How I got great reviews for my self-published book

August 13, 2015 / Ryan McSwain / 10 Comments

I’ve had some people asking how I got so many quality reviews on Amazon and Goodreads for my first self-published novel, Monsters All the Way Down. It took a long time, so I’m not sure my approach was the most effective. But I’m happy to share, and I’d love to hear your own advice and comments.

I got reviews from three primary sources:

Word of mouth
Book bloggers
Amazon reviewers

Word of Mouth

If you’ve ever written anything, you know how flattering it is when people tell you they enjoyed it. Whether it’s in person, on Facebook, or on Twitter, it makes my day every time. I try to follow up my heartfelt thank-you by asking them to review the book on Amazon and Goodreads.

Don’t be a jerk about it; no one wants to be annoyed into reading your book, and that goes double for posting a review. Even if they loved your book, there are countless reasons they might not feel comfortable reviewing it. In the event they take time out of their lives to review your work, it’s time for another of those heartfelt thank-yous.

I also had a few folks contact me directly about reviewing the book. If an active reviewer is already excited about reviewing you, go for it. Since I was new to the game, I didn’t have anyone doing this to scam a free copy, but I guess it’s always possible.

Book Bloggers: The Unsung Heroes of Indie Publishing

Book blogging is a tough gig, especially if you’re willing to accept indie reviews. I’d imagine they can quickly become overwhelmed with requests from writers who aren’t ready to publish. I’m not surprised many close their gates or start charging for reviews.

I decided to go with bloggers who didn’t charge. I spent several days at my desk looking at lists of reviewers who accept indie books. Here are two example lists, and you’ll find more reviewers if you google a bit. Most of the people on the lists have their own blog, but some only do reviews.

I made a spreadsheet and went through the lists, recording all the ones currently open to submissions in the right genre. My spreadsheet listed the blog site (if applicable), the name of the reviewer, the contact information, and the submission requirements. I also had columns for whether I had sent them a request yet, if they had accepted my request, if I had sent them a copy, and if a review had been posted.

I finished compiling my spreadsheet before I sent out submissions. I would recommend just sending them as you go, because many of the reviewers were closed to submissions by the time I got back to them.

Submitting review requests felt like querying agents or publishers. Every blogger had a slightly different process. Some had weird things like mentioning the word “boomerang” in the email so they knew you read their requirements. It was a lot like that story about Van Halen having a contract that said they got a bowl of M&Ms with all the brown M&Ms removed. That way they knew people actually read the contract.

So I had a form email which I plugged reviewers’ names into, but I would also have to change it up based on their requirements. Like I said, they probably get an avalanche of requests, so be understanding that they need a way to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Some reviewers ask upfront if you’re willing to do an interview or giveaway. I always said I would be up for either one, as long as it was an eBook giveaway. I love doing interviews, since it’s a chance to talk about all the things I’ve been thinking about while writing the book. The occasional interview saves me from talking the ears right off of my loved ones.

Keep in mind, some reviewers only accept physical copies of a book. That’s fine, but the cost can add up for a self-publisher, and not every physical copy you send turns into a review. Just prioritize physical review copies, and pay attention to where reviewers are located. Sometimes it’s easier to send copies through Amazon, especially if they’re international.

Amazon Reviewers

I repeated the spreadsheet process with the top Amazon reviewers. These are folks probably get even more requests than the bloggers. Not just about books, either. From reading their profiles, they get asked to review way too many weight loss supplements. After I went through the top reviewers, I contacted a few folks who posted positive reviews in books similar to mine.

Here’s a link to Amazon’s top reviewers. Only contact the ones who say they review self-published books in your genre. I don’t remember how far down the list I went, but I had a decent return.

Paid services I haven’t tried that worked for others

I’ve heard good things about Net Galley, a service for sharing advance reader copies. It’s not cheap, but apparently returns on the investment.

There are plenty of book bloggers who offer paid services, including reviews and blog tours. Let me say up-front, I have nothing against these folks. As long as the reviews are honest and the reviewers make it clear they were compensated, more power to them. Just remember, it’s against Amazon’s TOS to pay for reviews.

