top of page
logo

THINGS I LEARNED WHILE WRITING MY FIRST NOVEL

Writer: Loria Brexley "Brex"
Loria Brexley "Brex"
Oct 31, 2024
4 min read

Updated: Sep 17

By Brex

I started writing Chime because I had an idea.

I thought that was the hard part.

It was not.

An idea is exciting because it arrives whole.

A novel does not.

A novel arrives in pieces.

Scenes.

Voices.

Bad decisions.

Characters who refuse to behave.

Pages you love for three weeks and then suddenly realize are terrible.

And somewhere inside all of that, if you are lucky, a story starts forming.

Here is what I have learned so far.

1. Novel Writers Are Slightly Terrifying

I did not understand how much work it takes to write a novel.

Not really.

You can admire books your whole life and still have no idea what it takes to make one hold together.

Plot.

Character.

Pacing.

Continuity.

Theme.

Dialogue.

Worldbuilding.

Then somehow all of it has to feel effortless to the person reading it.

That seems unreasonable.

Anyone who has finished a good novel has my respect.

I am still not convinced I belong in the club.

But I am apparently already inside, making a mess.

So I suppose that counts for something.

2. A Good Idea Is Not a Story

This was rude to discover.

I had a good idea.

A world.

A feeling.

Characters.

Questions I wanted to ask.

I thought that meant I had a novel.

What I had was a seed.

A story needs movement.

Someone wants something.

Something stands in the way.

Choices have consequences.

People change.

Or refuse to.

Things have to happen for reasons.

Preferably reasons more sophisticated than:

because Brex thought it would be interesting.

An idea can get you started.

It cannot carry the whole book.

3. An Outline Is Also Not a Story

I like outlines.

They behave.

Characters do not.

An outline says:

Alix goes here.

Alix says:

No.

The outline says:

This revelation happens in Chapter Seven.

The story says:

Actually, if you wait until Chapter Seven, nobody will care.

The outline is useful.

It keeps me from wandering completely into the woods.

But some of the best things I have found in Chime were not on the map.

Writing the scene reveals things planning the scene cannot.

That still annoys me.

4. Finishing a Draft Is Apparently Not Finishing a Book

Nobody warned me properly about this.

You type:

THE END

You feel victorious for approximately nine minutes.

Then you read what you wrote.

Now there are:

missing motivations,

contradictory dates,

characters who know information they were never given,

technology that works differently three chapters later,

and one person whose eye color apparently changes whenever I get tired.

A finished draft is real progress.

It is also evidence.

Now you can finally see what you actually made.

Then the rewriting begins.

5. Characters Know When You’re Lying

This sounds ridiculous.

It is still true.

Sometimes I try to make a character do something because the plot needs it.

The scene dies.

Nothing works.

Everyone sounds false.

Eventually I realize the problem:

the character would never do that.

So then I have to rebuild the scene around what they actually would do.

This is inconvenient.

But it is also where the story usually gets better.

6. Worldbuilding Can Become a Very Elegant Form of Avoidance

Would you like to know the history of a corporation that appears for two paragraphs?

I can tell you.

Would you like me to finish Chapter Twelve?

Apparently not.

Worldbuilding feels productive because technically it is.

But eventually the characters have to enter the room and do something.

You cannot hide behind the architecture forever.

I have tried.

7. Writing Reveals What You Don’t Understand

I thought I understood Chime when I began.

Then I tried explaining it through actual people.

That changes everything.

It is easy to say:

This is a story about identity.

It is much harder to show one woman losing confidence in whether a memory belongs to her.

It is easy to say:

Technology changes humanity.

It is harder to write the moment someone willingly accepts the change because it makes them feel beautiful.

Writing forces the abstract idea into a human body.

That is usually where I discover what I actually think.

8. Sometimes the Story Arrives Before I Understand It

This may be the strangest part.

I do not always feel like I invent everything.

Sometimes a line arrives.

A name.

A scene.

A machine.

A feeling.

Something appears before I know what it is doing there.

Then later another piece arrives and suddenly the first one makes sense.

I have learned not to throw those things away too quickly.

I write them down.

I wait.

Sometimes they are nonsense.

Sometimes they become the center of the book.

9. Revision Is Not Failure

I used to think changing something meant I had written it wrong.

Now I think revision is where the book starts telling the truth.

The first version gets the thing onto the page.

The next version asks:

Is this actually what happened?

Or at least:

Is this the best version of what I am trying to say?

That difference matters.

10. This Is the Most Frustratingly Rewarding Thing I Have Ever Done

I have wanted to throw the whole thing away.

More than once.

Then I find one sentence that feels exactly right.

Or a character surprises me.

Or a scene suddenly locks into place.

And I remember why I started.

Writing a novel has made me more patient.

More humble.

More willing to admit when something does not work.

And considerably more suspicious of anyone who says:

“You should just write a book.”

Still—

I would not trade it.

Because somewhere between the terrible drafts, strange transmissions, plot holes, accidental discoveries, and pages I thought I had lost—

Chime became real to me.

Not finished.

Not perfect.

Real.

Maybe that is enough for now.

If you are writing your first novel too, I cannot tell you how to do it correctly.

Clearly.

But I can tell you this:

an imperfect page gives you something to work with.

An unwritten page gives you nothing.

So keep going.

The story may know more than you do yet.

— Brex



Comments

bottom of page