Don’t expect an instant novel.
Several friends on Facebook have been posting about working to write a novel this November.
It’s great to see their determination and progress. I just hope they realize that at the end of the month, their novel won’t be done.
They may have a first draft, even a good first draft, but it’s won’t yet be a polished novel. For nearly every writer, an initial draft still needs considerable work.
I got a reminder of this as multi-bestselling novelist Laurie R. King emailed her followers about the birth, 25 years ago, of her breakout novel The Beekeeper’s Apprentice.
King posted the page-and-a-half, single-spaced letter her editor sent in response to what King had seen as a finished manuscript.
“I do have some ideas to strengthen the structure … and the characterization,” the editor wrote. In three long paragraphs she listed multiple scenes to cut or condense – and other details to include through dramatized scenes. All this in a manuscript the editor was “delighted to have.”
King consented. Millions of readers are grateful she did.
If you’re writing a novel this month, I hope you persevere and type “The End” before December 1.
Then, after an appropriate celebration, I hope you persevere in the task of rewriting and transforming that essential first draft into a novel that people will be happy to read.
