How to Plan A Novel
It’s November 1st 2017, and among other things, that means plenty of people are planning to write a novel this month. Unfortunately, the vast majority of them are going to get stuck either planning a novel or planning and writing a novel to the first chapter, but no more. If they learned how to plan a novel, many more of them would achieve what they wanted.
I’m not doing the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) challenge this year.
Why?
Because since I learned how to plan a novel properly, it’s not much of a challenge at all.
Now, I might plan and write a novel this month. It’s a hobby that I sometimes engage in. It won’t take me a month though.
In this article, I’ll talk you through how to plan a novel so that you can win NaNoWriMo without breaking a sweat.
Is Learning How To Plan A Novel A Bad Thing That KILLS Creativity?
Before we get started, let me address something pretty big in the novelist world.
Some people think that you shouldn’t plan a novel at all. They think that you should write on the edge of your seat and see what happens. Learning how to plan a novel is a bad idea because it kills your curiosity and creativity.
Let’s address that:
- It’s stupid. Nowhere in any other world (save the rest of the arts – full of people who are would-be professional artists but never make it) would you try and complete a task without knowing what you’re trying to achieve or where you’re trying to get to. Imagine if your surgeon didn’t want to “plan” your heart surgery.
- Without doubt, almost all of the successful people who write a novel without planning it have been writing novels for years. Most of them even say, “I used to plan novels but now I don’t!” That’s because they’ve internalised how to plan a novel and so it’s an unconscious behaviour.
If you are a new writer attempting to plan and write your first novel, then you don’t have years of internalised experience and knowledge on your side. You probably don’t know how a novel fits together and you’re going to get into massive knots and things you’ll think of as “writer’s block” because you don’t know what happens next.
Now, you can either trust me on that or you can wait until you’re 20,000 words into a novel that you then have to scrap because it doesn’t make sense of you don’t know what to do next.
If you want to try and write a novel without planning, good luck. Don’t read ahead for my method to writing novels consistently, quickly and successfully in my spare time.
The Secret To Writing A Good Novel Is In How To Plan A Novel
Good writing happens quickly. There are tales of writers who spend years planning to write a novel and then even more years writing said novel.
For every one of those success stories are potentially millions of writers who, instead of planning to write a novel or dreaming of writing a novel should have just got on with it.
The problem with just getting on with writing a novel is that most people think, “I don’t know what to write.”
That’s a problem that a plan will help you solve.
So here’s how to plan a novel.
How To Plan A Novel
I want you to think in terms of genre here. Now, some of you might say, “But I want to write a genre-defining, once in a lifetime book,” and to that I’d say… good idea for the future. Artists who create their own genres tend to the ability to do so because they’ve mastered the forms they use.
In other words… don’t try to break the rules until you know the rules.
So let’s learn the rules by picking a genre. It doesn’t matter whether you’re trying to plan a fantasy novel or planning to write a novel in romance or crime as a genre, the basic steps are the same.
- Read and deconstruct multiple novels in your genre
I wrote about this in “The Best Fiction Writing Exercise.” That article basically tells you how to plan a novel and start writing a novel. It focuses on pulling apart novels and learning how they work. This is what the fiction masters who tell you not to plan have already embedded into their skulls and it’s what you need to do.
- Think about how to plan a plot for a novel
Your plot is going to have some unique premise. It’s the elevator pitch and thing you say, when someone asks, “What’s your novel going to be about?”
Note: I say unique premise, but very few plots are unique. Don’t stress doing something completely original because that’s where most horrid novels live. Nearly everyone wants to see the good guy beat the monster or the girl get the man of her dreams. Very few people want to read about which monsters out-monster other monsters or want to see broken dreams and broken hearts.
Essentially though, you have a character in a setting confronted by a situation.
Planning A Novel Part Two: Never Be Surprised
There’s a reason I suggest building a swipe file of fiction references. That’s because writing fiction is a case of striking while the iron is hot. You have a creative spark and you need to put it to use.
The enemy is time. Just as the hot iron gets cold if you leave it, so will your idea. The wellspring of ideas you have about your new novel can only be worked for a limited time before the shine wears off.
You do not want to get stuck because it decreases your time and inspiration. You do not want to leave your novel unfinished because in all likelihood, you never will finish a half-baked work.
So you need to know what you’re writing at all times. Your character is in a situation and overcomes it.
What happens when?
You need to know this if you want to be able to sit down and write a novel in a couple of days. You can type at 1,500 words an hour. Your typing speed should be the limiting factor. The only way this occurs is if you know in every moment and with every scene what comes next.
Chapter breakdowns aren’t enough. If each chapter is 2,000 words, then that’s probably 20 paragraphs.
That might be three “events.”
Character gets into car – car chase – car crashes into cliffhanger.
Those are six to seven paragraphs each and will comprise your chapter. If you’ve read enough fiction, decoding a paragraph isn’t hard. Towards the beginning of a book you’ll have two settings sentences to every plot sentence. By the end of the book, that flips and a sentence is included for a character’s internal state.
You get the picture.
Planning A Novel Isn’t About Being Formulaic
I’ve spoken to people before about my obsessive need to break down novels so that I can write quickly and effectively. A common refrain I’ve had is that, “This will make the plot too robotic” or whatever.
If you watch a boxing match or tennis or something, you see people with amazingly fluid movements. When you see your favourite band play, you might witness a guitar solo that seems improvised out of nowhere – the guitarist hitting a flow state where every note seems to be perfect and divinely inspired.
That is not achieved by random action.
A boxer becomes more fluid the more they train the basics. They do this until they are embedded into their subconscious. The same is true of a tennis player. A musician can only be good at improvising if they spend hours drilling patterns and learning how to anticipate chord movements.
The same is true of planning and writing a novel. You can just write and hope for the best, or you can deconstruct until a point comes where you can generate words fluidly.
One of these will lead to you creating a finished, polished product and the other won’t.
If you want to create high quality novels, then you’ll want to learn how to plan your novel so that when the next great idea comes, you’ll know how to put it into action and you’ll be able to write a novel quickly while the inspiration iron is still hot.