Dear Ally, How Do You Write a Book

by Ally Carter

  Do you write chronologically?

  Jesse Andrews Yes.

  Marissa Meyer Not usually.

  Kiersten White Always start-to-finish.

  Maggie Stiefvater I try to write as chronologically as possible, but the more complex the book, the less likely I am to guess right when the emotional beats are supposed to land.

  Dhonielle Clayton Yes!

  Z Brewer Nope. I’m a cheater. I bounce around to the fun parts, then go back and fill in the “boring” parts.

  The very first book I ever finished was one that I wrote longhand in spiral-bound NOTEBOOKS I bought at the dollar store. I think it took six of them. So there. Six bucks, plus tax. That’s how much money I had invested in my first book.

  Today, I might write longhand from time to time if I need to shake things up, but I’ve upgraded significantly in the past decade.

  I do my outline or “zero draft” in FINAL DRAFT, a leading screenwriting software, because it allows me to write action and scene descriptors and dialogue and get a really rough framework for the book down quickly.

  After that, I do all of my first drafts on a really old, really cheap, really durable word processor called an ALPHASMART. In fact, they don’t make them anymore (you can occasionally buy used versions online). I’m so dependent on my AlphaSmart that I have two extra ones because I’m so worried that if mine broke I’d never write again! Why? Because it doesn’t have Wi-Fi or email or games. It runs on regular batteries that can last, literally, for months. You can type for forever and then plug the Alphasmart into a laptop and download everything into whatever word-processing software you like.

  So that’s something that I love and rely on, but it’s in no way mandatory and it might not be for you at all.

  What is mandatory is access to a computer of some kind and MICROSOFT WORD.

  Once you start working with an editor, pretty much everything will be done in Word. That’s what your editor will use, and you’re going to be passing copies of your book back and forth for months. Word has a feature called Track Changes, which allows you to keep track of who made what edits and also leave comments to each other in the margins. It’s absolutely essential for life as an author.

  Not to mention that pretty much all other business documents are written in Word as well. So you’re going to need that to work on marketing plans, cover copy, publicity interviews, etc.

  In addition to Word, a lot of writers sing the praises of a software called SCRIVENER. It has a ton of features and can do some really neat things, and I use it occasionally myself. Specifically, Scrivener is great for reordering material, so if you want to move a scene from chapter 12 to chapter 17 and put chapter 20 where chapter 10 currently is, then Scrivener is super handy. If you think you might be writing your next book out of order, then Scrivener might very well be the perfect thing for you.

  These are a few of the things that other authors and I have found helpful, but here’s the thing: There is no software or gadget or machine that will write your book for you. Spending thousands of dollars on fancy laptops or finding the perfect pen won’t get words on the page. The right software or laptop or notebook might make writing easier or more pleasant, but believe this: The actual writing will always be up to you.

  Do you write on a computer or longhand (or other)?

  Shannon Hale Always a computer. I started writing books the year my family got our first computer, and my brain is trained to respond to the clicking of a keyboard. Also it’s frustrating for me to write longhand. Too slow! My thoughts are coming in fast!

  Marie Lu Computer.

  Melissa de la Cruz Computer.

  Daniel José Older Computer.

  Elizabeth Eulberg I brainstorm/outline by hand, write on computer.

  Julie Murphy Both!

  Stephanie Perkins Computer.

  Kody Keplinger Computer.

  Marissa Meyer Brainstorm longhand, write on the computer.

  Alex London Computer until I get stuck, then longhand to break out of a rut.

  Sarah Rees Brennan Usually a computer.

  Jesse Andrews Computer.

  Alan Gratz Computer.

  Soman Chainani Computer.

  Holly Black Computer (sometimes an AlphaSmart or the like for fast drafting).

  Kiersten White Computer.

  Maggie Stiefvater Computer. I’m not a monster.

  Zoraida Córdova Both.

  Gordon Korman Computer.

