth Eulberg Middle grade: One month. YA: Two months (but VERY sloppy first drafts). Three or four before my editor sees it. From idea to accepted manuscript: twelve to eighteen months.

  Julie Murphy It varies. I’ve taken a month, and I’ve taken nearly a year. About four to five months is good for me. Five. From drafting to edits, about six months on average, but I’ve taken much longer and much less, just depending.

  Stephanie Perkins Two years for a full draft. Tons of unfinished drafts precede this, though. My first full draft is always close to being publishable, because I’ve been working on it for so long. Between fifteen and twenty. Two to three years.

  Kody Keplinger Anywhere from one month to one year. Depends on the book. Between three and five. From starting the first draft to finishing all revisions, it takes me between one and two years.

  Marissa Meyer Between four to eight weeks, usually. Four to five. Six months to a year.

  Alex London A few months. Around five or six. It depends on the book! Six months to a year?

  Sarah Rees Brennan A month or three years, given my fastest and longest times. Three or four. Once, eleven, but please, God, let that never happen again. Usually eight months. Once, four years, but please, God, let that never happen again.

  Jesse Andrews Six months to a year. Five or so. One to two years.

  Alan Gratz Three months. Six. A year and three months.

  Soman Chainani My first draft is my final draft because I edit as I go along—fourteen months. Thirty to thirty-five, along the way. A little over a year.

  Holly Black Six months. I rewrite as I go, a lot. Six to eight months.

  Kiersten White Anywhere from six days to eighteen months. Seven. One year.

  Maggie Stiefvater The quickest I’ve ever written a first draft is ninety days—that was The Scorpio Races, and I’m sure it was so fast because it was both a book of my absolute heart and also because it had a fairly straightforward sports plot at its core. The longest I’ve ever taken on just a first draft was All the Crooked Saints, which was nearly a year of solid drafting. Three? Four? Seven? I don’t usually make it all the way through the draft before I need to go back and adjust, so it’s hard for me to think of them in terms of drafts. Somehow, I usually have one come out once a year or so, so I guess it must be less than that.

  Zoraida Córdova One to three months. Four. A year.

  Gordon Korman Four to six months. Two. Eighteen to twenty-four months, planning to pub date.

  Rachel Caine Three months at most. Two to three. Five to six months at most.

  Dhonielle Clayton Six to eight months. Five. A year.

  Eliot Schrefer Three to four months. Ten. A year.

  Z Brewer About four to five months. Usually three or four. About nine months.

  A lot of answers in this book will basically boil down to “it depends.” Not this one. No matter who you ask, the answer to this question will always be: “Do a second draft.”

  Heck, to be honest, you’ll probably want to do a third draft, too. And a fourth. And maybe a fifth. And then you’ll probably want to set that entire project aside and work on something totally different for a while. Because I don’t know anyone—not a soul—who published the first thing they ever wrote. And I definitely don’t know anyone who’s broken into this business with a first draft.

  Writing is rewriting. Period. And I know that’s not what most people want to hear. When I do school visits, aspiring writers are often looking for a magic number—like I can guarantee that their book will work after draft three or seven. Or twenty.

  And then it occurred to me …

  New writers look at their books and ask, “How many drafts do I have to do?”

  Experienced writers look at their books and ask, “How many drafts do I get to do?”

  There. That right there is the difference.

  A second draft isn’t a chore; it’s an opportunity. A third draft isn’t a punishment; it’s a luxury.

  Since I’ve been doing this professionally, I’ve heard a lot more published, successful authors complain about not having time to do another draft than I’ve heard complain about needing to do one.

  So take all the time—and the drafts—you need to get your book right. Set aside the worry and the pressure of trying to get it right the first time.

  When you’re first starting out, you get as many shots as you need to sink that ball from half-court. If it takes twenty-five shots, that’s fine.

  Take as many as you need. Take as much time as you need. The most important thing is that you just keep shooting.

  Honestly, everyone who finishes a first draft should do one thing first: Celebrate! Give yourself a big pat on the back because that’s extremely rare and incredibly awesome. You’ve officially moved from the huge group of talkers to the much more exclusive group of writers. Go, you!

  Of course, every author is different, but for me, the first step is usually to take a little break from the book, just to clear my head and rest.

  I’m very serious about this. I’ve had the privilege of working with some of the best editors in the business, but I firmly believe that time is the greatest editor of all.

  Think about it like this: Have you ever had something cooking in your house? A roast in the Crock-Pot? Maybe some fresh bread in the oven? Well, if you’re around it all day, you kind of get immune to the smell. But then maybe you go out for a little while, and when you get back, the aroma just hits you! You couldn’t smell it before because you were so close to it—you had to take a step away.

