Things are still on track for sending my first novel out into the world in September. (Just in time for spooky season). Editor comments are coming back later this week, and I’m itching to get at them. In the interim, I thought I’d document the writing process for my first novel, along with some things I might do differently for future works.
Step 1: The Outline
I actually started by writing the last five chapters first (I write about that here). Then I worked backwards, mapping how we got to that ending chapter by chapter. At first, it was index cards on the kitchen table. But pretty soon, it got messy, so I did what any consultant would do: I moved into Excel, where rows are easy to move and errant wind from an open window doesn’t wreck an hour’s work. (Don’t laugh; it’s one of my day job tools of choice, so it made sense.)
In addition to the “Robust Outline” main tab, I also started creating additional reference tabs. Each of those became their own little character-specific rabbit holes: descriptions, arcs, and personalities. I also added tabs to keep track of lore elements. This helped with continuity a lot while I was writing.
Enjoyment level: high. This was a fun part, like drawing a treasure map.
Step 2: Draft One – Rough Draft
Then came the writing. I drafted sequentially, chapter by chapter, following the outline, and I hammered out Draft One. I carved out three to five writing days a week, and first-drafted a chapter on each day. At the start of my next writing session, I read through and tweaked the previous chapter, then updated my Excel tabs with any new details. I then consulted my outline and drafted the next chapter in sequence. And honestly? Very high enjoyment. For me, this was the “in the zone” stage that makes writers want to write at all.
Step 3: Draft Two – Wrestling the Beast
The second draft was where the honeymoon ended. I read it cover to cover, editing and refining arcs, adjusting scenes, tightening pacing, and reworking side plots.
This was also where I learned that “perfect on paper” (or, in Excel) doesn’t always equal “works in practice.” Scenes I loved stubbornly refused to click. Timelines got messy. B and C plots wouldn’t behave and refused to come together. There was a lot of muttering at the screen, and many changes had impacts not only upstream, but downstream, so required even more edits on chapters I’d already revised. At points, I felt like I wanted to yeet my “Robust Outline” robustly into the sun.
Enjoyment level: low. Grueling. But necessary.
Step 4: Draft Three – Smoothing for Beta Readers
After the structural battles, I did a fine-tune pass. Reading it with more polish was deeply satisfying. A nice turn of phrase or a particularly compelling chapter made me smile. My edits during this part of the process were generally pretty minor. Only two chapters had major rewrites. Enjoyment level: not bad at all.
Step 5: Beta Readers
Then came the scary part: letting other people read it. I recruited two beta readers on my own, and hired a third on Fiverr.
And you know what? Their feedback was smart, provocative, and made the book much stronger. I had dreaded it, but incorporating their insights turned out to be a very positive step. I will definitely continue using beta readers in the future.
Step 6: The Editor
I hired an editor from Fiverr based on a combination of good client reviews, expertise in my genre, price within budget, and willingness to turn over detailed line editing comments tracked in Word. This was my first book, and I really feel going through the line edits will be such a learning opportunity for me.
While my editor got to work, I turned my attention to the cover. I’ll be honest: I thought this part would be fun. Instead, I discovered I had zero artistic direction to give and spent way too much time spinning. (I write about it here). Lesson learned. I’ll probably enjoy cover design more once I’ve got a couple of books under my belt. Since this is a four-book series, I’m confident I’ll get there eventually, possibly commissioning new covers for all of them at that point.
Step 7: Draft Four (Post-Editor)
This is where I’m at now: waiting for the editor to turn over her work later this week so I can start working through edits. I’m excited, actually. Editing feels like the place where I’ll grow most as a writer, learning not just how to fix this book, but how to sharpen the next ones.
Step 8: Publish
If all goes to plan? Kin of Fae: The Returned Child hits e-shelves this September. Fingers crossed.
Takeaways:
My process was messy, sometimes frustrating, but I loved it.
Starting with the outline really worked well for me, and Excel turned out to be an excellent tool for me personally (100% appreciate your own mileage may vary). It was so easy to move chapter summaries/event rows up and down to get the plot flow and pacing perfect in the outline. I liked being able to track story and character arcs in associated columns as I did this (moving them along with the rows). Ironically, I don’t think I’d have taken the ‘Robust Outline’ approach had I not had the ending already written; so this was a bit of a happy accident.
I’m going to try a few things differently next time, though.
The easiest of these writing process changes is detailed character/lore/event tracking. I didn’t start tracking character details robustly until about a third of the way through the first draft. (Eventually, I created a tab for each of them, even the minor ones, which were only referred to once, and updated it after I drafted each chapter). I’ll definitely use this approach from the get-go next time. While the big stuff was easy to keep top of mind, this really reduced continuity errors for small things: physical descriptions, dialogue style, when the character learned a significant plot point, the throw-away name I gave the former sheriff early in the novel and wanted to refer to later, etc.
One of the most significant changes I think I’ll experiment with in future writing, if I can afford it, is to hire a developmental editor to provide feedback on the story. (Possibly pre-beta readers, but if not, definitely prior to line editing). The beta feedback round was so positive, and I’m imagining a developmental round would be even more valuable. I feel I got lucky with my betas; they didn’t have any fundamental problems with plot, pacing, or key characters. It occurred to me later though, that if the rework on these elements were significant, I’d need to beta all over again.
Finally, I would love to have more betas; I can’t stress enough how valuable their feedback was. All their feedback made sense to me (I was nodding along as I read through it) and was generally fairly consistent. If there were a major issue, though, it would be great to have enough betas to get some sort of consensus around that feedback before a major rework. I’ll work harder on beta recruitment for the next novel, I think.
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