  Rachel Caine Computer all the way.

  Dhonielle Clayton Longhand.

  Eliot Schrefer Computer.

  Z Brewer Always on a computer, unless I’m scribbling notes on the back of a random envelope or Post-it.

  DEAR DANIEL JOSÉ OLDER,

  What’s your writing process like?

  I make sure I’ve eaten breakfast and have a cup of coffee in hand and some good music playing, and then I generally start with a brief entry into a writing log—it’s basically like warming up before you really jump all the way in, gets my gears turning and allows me to settle into the flow of getting words on the page without worrying too much about what those words are. I try to hit a thousand words before breaking for lunch, but I’m not too hard on myself if I don’t. Then I do some nonwriting things and go back for an afternoon session.

  What do you love about that process? What do you hate?

  I love the coming-up-with-ideas part and the seeing-them-play-out-on-the-page part, and I love when things surprise me as I’m going. I don’t outline, so it’s really fun to watch the story unravel in process. I don’t love editing. It’s just no fun at all, usually, but it’s crucial and must be taken seriously.

  “Paper is cheap.”

  “Microsoft Word files are free.”

  I put those things in quotes because … I actually said them. Every night. For about a year, as I was writing my very first book. I was so afraid, anxious, and hesitant about getting something wrong that it was easy to find myself frozen, terrified of writing another word. What if it’s the wrong word?

  But then one day I realized that paper is cheap and Microsoft Word files are free. The only thing I was risking was my time, and it was time I would have otherwise spent watching TV.

  So, really, the question was: “Is this book idea worth skipping this hour of television?” And the answer was yes.

  One of the coolest things about this business is that … well … at least in the beginning, it’s nobody’s business but yours.

  If you don’t like what you’ve written, scrap it. If you don’t think your book is good enough, write another one. You don’t have to show it to a single person or spend a single dime until you like what you’ve got.

  All you’re risking is your time.

  Now, that’s not to say that time isn’t valuable. It very much is. Between jobs and second jobs and schoolwork and sports and taking care of siblings, there are probably a lot of things competing for your time.

  But if you’re going to spend an hour staring at a blank page, terrified, you might as well spend that same hour getting something down. Even if it’s the wrong thing.

  Paper is cheap.

  Microsoft Word files are free.

  Remember what I said in the beginning: Everyone starts with dirty water. Sure, you might be writing the wrong things now. You might still be writing the wrong things six months from now.

  But the only way to get to the right things is to let the water run. Are you willing to risk an hour of your time to write something that might not be great? Because at the end of the day, that’s all you have to lose. And if you stay frozen, terrified of making a mistake, you might lose a lot more than that.

  What’s the best writing advice you ever got?

  Z Brewer Write the first draft just for you. Tell yourself a story without judging how you’re doing so. Entertain yourself. You can fix it later.

  You’ll sometimes hear people say, “Writers write every day. If you’re not writing every day, you’re not a real writer!�
�� Well then, I guess I’m not a real writer. Neither are a bunch of people I know.

  I like to say that I write by inertia. When I’m in motion, I tend to stay in motion; when I’m at rest, I tend to stay at rest. Which just means that if I’m deep into a project or on deadline or really on a roll, I’ll keep writing. For several hours a day—every day. But I might also go weeks without writing a word.

  This is something that’s going to vary immensely writer to writer. But the one thing we all agree on is this: Writers write. It doesn’t matter if you do it a little bit every day or if you have big marathon writing days a few days a month or a few months a year. It doesn’t matter when or how you write. It just matters that you do it.

  Also, for the record, writing isn’t always … writing. Some of the hardest days I have are the days when I don’t write a single word—when I just sit on the floor staring at a whiteboard all day, trying to figure out why my plot doesn’t make sense. Or there are the days when I’m scouring through research books trying to find a great setting for a scene or a fun fact to work a plot twist around.