  Writing is like that. You’re right there, in the thick of it, and you can lose all perspective. So that’s why I say that, when possible, the first step in any editorial process should be setting the project aside for at least a week. (A month is better. Six months would be better still.) Then come back to it with fresh eyes, and you’ll be amazed how different it looks.

  Then you may want to block off as much time as you can and try to read the whole manuscript straight through. Don’t worry about making big edits now. You’re just trying to see what’s on the page and—more importantly—what’s not on the page.

  Your next step is probably going to depend on what your process is.

  Did you hammer out a first draft really quickly? Then you might be looking at a manuscript full of typos and incomplete sentences, characters whose names change halfway through, a plot that might go all over the place, and a villain that doesn’t really work.

  If this is your process (and I can speak from experience, since that’s my process), then I think your first step will be to pick your battles. What are the big things that you know don’t work? And what are the little (but persistent) things that have been nagging at you all along? What does your gut tell you isn’t quite working? There may be parts of your book that aren’t technically wrong but are just … off somehow. Like having sand in your shoe. It doesn’t hurt. But it’s annoying and doesn’t feel right.

  Those gut-level things will probably be what you want to focus on in draft number two. />
  Now, a lot of people will look at a manuscript full of typos and think: There! Those are the things I have to fix! And those things do need fixing, but there’s a difference between proofreading and editing.

  A big one.

  When they’re starting out, I think a lot of writers think that their job in draft two will be to catch all the typos and correct all the spelling errors. That stuff is important—don’t get me wrong. But that stuff isn’t the hard stuff. And you’re not going to make it big in this business by just doing the easy parts.

  Make no mistake about it: Revising is a very hard part.

  But how do you do it? Like … where do you even begin?

  Well, some authors will go to the first page of their novels and start rewriting with word one. Some writers will jump from scene to scene, rewriting things in an order that feels right to them. Some writers will print out their manuscripts and pull out their highlighters and their Post-it notes, and start marking scenes where there isn’t enough conflict or highlighting places where the hero and heroine need to have more tension. Some writers will start with a blank page and just start typing.

  In the end, it doesn’t matter exactly how you do it.

  It just matters that you do it.

  Personally, I’ll set the book aside for as long as I can in order to get a little perspective. Then, when it’s time for me to start rewriting, I’ll have a big checklist in my office. A kind of to-do list of the things that my gut (and my editor) have told me need work. These will be things like Make the friendship more believable; add more villain backstory; tighten up the beginning; flesh out the ending … and on and on.

  So very big-picture things. Broad things. Things that probably can’t be accomplished by tweaking just a line or two of dialogue.

  That’s how I get started. With the big stuff.

  Once I get rolling on my rewrite and have a to-do list of all the big-picture items that need work, I’ll go to page one and get started.

  Always page one.

  Some people might decide to fix the villain backstory first, and they’ll leapfrog through the book, going to the places where those changes need to take place. They’ll do that for everything on their list, marking them off one by one. But I can’t do that, for some reason. I have to go to the beginning and address everything kind of all at once.

  As I make my way through the book, I’ll keep all of those things in mind, adding or deleting or changing as I go. As soon as I’ve achieved one, I’ll mark it off the list, and I’ll keep going straight through, chronologically, start to finish.

  Some things can be marked off after a few scenes. Some things may still be on the board when I start draft three. Or four.

  Eventually, I’ll start focusing on smaller and smaller things. By draft three, I’m starting to get more worried about individual scenes or lines. By draft four, I’m worried about words. By the end, I’m worried about commas.

  So that’s my editing process—kind of like a funnel. Big at the top but getting smaller and smaller until I’m paying attention to even the tiniest details.

  DEAR CHRISTINA DIAZ GONZALEZ,

  How do you revise/rewrite?

  Every day, before I begin writing, I read a few pages of what I wrote beforehand. I will spend some time revising/rewriting those pages to get me back into the mind frame I had the day before. Once I am done writing the whole book, I go back and tackle revisions as if I was a reader … figuring out where the writer went wrong and how the story could have been better.

  This is going to depend entirely on your process.

  Some authors rewrite as they go. They’ll sit down every day and read/rewrite what they wrote the day before. Maybe they’ll start reading from the beginning and only have time to work on a paragraph or two. Maybe they’ll rewrite every paragraph as they write it.

  That’s their process.

  My process is to get everything down and then get to the end. After that I’ll take a break, go for a swim, see a movie. And then I’ll go back to chapter 1 and start over again.

  That’s my process for a number of reasons. First, I tend to hyperfocus sometimes, and especially early in my career, I’d get fixated on a paragraph or a line and never move forward. There’s not a doubt in my mind that I would have never finished a book if I was still trying to rewrite as I go.

