The Internet is the novel writer’s friend, but not when you’ve got a first draft to get out. Disconnectįrom the Internet, from your phone, from all social media. But if you can get 500 words done before you even have breakfast – hey, before you even brush your teeth – then you’ll be off to a buzzing start to every day. I’m not a morning person, trust me, I wouldn’t recommend this if I didn’t really think it was worth it. When you’re about to stop writing, read it and do it. Write this on a post it note (or something that’s actually sticky) and stick it up above your desk. This is probably the most valuable piece of advice regarding getting your first draft completed.

Don’t worry about elegant metaphors, sensible sentence structure or even – dare I say it – accurate grammar.Īnything that is not writing words is wasting precious time that could be spent writing more words. It's imperative you just steam on through, and never look back. Trying to get everything right is probably the biggest reason people never finish their first novel, and if it's not finished, then it's definitely not perfect. There is plenty of time in writing a novel for editing, checking over, being a perfectionist, but - and I can't state this strongly enough - the first draft is NOT that time. The potential advantage of drinking is the reduction or removal of inhibitions - or in the case of writing: your inner critic. I’m referring to the (supposed) Ernest Hemingway quote: 'Write drunk, edit sober', but actually alcohol is entirely beside the point. Anything that can wait a few weeks, let it wait. When you have a newborn baby, you will often be advised to let the housework slide, to get more takeaway, and don’t worry about keeping up appearances. If you know that 500 words per day is a reasonable, achievable goal, then set a target date four months from now to get that first draft finished – and stick to it. So, pick a target that’s realistic and achievable, don’t try to be a hero end up demoralized when you fail after three days. However, for some people that is simply unrealistic because of other life commitments and circumstances. This has the advantage of encouraging a more feverish, immersive experience and that energy will leak into the novel. In an ideal world, you would try to complete the first draft in one month, writing around 2,000 words per day. Here are seven tips for smashing a first draft: Set a deadline and daily wordcount targetĪ reasonable word count target for your first draft is around 50,000 words (more if you’re writing in a genre such as fantasy), which will eventually give you a final manuscript of around 90,000 words (again, more in some genres). However, many successful authors prefer to write without a plan, so you may be jumping straight in at a first draft. Having the planning done means you can concentrate on the words, without having to worry about the large scale structure of your story – because you already know you’ve got that sorted. If you’ve got scene blocking or a rough outline, then all you need to do is go through each scene, converting your concepts into actual prose, complete with nice sensual description, adjectives, metaphors, pithy dialogue and general awesomeness. It will also be a lot tighter right off the bat than an unplanned manuscript. If you’ve completed the planning steps in this Roadmap, your story will already be in excellent shape, and writing this first draft will probably take a fraction of the time it would have otherwise. Now for the really exciting bit – writing the first draft.

Rough draft of story example