The Ultimate Guide to Writing a Book (and Publishing It)
So you want to write a book.
I’ve had many people tell me—when mentioning that I have written a few books—that they want to write a book. When I ask what genre, you’d be surprised, or not so surprised, that the answer is usually memoir. I’ve always found that slightly strange. Not only have I never had the urge to write a book about my life specifically, but I never considered that even one person outside of my parents would be interested in reading it. But whether you want to write a memoir or an epic fantasy series or a cute romance, all books take time and patience to be written, and there are a few steps you must follow to take the idea out of the drafts and into a ready-to-be-published manuscript.
To be clear, this advice can be for anyone starting to write a book, but if you are interested in querying your manuscript to agents and landing a traditional publishing deal, the kind of novel you have to write will change. You have to be aware of the market, and similar books that have sold well, and the manuscript has to be polished to perfection. (Though one day I’ll write a blog about this, for now, my expertise will cover finishing a book, because that’s what I’m good at.) But the beauty of our internet age is that anyone can self-publish on Amazon, especially if your ultimate goal is simply to get your story out there and not become a New York Times Bestseller.
Without further ado, here are the 10 steps I follow to bring an idea for a novel through to a final draft. I’ll also include some brief steps for self-publishing at the end if that interests you.
Brainstorm the idea
Research
Character & Place
Rough Outline
Chapter Outline
First Draft
Rewrite
Polishing Edit(s)
Cover Design & Formatting
Publish!
Now let’s get into them!
Brainstorm the Idea
This is arguably one of the most fun parts of book writing. You have an idea and you can just let the creativity flow. I love to write stream-of-consciousness style about the story in my notes app or on a blank document, free journaling everything from the setting to the characters to questions to the themes to even specific dialogue I want to see in it. Everything I think of, every bit of inspiration that comes to me, is jotted down. Don’t worry about grammar or the actual story. This is about letting your imagination lead you to unexpected and interesting ideas that you can later funnel into the story.
For example, this is an excerpt from my initial brainstorm dumps for a future story I plan on writing: …family story, the gift of seeing ghosts, the tree that was planted in the front yard, generational, a rose blooming, an omen, photography, two sisters, an ode to California?, fruits, the cycles of harvesting, love turning with history…
Does it make sense? No. At least, not to you, and hardly more to me. But it doesn’t have to makes sense. These phrases are triggers for the imagination, and get you excited to write.
Before moving on from here, this is where I must tell people that not all story ideas are meant to be written down and made into books. Some story ideas simply lack some key components. Namely, the MAIN PROBLEM, which will come up later. Essentially, you must ask yourself whether your idea contains some big, pivotal problem (usually involved with the main character in some way) that MUST be overcome. At the heart of your story must be this problem, and if your story doesn’t have a problem that must be solved, it’s very likely you won’t have much of a story to tell.
Now that you have an idea of what your story feels like and what the MAIN PROBLEM is, you can move on to the next step.
Research
This is somewhat optional unless you are writing historical fiction or nonfiction, but usually, even cute romance novels need their research. Whether this is about the setting your story will take place in, an occupation that your character has, a fitting name for the character’s culture or the mythology/history you want to include, all of it requires a bit of research. The good news is that this step can also be creative! While it’s always a good idea to organize your collected notes so you can refer to them later, I’ve found that this step is also a great time to stumble upon new ideas for the story and let the internet/books lead you down a rabbit hole of useful/imaginative information.
Character & Place
Now this is where I think some people start to drop out of the book-writing game. Perhaps people just enjoy brainstorming and researching more, or they don’t have confidence in their own original ideas. Either way, I promise that with time and practice, each step of the writing process becomes easier. For this step, I like to have two separate documents for ‘characters’ and ‘places’. This doesn’t have to be super formal, but definitely keep it organized.
For characters, you want to write down how they look, talk, and act, their names, who they are related to and friends and children if that’s important, their hopes, dreams, fears, their occupation, where they live—you get the point. Write down as much as you know and don’t be afraid of sounding silly or weird or basic or too niche. Just trust in your instincts and you can always change things later. And keep this document on hand. You will want to refer to it once you start writing the story and need to fill in some basic descriptors.
For places, I like to list the top places that the story will be set in and write down or even draw what that looks like. For example, the novel I’m currently writing is mostly set in a magical city, so I sketched a topographical map and marked where the most important landmarks are to make sure when the characters traversed the city, at the very least I knew where they were going. The cool thing about these documents is that as you draft your story more in detail, you can always come back and add more characters and places.
