How to start writing a novel – authors share how they did it

‘When I was growing up, I didn’t personally know any novelists. I was an avid reader. I loved books. When friends visited my house and saw the bookshelves lining the walls of my bedroom, they asked the question that every bookworm has heard at least once, “Have you actually read all these books?” I would respond with a very quiet, “Yes.”

‘I was a little embarrassed by my voracious reading habit, so I didn’t mention that I’d read some of my books more than once.

‘At one point, in high school, I had the thought: I could write something like that. But it remained a thought, a fantasy.

‘It can be very difficult to imagine a career when you have no models. In my mind, most writers were dead. Even the contemporary living writers were people who lived on another planet, far away from my relatively quiet hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. So, I told my family and friends I wanted to go to law school. That was a clear path, one that everyone could envision for a little girl who loved books.

‘In my freshman year at Harvard, I was still dreaming of becoming a writer. I shared my secret passion with my roommate Susie Reiss who was already a talented visual artist, and she strongly encouraged me to write. Her encouragement meant a lot to me, and I published my first short story that year.

‘The best part of that first publication was that I was paid for it. That was the beginning of my belief that a writing career might be possible.

‘By the time I graduated college, I had the reading foundation and the belief, but I lacked the writing skills. I needed to learn my craft.

‘Some musicians call it the woodshedding years, when a musician disappears into a private room, the metaphorical woodshed, to practice difficult pieces on their instruments. I spent years in the writing woodshed, studying creative writing and literature in graduate school, and working on what the writer Charles Johnson has called “apprentice manuscripts.”

‘I sold my first book in 2008, and my greatest reward of that time was that my father was alive to see it. He said one of his greatest joys was walking into the bookstore and seeing my book on the shelf.

‘As my imagination expanded, and I came to understand writing as a viable career path, my father had also expanded his own belief in what was possible. To this day, I always tell everyone that we are only limited by our imaginations.’

Ore Agbaje-Williams 

Author of The Three of Us, coming 2023

‘When I was moving out of my parents’ house, rediscovering old hidden items from childhood and laughing at the very cringeworthy content in notebooks, I found old stories written when I was younger, some that were just terrible, and some that were hilariously terrible, but all of which reminded me that I had loved storytelling for a long time.

‘I can’t remember exactly when I started writing them down, but I remembered that I used to make up stories for my sister and I at night with our doors open as we tried to fall asleep, and imagined that that’s probably where it all began.

‘Over the years I’ve written since, a short story or poem here, a few chapters of a novel I now laugh at and some flash fiction there, and never really thought much of it until I thought more about the idea of being a writer and got a literary agent.

‘My agent and I went through multiple ideas. Some okay, most terrible, until I realised that I was writing what I thought other people would enjoy. As my main job is as an editor, I’m so used to looking for things that tap into a lucrative market, so I found myself writing for other people/the market rather than finding what my writing voice was and working with that.

‘Once I realised that I’d been writing for the wrong person and I discovered an idea and a voice that worked for me, I found the writing process so much more enjoyable.

‘I still contend with the idea that I’m not “literary enough” or generally good enough, but I try to remind myself that as long as I’m comparing myself to others I won’t enjoy what I’m doing, and that as long as I’m enjoying it, that’s all that matters.’