write a novel

I wrote an article, 17 tips on how to write a novel, based on my experience. Hope that some of you find it useful.

Thanks for your support, everyone. Over the two years I’ve been working on my novel ‘University of Death’, I’ve benefited from advice and encouragement on this forum more than any other. I’ve completed this goal now and my book is available at Lulu.

Book mini-site:
http://www.sean.co.uk/books/universityofdeath/index.shtm

Lulu page (including two chapter preview):
http://www.lulu.com/content/1042952

It took me longer than I thought it would to complete this goal, but it was very satisfying and I’d recommend others to stick with it. It’s worth it when you finish.

Proofread the whole thing, following recent edits. Was alarmed to find an error on page 1, even after reading it so many times myself and having two friends read it. Hopefully I’ve caught all the errors now. I’ve made a PDF and uploaded it to Lulu and ordered a copy so I can check it prints okay (particularly the new cover). Hopefully, I can just make it available to the world at large in a week or so. In the meantime, I’m working on the promotional pages for my website behind the scenes.

I decided to put some of the stuff back in that I previously deleted – a friend who read it highlighted it as among his favourite bits, without any prompting. And the shorter version I made relied rather heavily on coincidence (which isn’t great from a plot point of view). So it’s a big book (106,000 words, including a few thousand of ‘deleted scenes’ as bonus content at the end), but I’m pleased with how it’s come together.

I’m looking forward to completing this project soon very much.

I’m making my final edits now, from a Lulu-printed draft. There’s a bit in the middle where it sags a bit, so I’m cutting out a long sequence that doesn’t really need to be there. I’m also removing a couple of plot threads which were making it overcomplex. It feels good to cull the text so extensively. I’ve converted a 5000 word chapter which lost its way a bit into a tight and funny 3000 words.

Got my books in the post yesterday from Lulu. They look fantastic – really nicely produced and I’ve done a pretty good job on the design inside if I do say so myself. I’ve already noticed some things I want to change and some things I can cut, but that’s what this is for – a last draft before I upload the final version and make it available to the public. I’m only looking at light edits now – nothing structural. It’s a chunky book too – it’s good to see all those word processing files brought together in a single tome. I’ve announced the book on my blog now, so it’s no longer a secret and hopefully I can start raising awareness before publication.

I found a substitute font, so last night I uploaded my book and its covers and ordered two copies. I think the covers are probably too low-res to print properly, but it’s what’s inside that counts for now. Should have my novel in the post in the next week. Hurrah! Hope I like it when I read it…

Rewrote a poor chapter at the weekend and packaged it all up into a single big Word document. I’ve created stylesheets and formatted it all, spellchecked it, written the front matter and the ‘extras’ at the back. I’m going to create a bound version via Lulu so I can proof it as a book. It’s 372 pages at 6×9inches and over 100,000 words. I’m having trouble with a font that won’t embed at the moment, but it’s looking more like a novel than it ever has. Hope to get that font sorted this week so I can read my book in the next couple of weeks and give copies to friends to check over.

This weekend, I wrote the last chapter in the puzzle (about three from the end), so I now have a manuscript that tells the entire story from start to finish. It’s about 98,000 words and it’s taken about 2 years (although nothing from the first six months survived).

I have a few things I want to polish and I’ll give part 2 a quick edit (the first half is pretty clean already, having been edited a couple of times), but it’s nearly there now. I’ll check over my old notes to see if I missed anything that must go in. I’m getting better at accepting I’ll have to let some things go in the interests of actually finishing the book and getting it out there, though.

Not as productive a weekend as I hoped for. My last chapter is proving stubborn and won’t take shape easily (it’s not the book’s final chapter – just the last one for me to draft). I spent some time working through my to-do list of things to fix (inconsistencies etc) and on my page design, though, so it’s not totally wasted time. One thing I’ve learned through this whole project is that sometimes it flows, and sometimes it doesn’t. And when it really doesn’t, you’ll just get annoyed if you try to force it.

I got one chapter about three from the end that needs so much editing that it’s a complete write-off, really. But apart from that, it’s pretty much all written (drafted).

I’ve got a to-do list that includes revising dialogue for another two characters and a few consistency points to check, but my 97,000 word monster is starting to awake from its slumber. I’ve been editing as I go, so it’s reasonably clean and a long way from ‘first draft’.

Yesterday I spent an hour creating a page design. It was inspiring to see a few chapters looking like a proper book for the first time.