  Another reason is that, as my career has evolved, my books have become a lot more intricately plotted, so I really need to know what plot elements and twists and characters I’m going to need to pull that thing off. I need to know where I’m going, and the only way to know is to get there.

  But again, that’s just my process.

  The key question is, what is your process going to be? You don’t have to decide right now. Much like the wand chooses the wizard, the process chooses the writer.

  DEAR HOLLY BLACK,

  How do you revise/rewrite?

  For years, I’ve been revising as I went along. I would write a chapter and then rewrite it and sometimes even rewrite it again before proceeding on. This was due to feeling as though my plotting was dependent on extrapolating on what came before and that until one chapter was exactly right, I couldn’t figure out what came next. Right now, I seem to have finally got some traction with fast drafting, basically by deciding that if I need to write something wrong before I can write it correctly, then I ought to at least write it quickly.

  However, even when I was revising many times during the writing process, I still revised again once the book was done. Then I print out my novel and go at it with sticky notes, highlighters, and colored pens. I then set a goal of chapters per day (or days per chapter, depending on the book) and go at it. I also read the book out loud, often to my long-suffering spouse.

  I’m so glad you asked this question! I can see where this would be confusing when you’re starting out. Unfortunately the answer is, once again, “it depends.” But I’ll share my system with you. Maybe it will help you to figure out what your system should be.

  I always have a folder on my computer where I store all the drafts of each book. Obviously, I’ll start out with a first draft. And I’ll give that file a name that includes three important pieces of information:

  —What book it is (usually a short nickname like Alaska or Embassy 3 or something to help me quickly identify the book itself).

  —What draft it is. Draft 1.

  —What date I started that file.

  So the file for this book is named Dear Ally Draft 1 May 1, 2017.

  That may seem like overkill, but after a few years (and many, many drafts), I’ve learned that it helps to have as much information right up front as possible.

  Then, when it comes time to do my second draft, I’ll just save the first draft file with a new name. So draft two will become Dear Ally Draft 2 August 1, 2017.

  With this system, draft one is still there if I need it—still safely saved on my computer as Dear Ally Draft 1 May 1, 2017. But the revision is also there as Dear Ally Draft 2 August 1, 2017.

  Now, there may be some authors and some occasions where it’s easiest to start each draft with a totally new, blank file. If you’re going to have to do a massive rewrite, that may be best. It might be especially good if you’re going to have to cut a lot of material. After all, cutting something you labored over is never fun. With a blank file, you don’t have to actually cut anything—there could just be a lot of stuff you don’t bring over.

  Whatever you choose, just know there is no right or wrong answer and, eventually, you’ll figure out your own system.

  Oh, and I’ll add that for every book I also maintain a “scraps” file, so I never truly delete anything. If there’s a chunk of the book that has to go I’ll simply cut it and paste it into the scraps file. That way, again, it’s there if I need it. And psychologically, that’s so much easier than deleting something forever.

  DEAR JULIE MURPHY,

  What’s the best piece of editorial advice you’ve ever received?


  I think in working with my editor I’ve learned how to let go of fear and just jump into edits feetfirst, but I’ve also learned that sometimes editing smart doesn’t always mean editing big. Sometimes the edits that carry the most impact are small things that ripple out. Sometimes editing means going in and scrapping entire chapters and story lines, but sometimes it means carefully plucking away at a scene with tweezers until every sentence is working as hard as possible.

  Ooh. Cutting. Yes, I’m weird and kind of evil because cutting is my favorite part of the writing process.

  The first thing you need to know is that there are two kinds of cuts:

  —the kind you do with a chainsaw.

  —the kind you do with a scalpel.

  I usually like to do the chainsaw cuts first. This means that you’re going to go through your manuscript and think about the big things that aren’t working (or just aren’t necessary).

  Do you need the subplot with the best friend trying to get a part-time job? Do you need the part of the heroine’s quest where she climbs a mountain for three chapters only to get there and not really learn anything and have nothing really change one way or another? Do you need the character of the snotty next-door neighbor?

  You get the picture.

  If you don’t need it—if it doesn’t show something about the character OR if it doesn’t affect the character’s overall goal—then maybe it should go.

  After you’ve taken a chainsaw and cut out all the big things, then it’s time to pick up your scalpel. In a way, this is more tedious work, but honestly, I kind of love it, because scalpel cuts can help you turn a good book into a great book. It’s where you change all the things that the average person will never, ever see and yet they can tell, when you’re finished, that the book is better.

  It’s when you try to say with six words what you were saying with ten.

  It’s when you look at a sentence and remember that you said something very similar ten pages ago, so this one is unnecessary.