Welcome! And congratulations! If you’re reading this, you are about to begin a creative journey that can bring satisfaction and a deepening sense of purpose and fulfillment to your life for years to come.
In this article, I’ll cover how to start writing a book and offer some guidance and tips on how to make the process as clear and enjoyable as possible.
This guide breaks down how to start writing a book by turning challenges into more clear, manageable steps, from finding your idea to building a sustainable writing habit. Focus on building momentum and your own confidence so you can move from the ideas in your head to your first draft.
Clearing obstacles before you start writing
To shorten the distance between you and that first full page of words, let’s do our best to remove any hurdles in the way. Here’s a list of the most common obstacles to starting your book and how you can address them:
Accepting self-doubt
The truth is, you’re not really the author, you’re the channel for the story that wants to be told through you. Have you ever felt like you were “in the zone?” Whether you were holding court at a party, or giving a speech or playing a sport, it just felt like you could do no wrong, like you were soaring. You were at one with the universe.
The irony is that when you accept self-doubt, you let go of having to do it right. And it is from this place that you connect to what makes your work universally relatable. By letting go of the need to do it right, you move in the direction of becoming a channel for the story that wants to be told through you.
Don’t worry about spelling, grammar, punctuation or syntax in your first draft. Just get your story down. (I will include some free story structure and dilemma resources at the bottom of this article to help you get started.)
As you begin, and even as you approach the end of your manuscript, a sense of imposter syndrome may continue to rear its ugly head. Your job is not to get rid of it, or make too much meaning out of it, but accept it, and even inquire into this nagging feeling, as it often has something to tell you. Even for the most seasoned writers, self-doubt is actually a necessary aspect of the process that is always guiding us to our true north.
Permission to write poorly
We all want to write sentences like Nabokov and complex characters like Steinbeck. It can be easy to hamstring yourself by “trying too hard” or putting pressure on yourself to write especially well.
Before you begin, give yourself permission to write poorly. You don’t have to nail the exact word choice or commit yourself to the color of dress your protagonist is wearing. These are all details for you to revisit in the rewrite. When you start writing, your goal is just to get to the next sentence.
As Toni Morrison says:
When you first start writing — and I think it’s true for a lot of beginning writers — you’re scared to death that if you don’t get that sentence right that minute it’s never going to show up again. And it isn’t. But it doesn’t matter — another one will, and it’ll probably be better. And I don’t mind writing badly for a couple of days because I know I can fix it — and fix it again and again and again, and it will be better.
Make it a habit
One of the best gifts you can give yourself is to protect a few hours every week to be at your writing desk.
You have to pick up the kids between 2:30-3 p.m., there’s that meeting on Monday mornings, and that appointment on the 5th. Writing won’t pencil in an hour for itself on your calendar if you don’t protect that time.
Even if you just show up to that block of time and write a simple paragraph, that space will allow your imagination to flourish. It’s an act of self care. Brew your favorite coffee and make yourself comfortable. Bit by bit, you’ll find yourself writing.
Eliminate distractions
When you reach that window of time where you’ve promised to write, treat yourself like you would a child with ADHD. Close all the tabs on your computer, set your phone to silent, and (if you like listening to music when you write) put on some peaceful instrumental tunes.
You’ll find the instinct to reach for a dopamine hit comes often in the first few minutes, but gradually subsides. Boredom is good! It’s only when you run out of options that you start to write.
“Every time you finish something . . . you figure you’ve finally learned to write, right? Then you start something else and it turns out you haven’t. You have learned how to write that story, or that book, but you haven’t learned how to write the next one.”
– Grace Paley
Pitfalls to avoid
Talking about your book
When you first start a story, it’s a fragile thing. The nascent idea has been growing in your subconscious mind for some time and requires a delicate touch to surface in the conscious world. Try to avoid talking about your story until the first draft is complete. If you can do that, you’ll preserve the magic of the creative moment. Allow yourself to roam in your imagination. You get to have a delicious secret, just for you and the inner artist in you that always wondered if you were a writer all along.
Going in blind
Though it can be tempting to think that authors just start on the first page of the book and end on the last, you’ll find the writing process much easier if you create an outline first. Give yourself time to flesh out characters, imagine them in different situations, and ultimately come up with new aspects to your story you hadn’t considered before (even if you don’t end up using them). All of this will nourish your creative flow.
Don’t edit
One of the biggest traps for a new writer is the urge to edit while you’re working on the first draft. It’s so tempting to just clean up the work you did previously, and it’s much easier than writing new material.
On the first draft of your story, write like the wind and don’t look back. You needn’t worry about the language or the plotholes you’ve almost certainly created. Editing as you go along will only delay the goal of finishing that first draft.
Your story weapon: Embrace your fears
Even with these tips in mind, it may still feel daunting to start writing. Don’t let it discourage you!
Here’s a writing exercise:
Write for two minutes, beginning with: “I’m afraid to write this book because . . .”
Go ahead and make a list of all the fears that arise.
Well done!
What did you notice? If you’re writing a story, you may begin to see that the fears you have in writing your story are identical in nature to the fears that your protagonist has in the story.
Isn’t that interesting?
Do you see how your fears are ironically the thing that make you uniquely qualified to write your story? Writing is a process of learning to trust yourself. Have fun. Be gentle with yourself. Approach writing like you are a child playing in the sandbox, and simply allow the thrill of creation to be your reward.
Here are some free resources to explore that will help you get started. Happy writing!
FREE STORY STRUCTURE GUIDE: Are you struggling with your outline and looking for support? My FREE Story Structure Guide will lead you through the process of marrying the wildness of your imagination to the rigor of structure to unlock your story within.
FREE STORY DILEMMA GUIDE: Every great story begins with a dilemma. If your plot feels unfocused or your tension falls flat, this FREE Dilemma Guide will help you identify, explore, and sharpen your protagonist’s central dilemma to reveal the most dynamic version of your story.
