How to Throw a Novel Together in Twelve Years or Less

With my novel, The Sureness of Horses, available now, twelve years after I started, in hardcover, softback, and eBook forms, I took a few minutes to look back at some of the things I’d heard about writing that helped me finish the process. I’ve divided it into Beginnings, Middles, and Endings.

Beginnings:

“How is writing a novel like driving a car at night in the fog?”

That’s a quote from E. L. Doctorow, who wrote Ragtime. He went on to say, “You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” It’s a comforting notion that may help writers get started.

“Do I need to have an outline to begin?”

The writing will be easier if a writer can outline beforehand. Outlines are particularly helpful with nonfiction. With Fiction, sometimes a writer can start with a color or a smell or a sentence and build paragraphs, scenes, and chapters.

“What does the title of The World According to Garp have to do with all novels?

Raymond Carver said that title, with the author’s name inserted for Garp, should be the perceived subtitle of all novels. By this measure, Gone with the Wind carries the imagined subtitle The World According to Margaret Mitchell.

“When does research on the novel begin?”

Karen Joy Fowler says she usually starts researching the book long before she starts writing. To begin, she reads widely. As the book begins to come into view, her research gets more focused. (Beware. . . research can become addictive.)

Middles:

“Are Workshops helpful in writing a novel?”

Absolutely. Ursula K. Le Guin said, “Collaborative Workshops are a wonderful invention. They put the writer into a community of people . . . the kind of group musicians and painters and dancers have always had.”

“What does the phrase ‘Movement away from the Ball’ have to do with writing?”

This is a basketball term, meaning players not actively dribbling or passing or catching a pass still need to move. I use it to remind me, even when I’m finishing a novel, for example, to still occasionally work on other fiction or poetry.

“Can a third-person-limited narration be as intimate as first person?”

Having moved two novels from first person to third-limited, I confirm this is possible. Pat Conroy’s words can still be accurate: “There’s always a version of me who is the narrator. And I make myself look better than other people.”

Endings:

“What did Blaise Pascal and T. S. Eliot say is the last thing one discovers about a work?”

They each said, “The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.” First words, first sentences, first paragraphs, and first chapters are so difficult because they must magically make all that follows them inevitable.

“Should an ending be inevitable or a surprise?”

Aristotle’s Poetics states, “a surprising development in a tragedy is most effective when it does not merely produce shock at an unexpected occurrence, but rather . . . the necessary, inevitable . . . outcome of a chain of actions.” So, both.

“Did Dorothy Parker say the silliest thing ever written about writing?”

“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”