5 Mistakes I Made While Writing My First Novel

Writing your first novel? Don't do what I did.

Get Brandon's horror/thriller novel BAD PARTS:

Get Brandon's supernatural thriller novel ENTRY WOUNDS:

0:00 Intro
1:16 Too Many Characters
1:59 Avoiding Full Rewrite
3:03 Wrong Genre Label
4:18 Lengthy Opening Chapter
5:39 Cramming Ideas Into One Book
6:51 Outro

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Credit to SkyDilen for my video intro.

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[Dhips.]

I know it's really silly, but I'm worried I'll "waste" a good idea and "ruin" the story since I'll make first timer mistakes. I'm sure I'll have better ideas in the future, but it's a feeling that's hard to shake sometimes.

[authorjgamber]

Just want to say I love the way you explain things so concisely. You don't clickbait, you don't have an annoying intro, and you get right down to it and don't waste time. Huge props, man, good channel.

[Selrisitai]

Expressing the number one issue I've had with writing my novel is a charitable question, because it assumes that my problems have been reasonable enough to be quantified or compared.
1. I wrote in a narrative voice that I've never used before, in a style I've never written in before, thereby retarding the entire process.
2. I didn't study characterization enough prior to writing so I'm basically learning a very simple part of writing while trying to make a whole novel.
3. I did months of world-building that resulted in tons of stuff that I'd never use.
4. Not wanting to waste any of this world-building, I began creating more story to make use of it all, which stretched my story from what would have likely been something like 75, 000 words to now well over 200, 000 words. (Projected, I've only written around 40, 000 hitherto.)
5. To create the story, instead of asking what I wanted my characters' motivations to be and what the main conflict was, I just kept adding new plot points, new bad guys, new problems that weren't necessarily related to the primary story. Only I didn't have a "primary story, " so that would have been impossible anyway.

I'm sure there are more that I've likely suppressed to retain my sanity.

[Mr.H-YT]

The single biggest challenge I've had with my current WIP was that once I realized I simply had too much story for one book, I followed the common writing advice of dividing it into a two-part duology without realizing the reality of what that entailed.

Aside from the structural changes needed to divide one story into two, I discovered that in the traditional publishing world, you have to make the first book of a series fully stand on its own. Tossing in a cliffhanger to bridge them just wasn't going to fly (outside of self-publishing, wherein you can do whatever you want.) 

Traditional publishers don't buy a series (or a trilogy or a duology) all at once (with very rare exceptions). The first book has to demonstrate there will be an audience for future installments, so the story has to have a conclusion of some type. Figuring out how to have book 1 end in a satisfying way while still leaving hooks for book 2 that didn't feel as forced as Doc Brown running up and yelling, "But Marty, you're KIDS!" was a major progress-stopper. I think I've cracked that nut, but it's turning into pretty much a full re-write. Nearly there.

[NancySherer-tv]

This is the most helpful advice I've ever gotten. Too many characters, trying to make all my ideas fit in one story, and I will rethink my first chapter.

[JoeyZHorror]

That 5th one is so relatable. When I was much younger a few years back I only had one movie story concept and so I fit as many cool ideas I could into it. Now I happily accept my ideas thanks to the different and diverse story concepts I carry

[Blueace]

I think my biggest problem is shoehorning, the last thing you spoke on where you are forcing things in that don’t fit. I’ve learned that even as you work, it’s better to be open about what you write as it helps develop the story better and opens new doors for new subplots, characters, story arcs, etc.

[thatguy]

#1 issue writing first novel: making the ending not just a boring action sequence.

