How to Produce a Novel
You’ve completed the first draft. You take a deep breath, make sure your work is saved, perhaps have a little cry, then what?
Then you Produce a novel from you manuscript.
IQ140 is not about “Writing.” It’s about:
- A comprehensive editing paradigm to make your work marketable.
- Finding and vetting Beta readers and digesting their feedback.
- Designing a cover, developing an inviting content blurb, and offering an author bio.
- Publishing your book using Amazon’s KDP platform in Print and eBook formats.
We provide a list of our favorite “Writing” books, though there are many more available at the library, your favorite bookseller, and online.
Walk Away!
—As odd as it may seem, the first step to produce a novel from a manuscript is to walk away from it. Find something else to do for 30 days. Don’t read or scan or review any part of it. If you’ve got a printed copy, put it in a drawer. Copy the manuscript file onto a thumb drive for safety and put it in the back of your sock drawer. One full month!
You can’t edit or review the manuscript because you know it too well. You will read what you intended to write, not what hit the page. You’ll catch few of the errors, including obvious ones, and multiple “reads” will be necessary to catch them. Experience has shown that in a month your intimacy with the words will subside into familiarity and that’s when you want to start editing.
This is a time when Alpha readers—friends and relatives—may be allowed to read some or all of your work. Advise them that the manuscript is NOT edited and that you’re more curious about their impression of the story line, characters, etc., and not the grammar or punctuation.
In the meantime, most writers have multiple ideas going on in their heads all the time, so start on another manuscript… or go outside.
A Slow, Deliberate Read
Okay, you made it 4 weeks. Close enough. While not essential, you’ll catch more errors if the manuscript is printed.
Find distraction free time to read the manuscript slowly and deliberately. Issues regarding “distraction free” or “time” are beyond the scope of this discussion.
If working on a digital device or computer, preserve the original and mark up a new copy of the file. See “File Backup” for a comprehensive methodology for avoiding data loss.
Don’t let your eyes just move across the words, read them. Anything more extensive than a typo or punctuation, mark for later perusal. Don’t rewrite poorly written dialog or paragraphs, yet. Mark them with a note to reconsider.
If you find a paragraph, exchange of dialog, or exposition that doesn’t belong—perhaps you meant to delete it and didn’t—mark it for deletion and continue on. Same for repetitive dialog. But don’t do the deletion, yet.
Only after going through the manuscript and making all the obvious corrections do you go back to rewriting marked dialog, making deletions you’re sure are needed, and solidify typos, punctuation, and grammatical corrections in the new copy of the working file.
Editing with the Word Frequency Counter
Process your manuscript file using the Word Frequency Counter of your choice. Some counters require the manuscript in .TXT format, others will allow the MSWord standard .DOC or .DOCX file.
Download the file from the WFC and order the list with the greatest frequency on top.
Once again, preserve the previous manuscript file and edit a fresh copy of the file.
Work the list one word at a time. Using FIND in your word processor, move through the manuscript looking at each occurrence of that word. Many will be correct as they are, but don’t let any slip by.
You may trip over other issues. This is the time to fix them, just don’t lose your place in the manuscript or the word on which you were working.
Follow the directions specified in Word Frequency Counter.
Rinse, Lather, Repeat
Not as brutal as last time, take a week off to let your palate clear. Take a nap.
Then do another slow, deliberate reading.
You may be tempted to get creative. Don’t. Unless you find a grievous plot error, don’t begin a new round of writing unless you’re prepared to start over again.
Beta Readers
Follow the suggestions in Beta Readers.
Not everything presented there will be doable in your situation. By offering the best course of action, you should be able to pick your way through to get one qualified and cooperative Beta reader which is more than most writers get. However, if you manage two or three, their opinions will be magnified.
Taking their feedback seriously, adjust the manuscript as you see fit.
Get Professional Help
That might have been a suggestion when you told family or friends you were writing a book… but this time, it’s not that kind of help.
Seek the services of an editor.
If you’ve fastidiously followed the steps discussed so far on this page for resting, reading, editing, resting, securing independent Beta readers, and incorporating their observations into the final draft, you likely have a clean document, though editorial analysis of the writing can improve the work.
Which begs the question, is it your intention to seek representation by an agent or consideration by a publisher? If so, get the editor.
If self-publishing is your objective, then it’s a matter of budget. If you can afford it, have an editor do a once-over to polish the writing.
Traditional Publishing
There is no magic lantern to rub or silver bullet to shoot.