Bottom Line: It Takes Time

I won’t lie to you. I was glued to my desk for a couple of weeks to send out over 450 requests. About 5% of those turned into reviews. This probably had as much to do with Monsters All the Way Down being my first published novel as it had to do with there being fewer reviewers willing to read horror. Your mileage definitely may vary.

It was tough work, but remember we’re on the same playing field as publishers who send out thousands of review copies to professional reviewers. You’re going to need to invest some serious elbow grease to get noticed.

Be sure to follow up with a thank you to anyone who posts a review, and retweet/share/plus the positive ones. Helping publicize each other is a big deal, especially for folks working with indie authors.

Hopefully this is helpful for some of you out there. And for you reviewers: thanks for all your hard work. Indie authors are lucky to have you.

What I Learned About Storytelling From the Original Twilight Zone

July 10, 2015 / Ryan McSwain / 2 Comments

There are television shows that changed the way my brain worked. The Prisoner. Twin Peaks. The Adventures of Pete & Pete.

One that wiggled into my brain early was The Twilight Zone, the original series that aired from 1959 to 1964. I would have seen it on tape and in syndication much later. In my teen years, they started running marathons on the Sci-Fi Channel. I would live in the Zone for days at a time, my life narrated by Rod Sterling.

It’s an anthology series, and each episode is a standalone story with different creators. Episodes are usually creepy, but many are heartwarming or nostalgic. The omniscient narrator, Rod Sterling, sets the stage with his trademark dry style, and he wraps it up at the end with a moral or one last attempt to give you the heebie-jeebies. Most trips through the Twilight Zone have a twist ending that sticks with you.

Sure, some episodes are duds, but The Twilight Zone has some of the best directing, acting, and writing in the history of TV. I recently watched through the entire series, and here’s what it taught me about storytelling.

It’s all about the lighting

The Twilight Zone has a distinctive look. Directors often utilize a technique called chiaroscuro lighting, which uses shadows to create shapes and tell the eye where to focus. The high contrast between light and dark looks amazing in black and white. But more importantly, it sets the tone.

Bonus dutch angle! “The Howling Man,” 1960

Lighting wasn’t the only tool in their tool box. They throw in tilted dutch angles, claustrophobic close-ups, and blaring musical cues. And all of it is used to set the tone of the scene. You might be in the dark about what’s really going on in the story, but there’s never any doubt about how you’re meant to feel.

I’m a writer, so I have my own set of tricks to move the spotlight and control the tone of a scene. Metaphor, word choice, sentence and paragraph length–there are countless ways to encourage the reader to experience the intended emotions.

Whatever your storytelling medium, don’t skimp on the lighting.

Don’t waste the budget on rubber monsters

I was flipping through channels once with my dad, and we settled on something with a flying saucer and a big rubber alien. My dad wondered if it was The Outer Limits or The Twilight Zone. I’d never seen that one before, but I said it had to be The Outer Limits. When it turned out I was right, my dad, understandably impressed at my useless talent, asked how I knew. I said, “The Twilight Zone doesn’t have rubber monsters.”

Rod Sterling had plenty of fights with the network about budget. They hired talented actors, built lavish sets, and bought great scripts. But they didn’t waste money on monsters. Rubber aliens showed up on occasion, but almost always for comedic effect. Because rubber monsters look silly.

Fortunately, we don’t see too much of this. “Mr. Dingle, The Strong,” 1961.

H.P. Lovecraft, the most ripped-off horror writer of the 20th century, said, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear. And the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” His stuff was so scary because he didn’t over-describe his beasties. He told the reader just enough so the reader could scare themselves.

One of the best examples of rubber monsters done right is Ridley Scott’s Alien. That alien is terrifying because they keep it in the shadows. There’s a deleted scene where alien is brightly lit and onscreen for way too long. Suddenly it isn’t a nightmarish killing machine. It’s a guy in a rubber suit crabwalking around.

So let the audience fill in the blanks. This doesn’t just apply to creepy crawlies or murders, either. I think the reader can think of a steamier <ahem> romantic interlude than I can write. So I set the stage and let their imagination run wild. A peek is better than an anatomy lesson. I wouldn’t do this if I were writing bodice rippers, of course, unless I wanted to give out refunds.