[LlamaWifeJunior]

The main thing that went wrong with my first novel was, I was fourteen, it was a Zelda fanfiction, and it sucked. The problem with the first novel I wrote that wasn't a fanfiction, an attempt at epic fantasy, was that I was sixteen, and it sucked. I wrote two sequels in the span of a couple years and then spent the next ten years trying to edit the first one into something presentable. By 2016 I somehow had a draft of an "epic fantasy" novel that was only thirty thousand words long...and completely sucked. An editor absolutely destroyed it and told me I should just choke on my poo and die because I was totally useless. Actually, she didn't say that, but she did essentially say the book sucked, and at that point I realized that I'm just not and probably never will be an epic fantasy guy. So I tried something smaller in scope, hit a dead end at about fifteen thousand words, said "I'll come back to that later", tried something else, hit another dead end, and so on three or four times...and finally decided, hey, maybe short stories are my jam. And that's turning out to be true, 'cause I've finished plenty of short stories and folks say they're pretty good. When I do finally finish a novel, my first one will almost certainly be the young adult one about an autistic girl trying to find her way in middle school while dealing with bullies and a monster from another world, because heck, that's pretty much just autobiographical, so I don't know how I can screw it up.

[ComandaKronikk]

Bro just found your channel absolutely loving it. You explain things really well. Have been applying all I've learned to my first novel :D :D

[ZwiekszoneRyzyko]

My biggest mistake when writing my first novel was believing that some good soul of an editor will simply pick it, help me promote it and offer a decent sales deal.

It never happened. I had to self-publish everything, pay for all issues and promote everything myself in hopes someone would buy it.
Despite having very positive reviews it never got any notoriety because I simply didn't have enough money for promotion and printing more issues. I tried many different publishers but nobody wants to publish a debut. You have to be already famous to get a decent deal.

And so most writers probably will fade into obscurity. It won't matter if their works are good or bad.

[WriterBrandonMcNulty]

What's the biggest thing you struggled with while writing your first novel? Let us know!

[bluecannibaleyes]

I’m 30k words into my first real attempt at a novel and I’ll probably have the same issue you did of picking a genre. I’m honestly afraid there’s probably not really much of a demand for the type of book that I’m writing anymore, as it might be kind of a dead genre. I don’t really know anything about the publishing industry and I don’t read much contemporary literature as I should, so I don’t know what’s ‘popular’ nowadays. I’m also afraid that I will run out of steam in the middle and not finish it, or that it will be too short when I get to the end. I’m writing it because it’s always been a lifetime goal of mine to be a novelist but for some reason I never have actually sat down and done it. I feel like I need to get this particular story out of my head and onto paper before I can move on with a better idea.

Your book sounds like the kind of story that’s right up my alley. I love supernatural stories and it’s mostly what I like to write as well. I’ll definitely have to check it out. :)

[chaz]

working on my first novel and this channel has helped me a lot

[edsonvieiraa]

I'm impressed with how concise you always are!

[aix]

My biggest issue I had with my first novel is that I needed my protagonist to be a psychopath (so they could use the magic system). But that meant their POV was downplaying dangerous situations, which meant it was ruining the tension in scene. After a lengthy struggle with myself, I managed to fix it by giving the MC an emoting foil character in every scene (toreact on their behalf), and by working on the POV to focus it on thoughts rather than the bodily type of emotion.

[trowa]

I've just recently finished my first novel. It's being formatted with an independent publisher but I feel like it may have been helpful to find your channel before I gave them my final draft. I really like what I've done but I'm sure there's tons to improve on. I plan to keep watching your videos and hopefully will get better. Ideally I hope to make enough money to finance more writing.

[MrTuelShed]

Found your channel a few weeks ago ish and it's awesome! My biggest struggle has been more so my own self esteem. I've had this idea for well over a decade and completely changed almost every aspect of the story save for the core themes and magic system. The thing that has kept me going is how much I love where the story is at. I have supportive friends who have helped push me as well.

[ArtemHahauz-nmbk]

Not the writer manages his or her characters, but characters manage the writer. I know it's gonna sound crazy, yet personally, I agree with this statement.

[johnvincentcomedy]

I've discussed the horror issue with a few editors. While I know they don't sell well, and I have come to accept it, I still can't for the life of me figure out why.