Ignore Them at Your Own Peril.

There is no one true way to write a novel. There are multiple ways up the mountain of success.

This used to drive me nuts because before becoming a writer I was a mechanic for about thirty-five years, and used to doing things one way. The only way. The way I’d been taught or read in a service manual.

I’ve found no such thing exists in the world of book publishing.

I was used to reading a service manual and following the instructions. The text was basically the same, even by different publishers. Chilton’s, Motor, ALLDATA, they all basically said the same thing as it related how to repair a vehicle.

When it came to writing a book. I’d read ten different books and got ten different ways to do it.

For every writing lesson I’ve read that said this is how you do it. I’ve found one that said the opposite. It’s like being in a round room and told to go sit in the corner.

To Outline or Not To Outline. It Doesn’t Matter.

Make it up as you write or plan it. It’s your choice. Do what works best for you. That’s what matters. I’ve spent years trying to learn how to outline and still have a hard time with it. But it hasn’t prevented me from getting books written.

I understand the value in it. I just haven’t been able to make it work for me. If you’ve been struggling to learn how to outline, don’t worry about it. It’s not a deal breaker.

Best-selling books have been written both ways. James Patterson outlines every book he publishes. Or for you purists, his co-writer writes for him.

On the opposite side of the coin is Lee Child. He doesn’t use an outline. Instead, he fires up a big joint and starts typing. So whatever floats your boat is fine.

I’ve read all the books on how to outline. Save the Cat, etc.

Outlining just takes all the fun out of it for me. My plotting has evolved to the point where sometimes I’ll write bullet points in a chapter and then write from one point to the next.

Other times I got nothing until I start re-reading the previous day’s words.

I think the book that helped me the most was Deborah Chester’s The Fantasy Fiction Formula. Following her teaching worked out pretty well for Jim Butcher. He had something like twenty-four New Time’s best sellers at the time he wrote the blurb for her book.

Story Trumps All

If there is only one thing you take away from this article, story trumps all should be it. This is the most important of all. I learned this from Micheal Anderle. He’s my hero when it comes to breaking the rules of writing. He blasted the sh*t out of them when he started publishing.

It paid off big time for him. He’d made ten grand after three months of rapidly releasing four novels in his first series back in late 2015.

He self edited and made the covers for his first half a dozen books. Reader reviews frequently said the books needed editing, but they also frequently asked when is the next book was coming out?

His books to readers in his genre are like crack is to addicts. He knows how to write a story readers can’t get enough of.

Seven years and millions of dollars later, I’d say he had the last laugh when the literary snobs of the Writer’s Cafe at Kboards said he was doing it wrong.

The litterati one starred the shit out of his books, but he didn’t care and continued to march to his own drummer all the way to the bank. Story trumps all.

How Long It Takes To Write a Novel

This is another area the litterati like to get on their cross and whine about. They think that if you write quickly, it must be crap. They are wrong and have been proven so many times.

Readers are the ultimate judge of what is or is not crap since they vote with their wallets.

Two weeks to two years. It’s up to you. If you can see the whole story in your head and all you have to do is write it down and you can do it in a week. More power to ya.

I know a couple of wealthy authors who can. I belong to a group on Facebook that’s full of writers that pump out books like a baker does loafs of bread. Think romance writers. Those women can write.

My best time is sixty days to write a forty thousand word novel. I’ll be the first to say it’s not my best work, but you know what? It sells just as well as my other books that took two, three and four times longer to write. Shrug.

You Do You Is All That Matters

If you have to use a shovel to dig every word out from under a rock, and it takes you five years, maybe you should reconsider writing. But if it doesn’t bother you, and you’re comfortable with that time frame, keep on keeping on.

If it’s any consolation, when I first started, I could hardly string ten words together.

Harper Lee and her editor hammered away on To Kill a Mockingbird for a couple of years. That worked out pretty well for her, I’d say.

Ray Bradbury said during an interview he wrote Fahrenheit 451 in 9 days. Bradbury wasn’t the only one to put out a best seller in record time.

William Faulkner wrote As I Lay Dying in six weeks. And, he said he wrote it in one draft.

That doesn’t surprise me as I can think of one seven figure author who said at a writing conference that he only wrote one draft and then published. He has thirty-five or forty books.

I thought I had mis-heard him and the next day I had the opportunity to ask him if in fact that was what he said. He confirmed I’d heard him correctly the first time. One draft and then he published.

While that works for him, I know I have to give everything I write at the minimum a day and another edit before I can ship it. This article, for example, is written on one day and edited the next before I published it.

That’s the method I use for most articles. For novels, I start each day re-reading what I wrote the day before. It gets my head back in the story and I see words I missed and I’m usually able to add more to the story.

To Reiterate The Three Things You Must Know

Story trumps all.

Outline or don’t. It’s up to you.

How long it takes to write a novel doesn’t decide the quality of the finished product. Yes, it’s a product and not your baby.