Press Contact

SISU News Center, Office of Communications and Public Affairs

Tel : +86 (21) 3537 2378

Email : news@shisu.edu.cn

Address :550 Dalian Road (W), Shanghai 200083, China

Further Reading

Ben Keegan: How to Write a Novel


21 March 2017 | By Benjamin Wright alias Ben KEEGAN (SISU) | Copyedited by Boris Lopatinsky and Gu Yiqing

  • Writing a Novel

    On being asked to write a piece on how to write a novel, my immediate reply was “Ask me again after I’ve written another one.”

O

n being asked to write a piece on how to write a novel, my immediate reply was “Ask me again after I’ve written another one.”

My justification for this response was that while I had indeed written a long, complex novel, it was based on history and was therefore easier to write than a completely fictional novel.

Having now progressed into the fourth chapter of my new completely fictional novel at much greater speed than with my first semi-fictional novel, I now see this to be untrue, however. So perhaps my musings on how to write a novel could be worth something to aspiring writers. With that said here are my tips on how to achieve your dream of finishing a novel.

Motivation 

My first finished novel was in fact my fourth attempt at a novel, which I completed after three years at the age of thirty-eight. In my twenties I had been bewitched by stories I’d read of young writers receiving six-figure advances for unfinished novels based on just a few chapters of a novel and a full synopsis. Two of these writers, Zadie Smith and Anna Maxted, served as my touchstones for how to make a lot of money at a young age by doing something cool. For those young investment bankers who always grew up wanting to be an investment banker I have just this to say: there is nothing less cool than staring at a computer screen all day. Oh, hang on. That’s what writers do too, isn’t it? Well, in my version of cool all those hours at the typeface would see me secure a large advance, a legion of dedicated fans and a seat at a French Riviera cafe table where I would finish a chapter of my book each day, before cruising around in my convertible looking for the best parties each evening. Of course the reality was that in the vast majority of cases, agents wanted to see evidence that a first-time author could actually finish a book. The only exception they might make was for a virtuoso or a chick-lit author. And I was neither of those. So, after putting together three book proposals consisting of three chapters and a synopsis and finding each time that agents actually wanted me to finish the damn things, sans convertible, I gave up on novel writing; certain that I didn’t have the staying power to finish a novel with no guarantee of monetary riches upon completion. By the time I reached thirty-five however an idea so strong and so unconnected to monetary reward had been burning inside me for so long that I felt compelled to start writing the novel, without even considering submitting it as a proposal. Just get to the damn end was my mantra. That end took 3 years to reach and was one of the most satisfying moments of my life. In fact it contained two of the most satisfying moments, as the first draft was completed after 1.5 years and the editing and polishing process another 1.5 years later. Not only had I written a book, but I’d also creatively summarized the entire history of the Israel-Palestine war with a view to changing public perceptions of the conflict. No wonder it took so long.

Sink or swim

Zadie Smith in an essay similar to this called “That Crafty Feeling” suggests that there are two types of writers: macro-planners and micro-managers.  I fall into the latter category, despite at all times telling my writing students to plan their writing before they write. For me the plan exists only in my head, which is a surprise given that I have such an awful memory. I should be a post-it-note and mind-map structuralist, but in fact I like to jump off my yacht moored 100 metres from shore, blindfold and bound, and hope the waves carry me to dry land. Perhaps this is why I considered my first 130,000 word novel not to be such an awesome feat, as I had used history as a tether line to keep my head above water and safely pull myself onto the beach. With my new novel well under way, however, it is now clear to me that I was wrong in this assessment. In much the same way as the first, I know roughly where I’m going with it and I build it slowly, piece by piece, inching my way towards the next goal. That goal is always the end of the next chapter, which should be 3-4000 words long. This length, I’ve discovered, feels just right. Long enough to explore a segment of the novel in detail, and short enough to allow you to constantly see an end in sight. While fighting towards that goal, the writing process will allow you to also have epiphanies about how to make it to successive goals, one, five or twenty chapters ahead. While I knew where I wanted to go with my first novel – Bullied is its name – I had no idea where or how it would end exactly. But in reaching my mini-goals, the end point became more clearly discernible each time. In truth I only decided I’d found the end two chapters before getting there. But when I saw an opportunity to make the title of the book the last spoken word of the book, I couldn’t turn that poetry down.

Enjoy it

When I was younger, I was merely trying to earn money, respect and freedom with my writing. Hence I didn’t enjoy the process so much. Finding time to do it was a chore with so many other after-work distractions like the pub, the club, the pool hall or the Playstation to compete against. Getting to the end of my first three chapters felt so much harder than it does now. Simply put, I was writing for the wrong reasons: not to enhance my life in the here and now, but in the future: when my cheap PC could be launched out the window and a MacBook Pro could sit next to me in my convertible. These days writing is something I wake up itching to do. Bullied has not been received well. The most pertinent feedback I’ve had was from one agent who described it as “a wonderful allegory with great writing, yet too long to appeal to the children’s market that its playground setting suggests and too political and with too young a point of view for the general adult market.” Not surprisingly after spending so long writing it, finding that it doesn’t fit what publishers are looking for was quite a blow. Yet, just a few months after abandoning attempts to secure an agent, I found myself sitting down to write a new one. The reason for this unhinged optimism is simple. Among those hundreds of hours spent at my keyboard – now a sleek IMac I’m happy to report – I experienced countless moments of creative joy. While in the average job, I imagine creative expression makes up around 10% of input, in writing it is 90%. 10% is monitoring syntax and grammar, while 90% is rearranging those in order to be clever, funny or insightful. Very few pastimes allow for that range of human expression. And being at the centre of it is spellbinding.

Be ready to fail

Two of the most recent Booker prize winners – the UK’s biggest literary writing prize – endured multiple rejections. Marlon James’ 2015 winner “A Brief History of Seven Killings” was rejected 83 times, while Paul Beatty’s 2016 winner “The Sellout” was rejected 18 times (slightly less than my own first effort). Zadie Smith has written another article detailing the entire history of literary failure titled “Fail Better”. Rather than going into the very long list of famous authors who suffered – and that is a very accurate description – rejection, she describes the many failures that successful novels comprise! My own experience of writing is so far failure upon failure. However that failure is only of the commercial nature. Each time I write I get better. This article is better than one I wrote last year. And infinitely better than one written fifteen years ago. And that’s what you need to write a novel. To know that your first attempt, be that a novel, or a poem, or even a letter, will likely fall short of your high hopes or others’ expectations. But each subsequent time you sit down to write, your writing will improve. And given enough time and enough effort you will write a novel. And one day you might even write a great one. And, as this is an academic publication, remember the greatest part of writing a novel is this: you can use And at the start of a sentence.

Benjamin Wright’s first novel ‘Bullied’ is available on Kindle. An extract is available at www.bulliedbook.com

Share:

Press Contact

SISU News Center, Office of Communications and Public Affairs

Tel : +86 (21) 3537 2378

Email : news@shisu.edu.cn

Address :550 Dalian Road (W), Shanghai 200083, China

Further Reading