First Novels

On my favorite writing website, KidPub, they have a place for polls. Sometimes the polls are random (what’s your favorite color), sometimes they are for school projects, and sometimes they are about writing.

One caught my eye today: I'm writing my first story and am only on chapter 5. Should I start a second one?

That’s a question of a new writer. Even without the “first story” part. If she had taken out that fact, I would still be able to tell. It’s a newbie question. So, I’m going to put my opinion in about first novels.

I’m going to pull from professionals who supposedly got famous off of their first novels: JK Rowling (Harry Potter) and Veronica Roth (Divergent Trilogy). We all know the story of Harry Potter, and Roth’s story is pretty similar, too. Both got rave reviews for their ‘first’ novel. Why the quotation marks?

Rowling had already written two novels for adults. Roth had written another manuscript. Very, very few authors get published off of their first novel. That’s why the correct term is ‘debut’ novel. Personally, I’m on my third novel.

To give you some background: I started writing Rising Sun (or RS) when I was eleven, over two years ago. First story I ever finished that wasn’t for school, at around 45k words. I did some major editing while working on its successor.

RS was the inspiration for Hope and Fear. If you read it, at the very end, you will meet a character named Kaia. Kaia Li. (If you follow HF, guess who Kaia’s character is now.) RS was the first in a trilogy, and Lost Sun (LS) followed suit. When I finished LS in about six months at a healthy 55k words (Fastest time for a completed novel. HF is about 67k and eight months through), I halted the series for three reasons.

First of all, RS and LS looked like they had been written by two different authors, a newbie and a talented artist, respectively. RS was, well, horrible compared to what I wrote in LS. I had improved so much in writing that first novel that LS was drastically better.

Second, I realized from writing about Kaia Li’s past is that I wanted to tell her story. Not Auburn’s, Roth’s, Lujah’s, Malu’s, Lilliana’s, or all the other characters’ stories I was telling. I brought some characters over and changed their names (Roth became Rykon-part II, you won’t know him; Auburn became Faye), dropped a lot of them (Sorry, Lujah and Malu), and changed roles of some (Specifically, Zane’s, who does have the same character personality in all three, but I changed his relationships and nationality around). I also just simply changed the name of some (Haros to Swabia- ruler of Domosia), while all four of the gods stayed the same.

Third, was that I think I made it too graphic.

Anyways, I digress. The main point was that Lost Sun was so much better than Rising Sun, because I had learned the ins and outs of novel writing.

So, back to this young lady’s question:

1)      You will most likely not finish your book.

2)      Go ahead and start another one, because you will most likely not finish that one either.

3)      Start as many as you like. Just keep writing!

4)      When you are ready (usually at least three years after you start writing. It took me that long. For some, it’s six months. For others, it can take five years), stick with a story and finish it.

5)      When you finish, learn how to revise YOUR way. Everyone revises differently. Learn how to have fun revising.

6)      Start a new book. And make it a ton better.

Happy writing!

~Reine~