HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWENTY MINUTES

It’s not like I haven’t’ tried. All I do is try. Well, when I’m not doing something else.

Do you know what it’s like to have a story in your head – a story so grand and complex that no one- not even you – could possibly ever comprehend it? I do. And I think you do. What’s more, you’re a lazy bastard like me. Why else would you be interested in a book like this?

Ok, well, first things first: I can’t help you. All I can do, is ramble on about some meaningless <insert swear here> and hope that you mistake it as something of meaning and go “hmm” in an extremely thoughtful way.

Alright, alright, if you really want my help, here’s what you do. Type what you’re thinking. What ever it is; it can be small or not; a single word or maybe a whole bunch of useless letters that kind of look like a picture of a snail when you look at them all together – whatever you want – the important thing is to get it down somewhere. That’s the biggest pitfall of writing: all these great ideas and no proof that you ever had them. Sure, if someone wants to cut open your scalp and dig around with an ice-cream scoop, it’s all up for grabs, but other than that…

Another huge misconception is the “need” for characters. Hello! You ARE a character. There’s over half your job done right there.

Next, a plot. You don’t need that. Let people work it out for themselves what the hell you’re on about. Chances are no one would understand what’s happening anyway, so save yourself the trouble and don’t bother.

Typing speed is another worry. If you’re too slow, then you won’t feel motivated to keep going. I suggest coffee and lots of it. Sure the only coffee I’ve ever drunk made me sick as a dog, but people love to read about illness – call it your inspiration. Plus all the caffeine will mean no sleep for you, therefore, more time to spend typing slowly. It’s a win win situation.

If none of this is working for you, simply think of the most vile, depressing, putrescent thing you can imagine, and then make it happen to a small child who then grows up to be a troubled yet honour-bound adult. You will be rolling in cash awards in no time. (Uh, I should probably specify that you should only do that when writing – not in real life. If you do it real life, the only cash awards associated with you will be the price on your very strange and twisted little head. So yeah, writing only. Let’s keep it together here people.)

Of course, you’re not in it for the money or the power, or the fame; you just want to express yourself creatively. Get a tape recorder and let it run whenever you feel a spot of intellectual brilliance coming on. Play it back whenever you can – make sure you’re alone – and then just marvel at how truly insightful and wondrous you are. This way you get to hear from the only person you really want to hear from – yourself – and while you’re off doing that, you won’t be out in the world annoying the rest of us. That’s harsh, I’m sorry, but I’m a natural-born critic. Deal with it.

Finally, always set yourself a deadline. If you have to have something done by next Tuesday, then make sure it’s done at least 3 months later – that’s how a true writer works. It minimizes responsibility, yet gives you that killer sense of urgency that leads to a peak-performance last-minute rush-job, i.e. the bare essentials, minus all the unnecessary crap that no-one ever wanted to hear about in the first place (they’re only reading it to make you feel better…or to make themselves feel better for not being quite as insane as you obviously are). Wait, maybe I have that all backwards. Eh, what do I know?

So now you know how to write a novel, go out young one and write! Sure, this took you all of about 2minutes to read, but screw you! It took me a whole 20mins to type! Jeez, you try to help someone out and all they want to do is pick, pick, pick…

Anyway, forget everything I’ve said, go with your gut, and above all love what you’re doing (platonically I mean, you don’t want to turn into some kind of freak).

Good luck, and if your book ever beats mine in sales, I will beat you with your book. Good day.

People keep telling me that good writing is rewriting.

I've written another chapter of my novel last week. 5000 words. It almost killed me.

I'm trying to churn out another 5000 this week. I have no idea if it's any good. I figure I'll wait until my editor reads it, then patch it all up.

The only think I know for sure at this stage is that I need a new opening chapter for my book. Trouble is, I won't know how to change it until I've finished the damn thing.

All the while a little voice keeps singing Dory-like in my head, "Just keep writing. Just keep writing".

Now you know why I haven't contributed much to the Scrolls, of late. There is only so much writing one can do before one is sick of looking at a computer screen.

PS. This is probably fulla mistakes - I couldn't bring myself to even re-read it.

why is the first chapter always the hardest? i've rewritten mine about 10 times, which is not that much, really, but when it prevents you from moving on to the next chapter, it becomes a problem.

the dory-like song should help, thanks

I reckon the first chapter is hard to right because you haven't written the rest.

You don't know the best set up for the story. One writing book I read said that you often don't know the best place to start your story until you have finished.

That's why I now believe you should just leave the first chapter until the end and write it last.

hm..would you write the end first then? or would that just be getting ahead of ourselves? either way, that doesn't help me, because i have an ending, and a starting, but everything i wirte - story wise - seems to be very crappy. it's not that i'm a particularly bad writer, i think, it's more that what ever i write, i want to rewrite it over and over again, but i have no control over if and when i should stop doing it. it's quite psychotic in a way. also my ending sux. it's one of those endings that just means you had to end the thing before it completely devoured you and everything you love. it's "nice", is what it is, and convenitent. maybe it just needs rewriting.

When writing longer pieces I used to come up with a story idea and then try to fit characters around that.

These days I try to develop strong characters first and then see what story they want to tell me. How do they interact with each other? What choices do they make?

In my experience it would be difficult to write the ending of your story and then work backwards. The way I work is to try to find the heart of the story, through the characters, and then write as much as possible to make it reality.

Then I go back to where you began it and figure out if that is the strongest point from which to start.

If this is the way you work, you might find out that you have a lot of superfluous information there that you don't really need, and you could start the story much later in the journey of the characters than you did. Or you may find that you need to start early, because events that took place before you started are actually important in telling the story.

That's why I need to get to the end of my novel, and then re-evaluate the beginning to see if I have jumped off from the best point. At this stage I'm fairly sure that I haven't.

Y'know, I have been dorking around with the same bloody book for 8 years. my problem? THere are so many events. The charactars are there, and they've gotten stronger over the years, but the events have grown and some of them just may be a bit far fetched and now I'm like, AAAAAA! I just reread a chapter i sent to a friend and i'm thinkin if i read this as an editor or a reader i'd be like, 'huh? THis is wack!' LOL, i need to look again and try to make it simpler i think! But i dunno how. Trouble is....i love the events! I WANNA make them believable...and hey it is fantasy, it doesn't have to be like totally realistic....but it should read true I think, huh? Yep. I think that's all about the writing. Maybe i just need to rewrite it, finesse it a bit. Add some things, take away some things. Bloody hey, I'll prolly be writing this thing for 15 years, but if that's how long it takes to give birth to a beautiful child, well so be it!
but ARRRRRRG! Labor is a byotch!

Thanks, Magdolis, that's actually pretty helpful. I'll keep it in mind.