Wrap it all up in 22 minutes

There are five seasons of The Twilight Zone. Seasons 1,2,3, and 5 have half-hour episodes, so they’re 22 minutes without commercials. Season 4 had a one-hour time slot, so episodes were over twice as long at about 50 minutes.

One of the reasons the show is still popular is the usual short length. Rod Sterling and the other writers were able to develop an entire world of original characters between commercial breaks. This forced them to trim the fat and make every second count.

Season 4 was different. The doubled length meant padding and needless repetition. Worst of all, it gave the audience time to catch up. I can’t imagine someone getting to the end of these episodes without knowing the twist. “Oh, he was dead all along? I called that ten minutes in!”

It could have been a classic episode, but no one wants to sit through it. “Printer’s Devil,” 1963.

It’s tempting to make a story longer than it needs to be. I’m the worst about this, and I’m lucky to have a critique group to reign me in.

Cut out scenes that don’t set the tone, move the plot along, or develop characters. Combine characters when possible. Delete superfluous words. It’s hard, but sometimes you should just let a novella be a novella.

Hopefully you can benefit from my binge watching and overthinking about a fifty-year-old TV show. The whole series is available on Hulu, and everything except season 4 is on Netflix. Just stay on your guard, because not everyone makes it out of… The Twilight Zone.

Buh buh buh buuuuuh!

“How Long Does It Take to Write a Novel?”

August 18, 2014 / Ryan McSwain / 9 Comments

I got my proof copies of Monsters All the Way Down. Because of the finality of this event, it got me thinking about one of the most common questions I get asked: “How long does it take to write a novel?” I thought I might share my own experience about how long it took from a blank page to a holy-cannoli-this-is-really-happening book.

It even smells like a real book.

This is me baring my soul a bit. I know some writers can crank out a first draft in a matter of weeks, but that was not the case with me. I’ll try to keep my excuses to a minimum.

I started this book four years ago. I don’t know the exact date, but I had 11,000 words by June 24, 2010. This was a month after the birth of my son and a couple of months before I left my job for the stay-at-home dad gig. Our baby boy spent most of his time sleeping, and I could write 1,000-2,000 words on a good day. I thought I’d have the novel finished by Christmas.

Then a month passed and I only wrote 3,000 words. The next month, the word count increased by a mere 2,000. I now realized the wild optimism of my predictions. Fueled by Mountain Dew Live Wire, I wrote what I could between my son’s feedings and dirty diapers. I finished the first major section of the first draft on October 25.

As my newborn baby transformed into a bigger baby, I was writing less and less. After my wife fell asleep, I would write if I could. But as often as not, my son would wake up, so I was lying on the couch with him sleeping on my chest. We watched a lot of Cheers together during those night shifts.

I was writing in binges–this was long before I found a routine that worked for me. I finally hit the 60,000-word milestone on August 24, 2011, more than a year after I’d started. Momentum carried me to the end of my first draft on September 29. The sense of relief was overwhelming.

I starting revising and working through my supplemental file. After pulling an all-nighter, I sent out copies of my second draft to my beta reader volunteers in February, 2012. Looking back, it’s absurd I would take that step so early in the revision process. In my naiveté, I thought I was only a draft or two from a finished book. With input from my beta readers, I finished another draft by the time my daughter was born that May.

After months of wrangling a two-year-old and a newborn (and working non-stop every night on Monsters), I decided to use the summer to start another book and work on other projects. The plan was to start sending Monsters out to agents that fall, but caring for two small children is actually quite different than caring for one. I didn’t send out my first round of agent queries until February, 2013. The final product weighed in at about 86,000 words.

Without going into the details, I received exciting emails followed by disappointment. It was in March, 2014–after a four-month wait to hear that my most prospective publisher decided to pass–that I decided to self-publish my novel.

Finding a great cover artist ended up being easy, but the copy editing took longer than I expected (but the end result was worth every penny). I jumped through all the hoops, and I put a few of my short stories up for sale on Amazon and elsewhere to learn about the process. I’ll eventually blog about what I’ve learned about book layout and creating ebooks, and I’ll share some of the problems I had so that others might avoid them.

