Get Going with Writing your Novel

Tips on Taking the First Steps of Your Children's Book

Jul 2, 2008

You've got an idea for a story you'd like to write, but your first attempts make you want to give up. Follow these six steps to move past the first stage of despair.

1. Commit yourself to writing 1000 words a day. This should take between 45 minutes and 2 hours, depending on interruptions and how easily distracted you are. It’s important to keep working consistently, every day. It doesn’t have to be in one sitting. You can write odd paragraphs over the course of the day. The aim is to keep the story ticking over in your mind.

2. When you sit down to write the 1000 words, simply write. Try and switch off your left brain (the bossy editor who picks out your mistakes) and write with your right brain (the creative side).

3. Trust that your book is fully formed already inside your unconscious mind. The task of the right brain is to draw the story out of your unconscious. The best way to do this is to simply write, without stopping to think, correct or change anything you’ve already written. Tell yourself ‘There is no wrong way to do this.’

4. Tell yourself that you are free to write real rubbish. Your story does not have to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature. It does not have to be the Great (Insert Your Country here) Novel or even be good enough to publish. What matters is that it entertains and engages YOU. Write the story that you want to read.

5. Let yourself have dry days where your thousand words seem to go nowhere. Sometimes it takes ten, twelve, fourteen days of 1000 word stints before the real story emerges. Think of it like a flower bulb buried far underground. Sometimes, to reach the light, the bulb has to grow through a lot of earth and compost. You’re not always going to find the light the first day. Keep writing.

6. It helps to think of the first draft of your story as weaving the cloth. You’ll weave more than you need, particularly in the beginning of your writing career. Just get the words down on paper, so you have something to work with later.

In the second draft your logical, structural left brain will show you how to cut the cloth into pieces for a garment, and how to sew them together. The third and subsequent drafts will do the finishing work – hemming, stitching on buttons, etc.

You’re not expected to do all these things on the first draft – just to make the raw material. And to get down enough raw material you have to keep your bottom on the chair. Which brings you back to writing 1000 words a day…

The copyright of the article Get Going with Writing your Novel in Writing for Children is owned by Helen Brain. Permission to republish Get Going with Writing your Novel in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.