Rough Outline
A lot of people don’t outline before writing a book, expecting, perhaps, that a full-length novel will magically flow out of their fingertips and onto a blank page. Spoiler alert! That’s not gonna happen. But if you have the previous steps down, outlining won’t feel as daunting. I always encourage a rough outline before the more organized chapter outline, though if you have a type-A brain like me you might be able to skip this step straight into the chapter outline. But for now, I would try to sketch a rough outline.
The importance of the outline in general is that when you are writing a book—gasp!—you should know what’s going to happen. As the author, you have to spoil the book for yourself. Very rarely can authors write a novel and accidentally include a legendary twist or weave a consistent theme throughout the story. You need to outline. Having said that, the rough outline is where you can play around with things. I like to list (in chronological order, preferably) the major plot points I want to happen. For example:
Character A stumbles into Character B in coffee shop
Character B sees Character A a week later at school
At some point Character A asks Character B to go on a date
Character A and B get into a huge fight about something?
As you can see, this can be pretty rough, with limited details and even question marks. You don’t have to have all the answers…yet. As this rough outline grows longer and more detailed, and you are moving things around so that the story flows, it’s important to keep a basic narrative arc in mind. Make sure your story covers ALL these areas, however roughly:
Exposition — a brief introduction to the character and setting and MAIN PROBLEM to set up the rest of the story….you should know the character’s MAIN PROBLEM sooner rather than later to hook the reader in but without being a jump scare
Rising Action — the MAIN PROBLEM gets more problematic. This is the heart of your story and will be the longest part. Different plot points get entangled here as we go deeper into this problem, so deep perhaps it seems that we will never find a way out…
Climax — everything has been leading up to this! The MAIN PROBLEM must be solved here! This is almost the end of the story, so while you don’t need to wrap up the story quite yet, make sure the main problem of the story is resolved, be it in a happy or sad or complicated way
Falling Action/Resolution — while these are technically two different parts, they tend to flow with one another. After all, you shouldn’t linger too long here once the MAIN PROBLEM is solved. Now you have to tie any loose ends and find a suitable resolution. You should know what happens in the last chapter/epilogue
Chapter Outline
Now here is one of my favorite parts, though I’m not sure many will feel the same. The chapter outline is the closest to a rough draft that we’ll get. In some ways, it replaces the traditional rough draft, and why I think it’s the most vital step of the process, as it combines a bit of creativity and actual writing with the least pressure.
Here I like to use a traditional table where I separate the action of the rough outline into what I feel are natural chapters. I start numbering the chapters in one column and adding bullet points of what will happen in each chapter in the next column. If it helps, you can also organize the chapters into the narrative arc from above—exposition, rising action, climax, falling action/resolution—and make sure you have a reasonable number of chapters in each (e.g. rising action shouldn’t be just two chapters). Try to vary the estimated length of each chapter, although you can always judge this later on when writing the first draft. With practice, you’ll be able to better gauge how long a chapter will be from an outline. Also, I like to make sure that each chapter’s ending is somewhat of a cliffhanger.
As I said before, for me, the chapter outline is my rough draft. In my description of each chapter, I often start writing scenes and dialogue that pop up in my head just so I don’t forget them. This helps me to quicken the writing process of my first draft later on, where sometimes I can copy exactly what was in the chapter outline. I don’t move on from this step until every chapter has its own outline and I know exactly what happens from start to finish within and overall. This is a good time to fix major and minor plot holes, fill in the answers to those questions that you had in the rough outline, and start to see a fully detailed narrative arc of your story. Now you can trace themes from start to finish, make sure all problems get solved by the end, and even weave in a twist or two.
Once the chapter outline is as detailed as it can be, it’s time to start writing the first draft.
First Draft
Now it’s time for the fun (and most daunting) part! While this step can be approached in different ways, it’s important to remember one thing: just keep swimming writing. That’s a mantra you’ll have to tell yourself at times when it feels like you’ve hit a writer’s block. Just keep writing. I promise the high of finishing this first draft will outweigh any pit of despair you find yourself in.