So there you have it. I expected it to take six months, but it took me three years to finish plus another year to release. There were many weeks and even a few months when I didn’t have the time or energy to work on the book at all, but finishing is worth it. If you take one thing away from this post, I want it to be: whatever your dream is, don’t give up. Even if it takes you years instead of months, don’t give up. Even if you realize the only way your work will reach your audience is if you put it out there yourself, don’t give up.

My father-in-law and I were just talking about the distance between the Want-To folks and the I-Did-It folks. I have to tell you, it feels good to sit back and say, “I did it. Guess it’s time to finish the next one.”

Ellipses . . . The Silent Killer

July 17, 2014 / Ryan McSwain / 6 Comments

We all have our pet peeves. I know a woman that can’t stand the sound of someone rubbing a balloon. My dad has this thing about poor technique in the application of Elmer’s Glue. I’ve heard some great rants about inconsistent numbering in movie sequels.

I hate ellipses in dialogue.

My hatred for this punctuation borders on the irrational. If the third person narrator starts in with the ellipses, so help me, I will pull the eject lever.

Let me be clear: I don’t want to throw out the ellipsis altogether. It serves an important purpose in quoting sources, and the ellipses has a different effect when used in the word balloons of a comic book. My rant is directed only at the use of ellipses in a narrative.

Yes, there are even times an ellipsis is the perfect choice for character dialogue. But if you’re cramming the things into formal writing outside of a source quote, please, get help before it’s too late.

Here are three of my reasons you should leave out those hideous dot dot dots.

1. Ellipses make dialogue drag

Compare these two versions of a snippet of contrived speech:

“Abigail,” Ben said, “I love you. I’ve always loved you. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. My heart—my heart has burned for you since the moment we met.”

“Abigail . . . ,” Ben said, “I love you . . . . I’ve always loved you. I . . . can’t sleep. I can’t . . . eat. My heart . . . my heart has burned for you . . . since the moment we met . . . .”

This is an exaggeration, but it demonstrates how ellipses suck the momentum out of dialogue. It also, to my surprise, made it sound like I cast Christopher Walken for the part of Ben.

If I don’t hear it in my mind as Christopher Walken or William Shatner, my mind translates it as drawing out the letters. “‘Abigailllllll,’ Ben said. ‘I love youuuuuuu.'”

Ellipses rob dialogue of momentum and urgency. They kill flow faster than mom’s spaghetti.

2. The Ellipsis is the wrong tool for the job.

Don’t get me wrong—I love dialogue that feels real. For better or worse, my favorite dialogue comes from folks like Joss Whedon and Brian Michael Bendis. I want my repartee witty, and I love false starts, stutters, and interruptions. In a perfect world, my dialogue would sound like the conversation you had with a friend that was so brilliant and funny, you curse yourself for not recording it.

But it’s incorrect to use ellipses for false starts, stutters, and being cut off. The proper punctuation in these instances is an em dash. Compare:

“Wait!” Abigail sceamed. “Ben, don’t . . .”

“Wait!” Abigail screamed. “Ben, don’t—”

In the second example, it looks like something interrupted Abigail. In the first, it sounds like Abigail had an attack of narcolepsy.

Ellipses don’t make conversations sound organic; they make your characters sound sleepy or bored. Can you imagine how frustrating it would be to talk to someone who constantly trails off?

Use em dashes sparingly, or they will lose their effect, like exclamation points in old comic books. Unless you’re the Riddler, most sentences should end in a period.

If your character is inebriated, drugged, cripplingly shy, totally indecisive, or falling asleep, maybe an ellipsis is the right choice. Otherwise, think twice.

3. Ellipses are easy to screw up

I rarely see ellipses used correctly, and I have to look up the rules every time I use them. Which of the following is correct?

“I just don’t know . . . .”

“I just don’t know…”

I just don’t know? . . .”

Here’s a quick rundown on proper ellipsis usage. and Grammar Girl has a lengthy post on the same subject. But you’ll see disagreements everywhere about best practices. Just be consistent, and let the designer of your book deal with whatever your editor doesn’t cut for being boring or incorrect.

