Writing Your First Novel: How To Repair An (By chance) Autobiographical Novel
Some of you may be participating in our 100 Day Book Program, writing your first novel yourself, or setting out to begin this manuscript.
It's hard to write your first novel. It's a fight. It's a learning curve.
And it's often autobiographical, even if you don't mean it. And that's okay.
Wait, I am my main character!
Each character is a piece by the author. I mean, how can you "write what you know" when you can't use who you know?
The thing about writing your first novel is that the main character is most likely based on himself. Strongly based on yourself.
My first finished novel at the time was a dramatized version of my life. I didn't realize it while writing, but my main character was me. Your sister was my sister. Your husband was my husband. I think I made up a character (an older neighbor) but other than that, I basically just changed the names.
Even if you find that your first draft is "To You", don't panic. It's not a waste of time, and you can still keep it forever from collecting dust.
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Your first novel will likely depend a lot on your own life – and that's fine! Keep writing.
5 reasons to roll with it
You could say, "I didn't want this to be autobiographical. Now I have to start over."
No you do not.
Here are just a few reasons why you should go with the flow and keep writing your first novel:
1. You get used to writing.
Writing takes commitment, time management, and a lot of patience. As with anything else important, you need to prioritize your writing time and set goals and deadlines or you will never get finished.
With your first novel, practice your writing habit by figuring out what time of day to write, learning how many words you can reasonably produce in each session, and developing your "process".
2. You practice your technique and find yourself.
Writing is a lot of work. Structure, character arc and development, B-plots, tone, style, etc. are all things to consider when writing a novel. Because your life is so familiar, using it as a material makes it easier to focus on the intricacies and allows you to develop your writing style without having to focus so much on characters or the original plot.
If you move on to the next book, you will be able to write much more confidently.
3. You learn to distinguish characters.
A common problem with new writers (and let's face it, some seasoned ones) is that all characters are the same. They talk the same, react the same, sometimes even look the same.
Drawing people in real life can help with this. You know how your sister would react, what her language patterns are, that annoying little half grin she gets when she's right and knows. Nobody else is like her. Writing "them" in your book will help you develop richer characters in later stories.
4. You learn to use real life.
But I just said you shouldn't use real life, right? Not exactly. You will always use real life as the basis for your stories, but life should be a trigger for inspiration rather than being copied verbatim.
As you write your first novel, learn to take notes, observe people's mannerisms, and recall strange conversations you had three years ago. You learn to pay attention. (And hopefully you'll learn to always have something to write with.)
5. You are going to finish a novel!
Do you remember how you wanted to write a novel, why you started the process first? You still do that!
Even if it never saw the light of day, you wrote your first novel. It will exist.
And by the time you move on to the next idea, you'll be old hat on this whole writers business.
On the game
I know it seems like I'm saying that writing your first novel is just a practice run, but that's not necessarily the case. Aside from the reasons I mentioned above to adhere to this, I have another secret:
You can still save this book.
So you are the core of your main character. She does what you do every day. She walks her dog, goes to the grocery store, and fights with her partner. She's doing something all the time so you feel like there is a lot of action going on.
But where is the conflict?
An action list is not a story. There must be conflict. Your personal life probably isn't very dramatic, and that's fine. You can still use instances of your life to write your novel.
Just raise these stakes.
What happens when your main character goes to the grocery store? Will she be mugged in the parking lot? Is it running into an old flame? Does she have a nervous breakdown after finding out the business no longer has favorite toilet paper?
Something has to rub your main character wrong for there to be a story. When you find the conflict, whether or not your characters are a little too loyal to life, you have a book.
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The secret to writing an amazing first novel (or any novel, really): raise the stakes.
(A NOTE ON THE IMPORTANCE OF WRITING AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY / REMINDER: This section applies to you too. You must still have conflict in your story. The difference is that you need to remember what the conflict was at the time instead of inventing it.)
never give up
Even if increasing the stake doesn't turn your raw material into shiny gold, it's fine.
After my first novel turned out to be too lifelike, I stagnated a little. I put it in a drawer somewhere. (I have absolutely no idea which drawer is now, but I'm sure the bad manuscript has a nice layer of dust and some expired coupons to keep company.) I wondered if I should try to revise anything else, and decided it wasn't worth the effort. I just felt fond of the story.
Knowing that I was worried, I had no imagination and did not write chops. But I got up and wrote some bad short stories. I started three more novels that didn't get off the ground.
I kept writing.
It wasn't long before I got out of my crisis. A little later, I was practically full of ideas to write about. I had trained my brain to write and opened the floodgates of inspiration in the process. The next novel was a dark fantasy with characters with personalities of their own and a world that was drastically different from my local grocery store.
That book became Surviving Death and was published this month.
Now I have so many ideas that it is difficult to keep up.
Keep writing. Keep practicing. The rest will fall in one line.
Is your book a little too autobiographical? What are you going to do to raise the stakes? Let me know in the comments!
WORK OUT
Today I want you to take fifteen minutes to write about something you did today. A chat, a shopping spree, cleaning your house, everything. Keep it as lifelike as possible, except for one thing: conflict. On the game.
When you're done, share your writing in the comments. Don't forget to comment on your colleagues' work!
Sarah Gribble
Follow her @sarah Typos or subscribe to her free email list at https://sarah-gribble.com.