The Horrific (But True) Psychological Phases of Writing a Novel

By Jeff Gerke (a.k.a. Jefferson Scott), with help from novelist Sharon Hinck

 

(Brace yourself. It's going to get ugly.)

 

Phase I: Research

In this phase, you are the greatest novelist ever, writing the greatest novel ever. Indeed, the Great American Novel. A heartbreaking work of staggering genius

Why can you say this? Because it’s all potential right now. You can talk and talk about the story but you don’t have to show anybody anything. No proof that this isn’t the greatest novel ever. Plus, the story is amorphous and fluid, so if the person you’re talking to doesn’t like what you're describing you can always change it. “You mean you’d have aliens and talking earthworms?” “Um, yeah, I might include some of that.”

The End of Phase I: Here’s where fear first comes in. If you say you’re done with your research it means you’ll have to actually sit down and start writing. You’ll have to start producing something. Evidence that you are, indeed, writing a novel and not just running at the mouth.

So, what do you do? How do you grapple with the fear that has you by the throat. You do more research, of course! You bring out a handy-dandy little device I like to call the Extend-O-Matic.,

The Extend-O-Matic allows you to extract every possible moment of safety from this, the best of all phases. The Extend-O-Matic causes you to read just one more book and watch one more video series and go on one more fact-finding trip and talk to one more expert.

You leave this phase only reluctantly and with much regret.

Phase II: Writing the First Draft

This is another phase of relative safety. So long as you’re writing the draft you don’t have to show anything to anyone.

“No, you can’t read what I’ve done so far! It’s not ready. I need to get to the end and then go back and fix some things.”

You don’t, in fact, have to actually be writing anything. You could just be sitting at your computer playing solitaire, so long as you can keep that fact hidden.

What has you terrified at this moment? It's the knowledge that as soon as you write the first word and the first sentence and the first page this ceases to be the most ultimate book ever.

And it becomes merely your novel. This novel. With identifiable weaknesses and tragic errors in your blind spots. It becomes less about humanity or love or sacrifice, and more about you. Paralysis sets in.

You also know that at some point you’re going to have to say you’ve finished your rough draft. At some point you’re going to have to have thousands and thousands of original words written down—that someone else could actually read.

So you write. For awhile it’s fun. Then it becomes just hard work and drudgery.

Then, about 80% of the way through the rough draft...fear comes back. At exactly the precise moment you realize you've almost rounded the corner on this thing. BOOM.

The End of Phase II: So long as you haven’t written THE END you don’t have to show anyone anything. But at about the 80% mark you realize that that moment is fast approaching.

So what do you do? You bring out the Extend-O-Matic.

Suddenly there’s the need to go back and do spot research or to read a book you hadn’t thought to look at before. Suddenly you’ve thought of a new subplot. Suddenly you’ve realized you need to go back and add more description throughout. Suddenly you want to do a final polish on everything before you make the big push to the end.

You leave this phase only amidst wailing and gnashing of teeth. Your own.

Phase III: Receiving the Reaction

You've written THE END on the last page. You've rallied to your cause every last element of courage, and you've done the unthinkable. You've show it to someone. Maybe more than one someones.

AAAAAGGGGHHH!!!!!

There's that blessed silence during those hours or days when it's too early for your test readers to possibly have a reaction yet. In this time you can still believe you've pulled off the Great American Novel.

In this respite you spend all your time pretending you’re not spending all your time wondering how the person is going to like it.

But then the peace is shattered. The news comes in: your test readers are ready to report on what they think.

Quick, turn out the lights. Don't answer the phone. You're not home!

Whether you’ve shown your baby to your spouse or writers' group or, worse, your editor, you must ultimately endure their reactions.

How will it be? Horrible! Worse than you imagined. Or maybe not.

The End of Phase III: The reactions themselves. They are inescapable. Probably the test readers say like 17 words of encouragement at the beginning, followed by 17 pages of “constructive criticism.”

You cry, you lash out, you despair. And maybe, if you’re brave, you muster the courage to say, “Yeah, well, it was just a rough draft. I was going to change all that anyway.” And you plunge into revisions.

Subphase: Don’t forget the months after signing the contract during which you wait in terror for the letter saying, “So sorry, we sent you that by mistake. We meant a different [insert your name here].” Gah!

Subphase: The editorial process. After you've done the revisions you know to do and you send it to your editor, you relive Phase III. "What will my editor think? Will I have my contract and manuscript sent back to me in little shredder strips? Will they discover I'm a fraud?" Ah, fear. 

Phase IV: Waiting for the Novel To Be Released

The months leading up to this moment are wonderful. You’ve finished your edit, you’ve healed from your Editor Wound, and you’ve been doing radio interviews. You can't do anything more to affect the novel now, so you can relax a bit. You like your cover, you’ve tweaked the typeset galleys, and your Web page is all ready.

Ah... 

But then the release date begins to draw near. The moment when all of humanity will get to take free shots at you. In these dwindling moments before the book’s release you agonize that the sales of your novel will be so dismal that your book will single-handedly lead to the demise of your publishing house. Waa!

Phase V: After the Novel Releases

Once your novel is released there comes the terror of thinking it has fallen in a hole and no one will read it.

"Will they find it? Didn’t they see the ads? Was anyone listening to my radio interview? Who actually lives in Kansas, anyway? Do they read Christian fiction in Oklahoma?"

So you transform the Extend-O-Matic into the Obsess-O-Rama and you turn to compulsive Googling of the book to find all the reviews, and you learn for yourself whether it’s really true that Amazon updates its rankings on an hourly basis

And you “happen” to pass by your ten local bookstores three times a day to see:

  1. If it’s even on the shelf
  2. If anyone is picking it up off the shelf (or is even nearby, because you can pretend to be a kindly reader recommending a good book to a fellow reader—even though the poor woman had been over in music, anyway, and wasn’t even thinking about you or your book)
  3. And if, when someone buys one of the copies of your book, how quickly the manager is reordering.

Yes, sir; this is the good life. Paparazzi and dinner parties.

NOT.

Phase VI: The Blessed Reward (?)

Ah, the bliss of having written and published your own novel. Ah, the accolades. The fanfare. The life of ease. Now you have finally arrived, you’ve made your mark on the world, you’ve justified your existence. You can cease from all your striving, retire to the Mediterranean, and live the life of the fabulously wealthy.

Or...

Or you could get out your combination Extend-O-Matic/ Obsess-O-Rama and begin worrying about what in the world you’re going to write next!

“How could I possibly do this again? And next time it has to be better? Didn’t Amy Tan like have a mental breakdown because she was so stressed out about writing her second novel? Where’s my copy of Finding Forrester? Waa!”

0:-)

 

THE [shiver, quiver, shake] END

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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