You’re Not Writing a Novel

At least it might help to tell yourself that…

Every writer will struggle with writer’s block at some point or other. Whether it hits you in the middle of your manuscript, just as you hit a tricky plot point, or you face it throughout writing your draft, there are various ways you can try and get through it.

All of my tips on this topic basically come down to this: you’re not writing a novel.

You’re writing a first draft.

If you expect your first draft to compare to a published novel, you are never going to be satisfied with your work. Published novels have gone through round after round of edits, whether those are the author working alone, with beta readers, their agent, their editor, a copyeditor, a proofreader… At first draft stage, those novels would be unrecognisable.

The more you can tell yourself that you are writing a draft, with all its messy, tangled, scrumpled-up sentences, the easier it will be to plough on and get some words down.

So here are my six top tips on beating writer’s block not writing a novel:

Don’t write something that looks like a novel

My favourite (least favourite?) suggestion is to change the font of your novel to something like Comic Sans. Comic Sans is a ridiculous font. Nothing serious is written in Comic Sans. No books are published in Comic Sans. Ergo whatever you’re writing cannot be a novel. Just a silly little thing in Comic Sans – and you can definitely write that. It doesn’t matter if it’s messy or not all the words are good – it’s not a novel.

The aim here is just to make your document look different to a book. Perhaps the thought of staring at a page of Comic Sans makes you feel a bit woozy. So maybe you change to a different but still informal font. Maybe you change the colour of the page or font so you aren’t writing in black on white. Whatever you can do to make yourself see your document as something more informal can really help stop that part of your brain which is telling you that you have to write a perfect finished novel straight off the bat (again: you don’t!).

Play a game instead

Let’s gamify things! Perhaps you’ll set a timer and keep writing until it’s done – even if the words are rubbish and for the first few minutes you just keep writing ‘banana banana banana’ over and over again until you come up with something better to write. If you’re stuck on a particularly tricky bit of plot, just bashing out some words to get yourself through the sticky patch can help free you up, with the knowledge that you can go back and edit later on. I am a big pomodoro fan and love a twenty-five minute sprint, but you could do whatever timeframe works for you.

Or perhaps you like rewards (I, much like my four-year-old, will do pretty much anything for a gold star sticker on a chart). 750words.com will give you points for writing 750 words per day, which you can increase if you get a particularly long streak. If getting points, badges, and seeing your writing stats build up would give you motivation, this website is great. It’s technically aimed at free-journaling, rather than novel-writing, but you can use it however you like. 750 words is a nice achievable number to get done in one sitting (as with writing sprints I would suggest just ploughing on even if your words aren’t perfect!) and of course if you get a sudden burst of creativity you can carry on.

Photo by David Klein on Unsplash

Write differently

Much like making your novel look different, making your writing process look different can help too. If you usually write on your laptop, try writing on your phone, or in a notebook. Or try writing in a different place: a coffee shop instead of your living room, the kitchen instead of your bedroom? Just like changing the font, sometimes a different location or device can give you a kickstart.

If you usually write in one-hour chunks, try writing on your phone when you have five minutes spare (the added bonus is it might save you five minutes of doom-scrolling…) and just chip away at your novel sentence by sentence. Writing doesn’t have to happen only when you have the perfect set-up – and actually just grabbing a few minutes here and there can take the pressure off and help you through a tricky plot point.

Write blind

If you find it difficult to overlook clunky sentences or poor phrases as you write, writing blind can help free you up to just create. Cover your screen so you can’t see what you’re typing, and just go! Unless you’re an excellent touch-typist, there’ll be plenty of typos at the end, but not being able to see and judge your writing as you get it down can help quieten your inner critic.

Which leads me on to…

Don’t edit as you go

This is always a good rule of thumb, but particularly when you are aiming for quantity or to get through a part you’re finding hard to write – do not tweak as you go. If you keep going back and correcting or rewriting things, you’ll get stuck in one place, rather than making progress towards your overall word count goal. Write first, edit later. Otherwise you’ll have one very, very polished sentence, and nothing else.

Don’t write your novel (… for a bit)

This is a marvellous tip for any creative endeavour, whether you are feeling stuck or not: take a break. Have a walk, do some exercise, watch TV, hang out with your kids – anything that will make you forget your book for a bit. I always build in time to have a break in the middle of writing up my edit notes, and the number of breakthroughs I’ve had by the time I come back to my computer is wild.

How about you? What are your tried-and-tested techniques for beating writer’s block? Anyone want to defend Comic Sans??

As always, thank you so much for reading! More writing advice next week – if you need help in the meantime you can check out my Instagram for short tips and hints, or my website for one-to-one help.

Happy writing!

Abi