But if you’re doing your own book design like I am, you’ll have to decide what to do about ellipses. Despite my disdain, Monsters All the Way Down has three of them. Do I put a space in front of the ellipsis? Do I type a short space between the periods? If I use the glyph will the design police come for me in the night?

It is so much easier to just leave them out.

Of course, you can take all this advice or leave it. But your writing is important, so please be deliberate in your choices.

The late, great Charles M. Schulz is the only creator I give a full pass on ellipses.

A nice write-up on the proper use of ellipses and em dashes in dialogue.

The Weekend I Built a Dream Machine

July 11, 2014April 15, 2017 / Ryan McSwain / 2 Comments

Way back when we lived in our first apartment, my wife went away for the weekend. My best buddies were all busy, so I debated how to spend this sudden influx of me-time. Eat nothing but pizza? Marx Brothers marathon? Read all of Wikipedia?

I threw on a bootleg Muppet Babies DVD and built a Dream Machine.

Thanks to David Cronenberg and Peter Weller, I’d become a bit obsessed with William S. Burroughs. This led me to a device designed by his friends Brion Gysin and Ian Sommerville. Gysin thought the dreamachine would find its way into every home, as ubiquitous as a television set.

The hardest part about building my dreamachine was finding a cheap record player that played at 78 rpm (I have a decent turntable now, but I wouldn’t use it for a dreamachine–it might damage the motor). Most thrift store turntables only play 33 1/3 and 45 rpm, which will work but doesn’t look as cool. My mom was the one to find me an old school record player–“old school” as in 1970s public education–and the rest was just elbow grease.

Everything I used to build my machine:

Basic tools: craft blade, large flat piece of cardboard, electrical tape, large t-square , card stock, screwdriver

1. 78rpm turntable

2. 34″x32″ craft butcher paper

3. Thrift-store lamp

4. Light bulb cord and bulb

My wife supplied me with the black butcher paper. Following plans from the internet (check the links at the bottom), I created a grid with a t-square and used my card stock stencil patterns for the shapes. The most expensive part of the whole project was getting the thing laminated for stability. I met with some resistance on that step–the folks at the Kinko’s worried my paper might get torn up in the machine. If I built another one, I’d use a sturdier material that wouldn’t need lamination.

The lamp portion came from a thrift store, and I was able to connect it to the turntable through the tonearm hole (hence the need for a screwdriver to open up the turntable). The bulb hangs from a short light bulb cord, available at any hardware store. At one point the inside of the column was coated with sparkly wrapping paper, but it has long since come unstuck. Electrical tape holds the column together and keeps it on top of an old polka record.

You use the machine by leaning in quite close with your eyes closed. The spinning column causes the light to pulse at the right frequency, which you can adjust by the height you’re looking and the turntable speed adjustment. With your eyes closed, you see fractals and other shapes, much like when your rub your eyes. Worth the effort? I think so. It’s great for getting in the mood to write. And not only is it relaxing and meditative, it makes for a great conversation piece. It’s nice to combine it with headphones and some Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream, or Portishead.

My buddy Dustin Taylor took this photo during my author photo session.

(WARNING: Obviously, flashing lights can be dangerous for some people, such as those with epilepsy. Never turn this thing on before checking with everyone.)

Resources for building your own dreamachine:

http://www.noah.org/science/dreamachine/

http://ultraculture.org/blog/2013/11/27/build-dream-machine/

Also of interest:

FlicKer, a full documentary about the Machine available on Youtube and Amazon Prime.

Excerts from The Flicker, a 1965 film by Tony Conrad with a similar effect. This one is viewed with the eyes open.

At the time I built my machine, I couldn’t find the column to purchase at a reasonable price. It looks like now you can get them here (US) and here (UK). I’m unaffiliated with these stores, and have no idea about the quality.

How I Make Time to Write as a Stay-at-Home Parent

June 24, 2014 / Ryan McSwain / 4 Comments

I read plenty of articles on establishing a writing routine. Unfortunately, the majority should have a disclaimer: “Irrelevant to parents of young children.”