My preferred style of writing is in chronological order because I enjoy feeling like my characters, who are encountering the plot in time as we do in real life. That’s why the chapter outline was so useful; you had the chance to be outside of chronological time and rearrange and order things how you like. Now it’s time to live those events with your character. Of course, if you perhaps stumble upon a writer’s block in chapter 3 and want to skip to chapter 4, you can feel free to do so and return to chapter 3 when you feel like it.
However, I find writing in chronological order the best way to ensure that you understand your character’s psyche and memory at all times. For example, if you skip a chunk of the story to write a later chapter, you lose the chance to refer to previous lines of dialogue or visual descriptors in those skipped chapters that stuck with the character and which can add a lot of feeling and emotional depth to your story as it progresses in time.
Overall, this first draft is meant to be unpolished. Don’t stress over style or spelling mistakes. Instead, focus on getting through the story and having words on a page. It’s hard to edit something that doesn’t exist yet, and all of those style and spelling errors can be fixed when you are editing later. This is a good time to gauge chapter length, and don’t be afraid of splitting one chapter into two if it feels right.
This first draft is also your first time living through your story. Take time to pull out and emphasize the emotional and physical transformation of your characters. The day-to-day events, how they perceive the world, who they are close to, the conversations they have, those are the meat of anyone’s life. While you can always polish up the word choice and grammar and even fix certain plot points, the main purpose of a first draft is to get all the plot points that you outlined in a narrative format so that you can actually see how they work together.
But in case you need more concrete advice to get started, here are some writing-specific tips for this step:
Each chapter should usually be a balance of dialogue, description, and inner monologue of some kind. One or two of these can be emphasized to set the tone or mood of a chapter, but if you neglect one or two of them, the chapter can read monotone. Again, this can also be fine-tuned in the editing step.
Try to set a word count goal for each day and then write every day to stay in the zone. Keep it small and manageable at first so you can get that little writer’s high for reaching your daily word count. Start with as little as 100 words—you’ll see how quickly this goes—then work up to 500 words, and before you know it you might try for 1000. This will ease some of the pressure of writing 80k words up front. Go little by little and the book will seem to write itself.
If you feel a writer’s block on how to start writing the next chapter, go back and read a few previous chapters. I like to call it getting in the mood. I’ve seen some writers even advise stopping a writing session in the middle of a chapter so that the next time you sit down to write you are thrown into a scene instead of trying to begin a new chapter cold. I’ve done both and as long as you get warmed up and in the mood of your story, you should start to feel yourself called to write the next page. Ultimately, don’t stress over how you begin or end a chapter, since those small things can be edited later.
The bottom line is write. Write, write, write. And never give up. The problem a lot of people have with writing a book is that they get to a point where they just stop writing, and no matter how many tips you read, nothing can be helped if you don’t write. So again, just keep writing. And as with anything, the more you do it, the easier it gets. Trust me.
You made it! Once you have a first draft, it’s time to take a well-deserved break. Yes, that’s right. Don’t look at or read or edit your book for a few weeks, maybe even a month. Your eyes have become used to your writing and the plot, so like being nose-blind, you can no longer see the plot holes or even simple grammar mistakes. So when you’ve taken sufficient time off, then you’ll return for a rewrite.
Rewrite
Now that you have a first draft, I always recommend printing it out. Something about the physical page will make your story look very different than it does on screen. Perhaps it feels more official, so you begin to read it critically as a reader does, instead of as a writer. Another reason is that with a physical copy of your story, you can edit your book, but the pen forces you to simply mark the errors, not necessarily fix them. If you do this step on your computer, you might notice yourself getting bogged down trying to fix a plot hole or sentence. This will slow down this step and make the rewrite process feel impossible. While printing the book will be a cost, if you are serious about finishing this book and even publishing it, then it is a necessary one.
Also included in this step is the actual rewrite. With your printed and “edited” manuscript, you can now go back to your computer to fix the mistakes. There are two ways of doing this: 1) simply edit what you marked as errors or 2) literally rewrite the whole story.
I’ve done both ways before, and I’ll tell you why. I did the first way when I felt that I didn’t have any major things to reconstruct, such as plot holes or character changes or even style issues. I liked the story, so I only wanted to edit what felt off or needed work while reading it.
But I did the second way when I wanted to give my first draft a major facelift, inserting chapters here and there, changing key components of my character’s personality, and tweaking one of the major romance arcs. This required a total rewrite, where I had a new blank page in front of me again. However, this will feel surprisingly easier than the first draft, since you now have a lot of material to work with, and your edited first draft at hand. At times I would keep entire chapters hardly unchanged, speeding up the process, while others I would have to dig deep and start anew. But this gave me the space necessary to write in new chapters and wholistically fix the old ones, so there are no regrets here.