  A day where I write 4,000 words without a bathroom break is hard. The days when I just don’t know what to write are harder.

  But both types of days matter. After all, sometimes you have to blast through five feet of mountain so that, the next day, you can lay fifty feet of track.

  Both types of days are how you eventually reach The End.

  There is always going to be something else to do. Always. Maybe it’s school. Maybe it’s another job. Or maybe it’s something good on TV or a movie or a concert you want to go see. Or sleep. Seriously. Never underestimate the power of sleep.

  Truthfully, I’m one of the lucky ones, because writing is my job now. This means not just that I don’t have another job eating up my time and energy, but also that when I say “I’ve got to write today,” my friends and family respect that—which makes it easier to find the time in a lot of ways.

  But here’s the thing that I want to make really clear: Every writer starts off writing for free.

  And every writer starts out writing on borrowed time.

  I started writing seriously when I was in college and in graduate school. I wrote even more seriously when I had a full-time job. I still had that job when I wrote my first four published books. In fact, most writers never have the luxury of writing full-time.

  I’d come home from work, exhausted, and have to ask myself: What do you want more, to watch this hour of TV or to have a novel published one day?

  So I gave up TV. (A lot. Not all.)

  What you give up will be up to you.

  So what if you literally, genuinely, don’t have the time? Between school and jobs and family responsibilities, maybe you’ve already given up TV and Netflix and hanging out with friends. If that’s the case, then I might advise you to try the notebook technique.

  My first book (which will never be published, but that’s okay) was written literally in spiral-bound notebooks during the time I had to wait at the dentist’s office and in the moments in my car when I was five minutes early for a meeting. It was written while I waited for the water to boil so I could make spaghetti for supper.

  I wrote that book on stolen time, and I know I’m not alone.

  There seems to be this idea that writers sit down on snowy days by crackling fires with old-timey typewriters and, in movie-montage fashion, bang out a perfect novel over the course of a few days of uninterrupted time.

  That’s how people write in movies.

  How people write in real life is uglier than that. It’s a heck of a lot less glamorous, and it’s a lot more sporadic.

  I have friends who have written entire novels while waiting for their kids to get out of soccer practice. I have friends who write books on the bus on their way to work. I have friends who get up at four thirty every morning and write for an hour because they know it’s the only hour they’re going to have to themselves all day.

  If you truly don’t have the time to write right now, that’s okay. You can read (or listen to audiobooks). You can think. You can pay attention to books and movies and stories and start preparing yourself for the day when you do have the time to sit down to write.

  But keep in mind that just because there isn’t a clear, obvious block of time already carved out during your day, that doesn’t mean you can’t steal a few minutes here or there.

  Maybe you’ll only be able to write 100 words a day. But I’ll tell you what I eventually told myself: If you’d been writing a little bit every day for the past two years instead of talking about writing, you might have a book by now.

  DEAR RACHEL CAINE,

  You’re one of the hardest-working writers I know. I’ll never forget watching you, laptop open, writing before book signings or in hotel lobbies. Pretty much any time I see you—you’re working. So … how do you do that? How are you so good at finding (or making) the time to write?

  It’s kind of a cliché, but you don’t find the time … you have to make the time! When I was working a regular job, I discovered that if I left for work at 7:00 a.m., I arrived at my office at 8:30 with traffic … but if I left at 5:00 a.m., I’d get to the Starbucks next to my office at 5:30 a.m., when it opened. So I carved out those three hours for myself prior to regular work time, and then I normally would stay late to write for another hour or two to avoid going-home traffic. I had a mandatory four hours on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays. But my schedule was mine. Other people like late-night writing, or writing on breaks and lunch hours. No right answer.

  As a full-timer, it’s oddly just as hard, since there are constant interruptions and (of course) temptations. But I try to mandate a solid eight hours at the computer for five days a week, four hours a day on the weekend, with occasional days off.

