Yesterday I finished writing the draft of my first fiction novel. This was an experiment meant to experience the implications of writing a full fiction book, and see how I like it.
These are the numbers:
- 100'048 words (around 400 to 450 pages)
- 161 hours 55 minutes 31 seconds
- 82 consecutive days
- Around 2 hours every day
- 1220.1 average words each day (the minimum goal was 1000 words)
- 1st October 2024 to 21 December 2024
Starting from 1st October 2024, every day, all the way to 21 December 2024. The graph shows the amount of time for each week of writing.
Key takeaways: it's a lot of work. A lot. Intense, engaging, transformative, and mostly for yourself.
Gardening method
The Gardening method is all about starting with a premise and group of characters and discovery-write your way to the end.
My "planning" consisted in 3 days of gathering ideas:
- Define theme, main conflict, inciting incident, climax, setting
- Main characters and a short description for each
Overall it all amounted to no more than a page of bullet points and short descriptions.
The opposite to the Gardener is the Architect.
The Architecture method is all about planning. Every minute detail of the plot, characters, settings and history is carefully outlined and systemised.
I would not use this method for my next work. While the process itself has been transformative and engaging, the final result is too unstructured and would require other eons to review. Next time I plan to go Architect or full Engineer (with a template).
Gardening is fun and exciting. You never know where the characters will take you. It is as if the stories evolves on its own, and you are exploring it as it grows based on the characters personalities and situations.
But it tends to be too loose. The story often gets stuck. Forget about foreshadowing in the first draft. You never know when the story will end, and eventually you need to coerce it to a stop.
This leaves you with a mostly unstructured piece ready for ages of review. If it’s worth it. Or something to just trash otherwise.
Each session I had an idea of the next scene, enough to fill my 1000 words daily objective. But beyond that, anything was possible. Literally:
- New characters appear to fit the flow and meaning of the story
- New places and scenes when the current setting becomes saturated
- New conflicts and unexpected situations
The anchors are the climax and the main characters. Without these hinges the story would spiral out of control. Knowing the characters personality and desires organically leads to the planned outcome. How long it will take, how it will happen, those will come on their own (hopefully).
The process tends to such extremes that often characters take on lives of their own, leading you down narrative paths you hadn't initially planned.
Every day, regardless, equals success
Set a daily words objective and a fixed time of the day for writing. Then stick to hit regardless. Yes, there is no secret. That's all of it. For all writers, in all history and ages.
Be careful with the amount of words. The "canonical" 1000 words took me an average of 2 hours. That's a lot, and it's intense. It got faster towards the end, when I outlined the direction of the story heading to the end.
My impression is that a more structured planning beforehand would lead to more words per session. That was my experience when I outlined the final chapters (average words increased to 1500-1800).
A daily words count allows to foresee the end of the journey.
Aiming for an average 80k words book? It's 80 days (maximum). Motivation runs free when you can see the end. Or doesn’t run at all if the task looks too daunting. But better no start at all than stopping in the middle. Writing a book is a lot of work, this is the constant that won’t change. Deal with it.
The work is a solitary experience. Me, my PC, and a new blank page. Every single day. Again, keep this mind before starting.
Review is where books are made
I haven’t experienced yet the review process, but I know that for my draft it would be long. Longer than writing the draft itself. And possibly less engaging and more analytical (depends on who you ask).
The first draft is only the beginning (by definition). Keep this carved in your mind: those 80 days of daily writing set the stage for another long(er) review journey.
My draft is not a book, not even close. I left many placeholders (TK method), expected additions, foreshadowing is completely missing or broken.
"The first draft of anything is shit." by Hemingway comes to mind. Not "anything", but for a full book that's certain. The complexity is too much to avoid pitfalls, it cannot fit in a single mind. Even now, draft finished yesterday, I have no idea about most scenes of my own book.
"But I spend a lot of time on the first draft, such that when I finish it's already polished." Look, prose may be good, single scenes engaging, thrilling dialogues. But what makes a coherent story is not there, cannot be there, no doubt about that. That's the nature of a 100k words product. That's why review is core.
I can understand (now) why some people go to such extremes to just use the first draft as a loose reference and rewrite the whole thing.
I plan to come back to the draft a few weeks from today. As of now, I don’t think it will be worth of starting a review. Regardless, I can promise you, the experience and lessons learned made it all worth, even if I will end up trash the whole thing.
If anything, finish a book draft gave me an extreme appreciation for all the authors that published a finished piece.