Are you an author who wants to write a book? Here is my 3 step process that takes an idea and turns it into a full length novel
Here is every step you need to know on how to write a book starting with just a simple plot idea
Writing is something I like to think I would have come out of the womb doing if I didn’t have to learn the alphabet and how to read first. As soon as I had my ABCs down, I was off to the races. My entire childhood and teenage years were spent writing (among other things) but writing was always my number one love, and still is. The hardest part of writing a novel isn’t just “writing the novel” but getting from an idea inside your head, to a full length book that isn’t gibberish.
Today, I want to share MY writing process and what works for ME.
My 3 step process
I use the term “three step process” loosely, because it’s three major steps with a whole lot of little steps in between. You can make those steps are processes whatever you want them to be, but for myself, I can’t do anything without doing these three things first.
The 3 steps:
Filling out the diagram
Filling out the scenes and chapters
Writing the book
What are the 3 steps exactly?
Step one: The Diagram
The diagram is the single most important thing when it comes to me writing a full length novel. It takes that simple plot idea I have and instead of knowing what points A and B are, it provides me a map of how to get from point A to point B.
This diagram is what I use to determine the actual meat and potatoes of my story.
The chart breaks it down by showing the beginning, middle, and end of a story and also provides you with what goes into the story.
To create a story, you need the following elements in this exact order:
Exposition (presenting the start of the story, the thing that starts it all)
Conflict (the main problem within the story)
Rising Action (all the stuff that happens between the problem and the breaking point)
Climax (the actual breaking point)
Falling Action (the aftermath of the breaking point that was caused by the conflict and rising action)
Resolution (the end)
How I typically use one of these is two-fold: First I fill it out exactly as is. Meaning, very little words, just a few words or a sentence for each part of the chart. There’s no reason to expand yet, I just want to get exactly what I plan to work with down on paper and have it exist in the world.
After that, I expand. You can do it right on the chart you used, or make a blank one and recreate it with more detail. That means instead of having just one thing listed for rising action, I’ll start to add 5-6 little things leading up to the climax.
This is also where it gets personal for me, and what works for me, may not work for you. This is where the story is really born for me. If I don’t have character names yet, they may start to emerge here. Personality traits that may be linked to these story elements start to emerge. The story just sort of starts to evolve and create itself. This is also a very messy, not at all neat, and confusing brainstorm sheet. The diagram doesn’t need to be pretty or make sense to anyone but you, and if you’re like me where you run out of writing space quickly, it may even have 500 color coordinated sticky notes all over it.
Within this step I also start to work out the character names/roles which are always subject to change. I recently had a character I name Becka, but then realized I had given another character the last name of Beck, so I changed it to Cassie right as I sat down to write the actual novel. That gets confusing with my notes too, but my brain is always just a little bit chaotic.
Once I have a pretty good idea of exactly what I’m going to work with plot and character wise, I start the next step.
Step two: Filling out the scenes and chapters
This is my personal favorite part and can take anywhere from a day to a week depending on my commitments and attention span.
Up to this point I usually keep everything in a notebook and it’s handwritten. I have the diagram, any notes I keep for characters, plot, and world building, and usually 5-10 pages devoted to step two.
I turn the notebook sideways so I’m writing on “longer” paper instead of “taller” paper (using such simple words really works for me, I apologize).
The chart looks like this:
I’ve used a really generic “plot” to help show how I use this chart. It’s broken into five sections:
Chapter and scene
World and setting
Action
Characters
Plot
Much of this is self explanatory but for the clarity, I’ll explain better. For chapter and scene, I break it down first by chapter, and then in that chapter I add scenes. I do not know ahead of time how many “scenes” or changeovers from one thing to the next there will be in a chapter before I write this; this is where I figure all of that out. So I label it right in that first box as “chapter 1” or whatever chapter it is (I showed two chapters on this example). Then I get into the scene breakdown. This all depends on you and how you want to tell your story or mesh scenes. You may not even need a scene section and can just go by chapter, that’s great. I like to make a few points and change it up within my chapters, depending on the genre. Usually in the back of my mind, and on my diagram, I’ll know where the story is heading, so when creating scenes I ask, what point do I want to make with this chapter? and I answer it. I take as many scenes as I need, or don’t need. I work from left to right, and by the time I’m to the end of the page on the right, I’ll know if I need another scene or not.
World/setting is super easy for me because I don’t really write fantasy or sci-fi and I’ve never tried this way of writing with that genre, but I’m sure it could work if you tweak it. This where I add the physical setting for my plot. That could be bedroom, home, school, work, grocery store, etc. That way I’m imagining what I’m trying to create.
Action tells me what actions in the story the reader will see in that scene and chapter. This answers the question, what will happen that brings us closer to the climax or resolution? Whatever the characters or story makes happen is the action.
Characters is simple: which characters are in this scene?
Finally, the plot for me is usually 1-2 sentences that explains exactly what is happening. The who, what, where, when, why, and how. This is what brings us one step closer to our climax. It’s all typically part of the exposition and rising action. About halfway to 2/3 of the way through we hit the climax and everything after that is falling action leading to the resolution.
I will say, this part isn’t neat or tidy either. I do all of this by hand and use a ruler and pen to make the boxes on the chart. If you’re tech savvy, and I am not specifically with excel, I’m sure using a spreadsheet would be a lot easier and absultely possible. I just like having a physical notebook with all of my things in one place.
Step three: Writing the book
This is the longest, hardest, most gruelling but rewarding part of the entire process: writing the first draft. It will not be pretty and it takes me sometimes months. I also normally hit a wall about 100 pages in and need a break, like a month long break, where I do nothing writing and lots of reading. Then I can come back to it and finish it.
I use my chart with the scene breakdowns to closely follow when writing. It is 100% likely you will make changes, add scenes or chapters, take away scenes or chapters, and change or take away characters or sub plots entirely. That is okay. There is no rule on Earth saying you MUST follow the chart when you write a book. It’s just a guideline to help get your creative juices flowing and give some sort of structure to the chaos that goes into creating a story.
What works best for me, but also does stress me out a bit, is following the chart as I write with a different colored ink pen in hand and a highlighter. I highlight everything I’ve “done” and do it as I go. Any changes I make I will write with a different colored pen and if I have no room then I’ll use sticky notes. I’ve quite literally changed the number of chapters I have right in the middle of my book and if I don’t take note fast or clearly enough, I’ll go back later and have no clue what I did.
And that’s it for the three steps!
I will add a note: Usually when I’m about halfway through a plot, or about to reach a climax and I’m thousands of words short, I have a mini meltdown. That’s when I go back to the beginning to not only refresh myself, but build the story out more. I’m not changing the plot or the stuff in the chart, but I’m beefing up the details. I’m adding physical character traits, more background on characters to better understand them, I’m giving side characters names and personalities who may not matter or have major roles, but are still “real people” in my “real world” (aka fake people I made up in a fake world I also made up). I want it to be believable, so I need to make it real- we don’t just walk the streets seeing humans with no faces. We see strangers all the time and learn first names and faces that will never matter again, so I try to do that in my writing.
Things I will talk about in another newsletter:
CampFire- a great app/program that works similarly to the process I just laid out, but I strongly suggest for fantasy and sci-fi writers who have a LOT more to keep track of in their plots
My editing process