Originally published as a Goodreads.com blog November 5th, 2012. 

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So, it’s National Write a Novel in a month, month. I’ve been seeing this thing posted all over the internet. Basically, a bunch of amateur, non-writers attempt and mostly fail to write a novel in 30 days. There are widgets and social networking plug-ins to allow you to show all your buddies your progress as you race against the clock to write a book.

This is not how you write a book.

I understand the sentiment. Why should anyone nay-say a fun exercise in writing that can only lead to more literacy and awareness of reading and writing?

Because it’s a fucking stupid way to promote literacy.

I tend to liken everything to fighting or building. Disciplined skills practiced over time lead to meaningful results. You don’t say, “I can’t win a kickboxing fight” without first training kickboxing. You can say you WON’T or don’t want to win a kickboxing fight, but not that you can’t. You are just as capable as any other healthy human, if you’re willing to master the discipline.

Same goes for building a house, which is the more appropriate metaphor for writing a novel. Both writing your own novel, and building your own home are American Dreams. Things any self-respecting American plans to do at some point in their lives.

Only most Americans don’t have clue one how to do either, and will fail miserably when and if they finally muster up the gumption to give it a go. And here’s why:
We’re a group of self-entitled, nancy-pants, adult children who believe that things are just supposed to happen for us, without any hint of discipline or craftsmanship on our part.

I used to say, back in my film days, that 80% of indie films die in production. Every horror fan wants to direct a horror movie. And with digital technology, any horror fan can. A lot try, most fail. Why? Because they don’t know how to build a movie.

And most of these people who participate in this nonsense novel writing month thing, they don’t have clue one how to build a book. If you decided tomorrow that you were going to build a house, just cause Grandpa built the one you grew up in, and whatever grandpa can do, you can too, just because you fee entitled to it—well, you’re gonna fail miserably.

Before you build a whole freakin house, you’ve got to remodel your basement. Add a few rooms down there. Learn how to build door frames, lay carpet, run wiring, add a bathroom and learn plumbing. Maybe turn your garage into an extended family room. Then build a nice work-shed out back. It wouldn’t hurt to hang out with some carpenters and help them build a few houses, too, before you decide to tackle the job yourself.

Sounds like common sense, right? Well then why don’t people use this same basic logic when it comes to writing a novel? I think the answer is two fold. First, the markets for short stories have all but evaporated, and most adults that now want to write a novel, have rarely, if ever, seen a short story collection or anthology in a bookstore, and therefore don’t understand that any novel writer worth his/her weight in words, started off writing butt-loads of short fiction first.

Secondly, much like indie film making, the advent of Kindle/eBook self-publishing allows for any dim-wit with a word processor on their laptop to think they’re the next Charles Dickens.

All of my fellow writers out there understand exactly what I’m saying. In a lot of ways, I’m preaching to the choir, and regurgitating what’s been written thousands of times in self help how-to-write-for-dummies books. But I’m not writing this blog for you guys. I’m writing it for all the people out there who struggle, and fail, time and time again, to write their first novel.

I’ve only just now become aware of just how MANY of you there are out there, as posts about national novel month spring up all over the social networking sites. I’m seeing things like, “I don’t know what kind of book I’m writing. Suspense maybe? We’ll see as I get further along.” And, “I’ve been planning my novel for 6 months, I don’t want to just puke it all up in one month!”

What? What?

Just like kickboxing, or house building, there are disciplined elements that go into novel writing that must first be recognized, then learned, then mastered. Elements like plot, pacing, character development, subplots, climaxes, conclusions. These elements don’t just appear as you write. They must be understood in advance.

I don’t outline to the extreme that some people do. I think over-outlining can lead to writer’s block, or just a general loss of enthusiasm for a project, if all the fun has already been laid out clinically before you’ve even put your first paragraph to paper. But some form of outlined structure has to be present before your book can become anything except another 75,000 word rant left to fester and die in an obscure folder on your desktop.

Everyone writes differently. There is no “right” way to write a novel, just as there is no “right” way to build your house. It’s art. Take liberties. Think outside the box of tradition. But if you’re failing over and over again, year after year while playing Hemingway for National Write a Novel Month, then you need to really think about learning the rules before you decide to break them.

For me, I like to know my title, my first line, and my ending before I’m comfortable digging in to a book. You may write completely differently. But if you don’t even understand what kind of conflict your main character is facing,–or how they will change as people because of it–before you start your book, you’re destined for failure. And for you over-planners who are afraid to write too fast? You can’t master a breath-taking spinning back kick by sitting around thinking about doing it for 6 months. You have to kick that bag every single day. Over and over again until you’re throwing kicks in your sleep.

A good writer who writes every day will know what I’m talking about when I say that after a really good day of writing maybe 5k or more, I’ll dream in prose. I’ll narrate my own dreams in paragraph form. You’ll never be a good writer, or probably ever finish a book, for that matter, without practicing every single day.

The best way to do that, to learn these elements, to recognize plot structure and the elements of good fiction is to write short stories. Instead of trying to write a novel in one month, try writing ten short stories in ten months. Make them no longer than 10 thousand words. Then, by the end of the ten months, you’ll have 100,000 words. A novel’s worth of characters, plots, antagonists, beautiful landscapes and shocking conclusions. Do that for two years. Get yourself 20 shorts stories written and you might find a weird thing happening.

Your stories will start to bust out of that 10 thousand word cage. Now your stories are pushing 15k, then topping 25k. Your plots are becoming more intricate, your characters are practically jumping to life, right off your page, and best yet, you’re actually getting good at this! You go back and read some of your most recent shorts and you realize that they’re not half bad. Somewhere along the way, you’ve become a pretty decent fiction writer.

What’s that? It’s National Novel Writing Month again? You only have to have 50 thousand words? Well your last short was 27k. You can do that. Hell, you’ve already got an idea in your head for a great story. This time? This time you’re going to finish your own damn novel.