  This probably depends on when you’re writing, where you’re writing, and what exactly tends to distract you.

  Is it people? Maybe your siblings or your parents or your friends won’t leave you alone. Maybe procrastination itself is your distraction and you’re always finding something else you could do instead. Or maybe it’s technology, and every time you sit down to write, you get a million texts and something cool happens online.

  But do you want to know a secret? There’s always something happening online. That’s why almost every writer I know has some way of turning the internet off when they’re working. There are apps you can download that will disable the internet for however long you want it. Sometimes I will literally unplug my router if I really need to get serious.

  When I’m on deadline, I like to leave my house with all of its distractions (laundry to fold … cookies to bake …) and go to a café where I can’t get on the internet. So that’s two distractions taken care of right there. Then I put on some headphones and turn on a white noise app so that I can’t hear the conversations of the people around me. (Another distraction down.)

  Then I write like the wind. (True story: One time I was so deep in the zone that when I finished my work for the day, I looked up to find that there were two ambulances and a fire truck in the parking lot and the whole restaurant was going crazy because a man was having a heart attack twenty feet away from me. I’d had no idea!)

  You may not be able to go out to a restaurant and unplug like I can, but if writing is a priority, you’re going to have to figure out what distracts you and then come up with ways to either turn those distractions off or tell the people in your life that you need a certain amount of time by yourself, alone, to write. Then set a timer or some kind of goal and don’t get up until it’s met.

  What’s a GREAT word count day for you?

  Shannon Hale 2,500. 1,000 is more typical.

  Marie Lu 3,000.

  Melissa de la Cruz I can do 20,000 words in one night if necessary. But I try to keep to about 3,000 to 5,000.

  Daniel José Older 2,000.

  Elizabeth Eulberg 2,500 (once did 7K!).

  Julie Murphy Sometimes it’s 500. Sometimes it�
�s 3,000. I’m usually happy with anything over 1,500.

  Stephanie Perkins 500.

  Kody Keplinger 2,500. Which, for me, is about a chapter.

  Marissa Meyer 8,000.

  Alex London 2,500.

  Sarah Rees Brennan 10,000 words. Okay, 7,000 words is also pretty great.

  Jesse Andrews 1,000.

  Alan Gratz 5,000.

  Soman Chainani 1,000.

  Holly Black 2,000.

  Kiersten White 5,000 to 10,000 words.

  Maggie Stiefvater 10,000—but that’s usually when I’m at the very end of a draft and I have no more questions to answer. Normally I would be over the moon to accomplish 1,200 to 2,000.

  Zoraida Córdova 5,000.

  Gordon Korman 1,500.

  Rachel Caine 5,000.

  Dhonielle Clayton 3,000.

  Eliot Schrefer 2,500.

  Z Brewer That depends on my mood and has shifted wildly over the years. At one point, 8,000 was GREAT and 5,000 was good. Nowadays? I’d say anything over 2,000 is GREAT.

  The first thing you need to understand is that all writers is different. Some writers labor over every single word and place them lovingly and painstakingly on the page.

  Some puke up words and then fix them later. (I’m a puker. And that’s okay. That’s my process.)

  Part of being a young or new writer is figuring out what your process is going to be. Maybe you’re only meant to write 100 words a day. If you write consistently, you will have a finished book someday. I swear!

  But if you really want to write more words at a time, here are some tips and tricks that might help with that.

  1. GIVE YOURSELF PERMISSION TO WRITE BADLY. Now, some writers can never, ever do this, and that’s 100 percent okay. It’s not their process. It may not be your process. But you’re never going to be able to sit down and write thousands of words at a time if every single word has to be perfect. How do you do that? Well …

  2. DON’T EDIT AS YOU WRITE. Which may very well mean not reading or rereading as you write. Because (for me, at least) to reread means to fiddle, and to fiddle means to obsess, and to obsess means to spend an hour and a half wondering if that comma really goes there or not.