Either way, this rewrite phase is essential to the process and gets you one step closer to having a polished story.
Polished Edit(s)
Now this step might look different for people depending on their goal. To start, if you are thinking of traditionally publishing your book, this process is very important, but you shouldn’t spend money on it, since a lot of editing will happen with your agent and publisher. Have friends and family read your manuscript if they are able, read through your novel a few times yourself, and especially strengthen the first three chapters and hook of your story. Then you’ll be ready to query agents.
If you are planning to self-publish as I have, then this step is even more crucial, because it is the last step editing your novel line by line. Depending on your budget, it might be a good idea to contract-hire an editor to look through your book. For my first two books, I, unfortunately, did not have the budget for this, but for my next book that I have finished writing, I certainly plan on spending that money as it’s worth it to get a pair of professional editing eyes on your work. You can pay them to do simple line editing or you can even hire an editor to work with you on the plot as well. Either way, don’t skip this step, as it’ll be very embarrassing when someone reviews your work to tell you about a simple typo or glaring plot hole that you somehow missed.
For this step, you’re going to have to reread your work. A lot. Be open to criticism from yourself and others. Take breaks between rereads to let your mind breathe and clear your nose-blind eyes from your writing. Above all, you have to be happy with your work and enjoy reading it. Because the odds are if you enjoy reading your book a few times through, so will readers.
Now the next two steps, Cover Design & Formatting and Publishing, are specifically for those looking to self-publish, as traditional publishers will handle this part. I won’t go into too much detail (trust me, there’s a lot more that can be said here), but you have a few options going forward.
Cover Design & Formatting
If you have the budget for it, I highly recommend contracting someone for at least the cover design. While I did my first cover, a basic YA romance that was less than 200 pages, my next historical fiction cover needed to look more eye-catching and professional. You can check out Reedsy.com for book cover designers to hire. Oftentimes book cover designers can also help with formatting your book, which pertains to the design of the inside of your book, like page numbers, chapter titles, etc. Sometimes they charge a fee for everything in a bundle, or you can choose two different designers for each. Either way, skimping here might cost you more down the line.
But…if you are in a similar position as I was and don’t have the budget for this, I have some tools for you. For my first cover design, I used Krita, which is free. Thankfully, KDP Amazon, where I self-published, provides the templates for the cover size, because it will depend on the page number and measurements of the book etc. You can also use Adobe Illustrator or apps like that. If you aren’t a professional designer, keep it simple. Trust me. Make sure you follow the publishing instructions for file types.
As for book formatting, this can be trickier. On Reedsy.com you can upload your book and format it for free, though the application is limited. If you want anything fancy, you will have to pay. But for simple formatting Reedsy has you covered, and there isn’t too steep a learning curve with the software. If you want to be able to custom design, such as chapter heading backgrounds and more complex images, then I recommend Atticus. It’s the biggest bang for your buck compared to other software, and it has the cheapest price compared to its competitors.
Ultimately, this step is not to be overlooked if you are thinking about publishing a book. While it certainly depends on how much you care about selling copies, I can guarantee that your sales will be much less if your book doesn’t look at least vaguely professionally designed. Also, when you show family and friends that you published a book, it will feel a lot better if you are proud of the cover art and confident that the book looks good on a shelf.
Publish!
Congratulations! You made it to arguably the easiest section. Your manuscript is polished, formatted, and ready to be uploaded to a self-publishing site. You have your book cover ready to go and it fits the template. Lucky for you, places like KDP Amazon make it easy. That’s where I self-published my latest two novels and therefore I can enroll in certain marketing tools with Amazon. You can check out other platforms as well, but if it’s your first time publishing, this might make it easier.
All you have to do is come up with a good summary, fill in biographical info, some keywords to help readers find your book, upload the book and cover files, set the price, and voilà, your book is ready to be published! Make sure to order some test copies to see that everything looks good in person, and then you’re ready to go live!
If you made it this far, I hope that this blog was helpful and has either inspired you to write a novel for the first time or given you the tools and confidence to keep writing and eventually publish.
Let me know in the comments if you have any questions or if there was any step that you would like to see have its own blog post with further explanation!
Until next time,
Zoë