My last job left me feeling burned out, so when the time came to decide what to do about our first-born, I volunteered to stay home. I reasoned that I would finally have the time and the mental energy to write.

This actually worked for the first few months I stayed at home. I wrote a good chunk of the first draft of Monsters All the Way Down during that time, and I thought I would be able to write and edit one book every year before my children started school. Even with the many long nights and the stress of being a new parent, it was one of the most pleasant autumns of my entire life.

It didn’t last.

I later found out most people thought I was either lying about staying home to write–“He just doesn’t like going to work”–or believed I was crazy to think I’d have any extra time. As soon as my son stopped sleeping most of the day, the time I had to write–and clean, and breathe, and think–disappeared. I’ve met writers who could write with their children running and screaming in the same room with them. Unfortunately, I am not one of those parents.

Free parenting advice: ear plugs take the edge off and add years to your life. You’ll still be able to hear your little angels screaming bloody murder.

I finished the first draft of Monsters and revised it over the course of a hundred inefficient late nights. Some nights, after my family went to bed, I would sit down at my desk and cry, because I knew I was too exhausted to write anything.

After giving up on burning the candle on both ends, I tried working during the evenings after my wife got home from work. That wasn’t fair to her, and even though she didn’t say anything, I could tell how frustrating it got for her after even one night of coming home from work and then being totally in charge of the kids all evening while I sat in my office. So I went back to writing at night.

Of course, taking care of the kids all day and sitting at my desk all night was unsustainable. It took me too long to realize I’m not a very good dad when I’m exhausted. I’m grumpy, stressed, and not fun to be around. This also wasn’t fair to anyone, especially to my kids.

My writing came to a standstill as I got my parenting back on track. But this presented a problem, too. Like many people that love to create, I feel lost and–let’s face it–depressed when I’m not making anything. I still needed a routine that let me care for my kids but also gave me creative time to look forward to.

My solution is Sunday is my Writing Day, and I can’t express how much it has helped me. On Sundays, I get a full work day’s worth of writing. It only works because my amazing wife is supportive, and I’d like to think it’s a good way to make the most out of a difficult situation.

If you’re a single parent trying to write, you are my superhero. I can only hope you have a support system of family and friends to help you by watching kids for if you want to try a weekly Writing Day.

Is writing one day a week ideal? Not for me, but it’s better than the other alternatives I’ve tried. If you’re a stay-at-home parent struggling to make time to write, you might want to try staking a claim on one day a week to be your Writing Day. Here are some pointers, most of which I’m still working on myself:

Can’t do a full day? Try scheduling two regular evenings a week
Remember that your writing priorities are not shared by others. Be understanding, but be selfish with your Writing Day. In return, give your time to your family freely the rest of the week.
Take care of business, but remember there will always be something you could be doing other than writing. Things will keep.
Sometimes things come up that are more important than your writing day. Be mature about it and remember there will be other days to write.
If you have a Writing Day to look forward to, there’s no reason not to handle as many chores as possible the other days of the week. (I really need to work on this one!)
When you are having a tough time, remember that you have a Writing Day coming up. This has totally changed my outlook on bad days.
Headphones or ear plugs help drown out the sound of noisy children during your Writing Day.
If something comes up that makes you miss your usual day, do everything you can to reschedule it to a different day that week.
Even if you aren’t an outliner by nature–I’m not–you can make use of smaller outlines to better utilize your writing time. If I have a complicated section or scene coming up, I outline in my spare moments throughout the week so I can make the most out of Sunday.
During the week, find writing-related activities you can do with your children around, like reading good books, working on a blog, or building up your Twitter followers.
Utilize a mobile supplemental file to keep track of those beautiful ideas you have outside your Writing Day.
Get plenty of sleep the night before, so you can get an early start. (This is another big one I need to work on!)
Set realistic goals. My last project was somewhat complex, so my goal was 3,000-5,000 words a session. I didn’t always meet it, but I always tried!
A to-do list is important for those days you need to accomplish more than writing as much as possible.
Any good advice that applies to a daily writing routine applies: eliminate distractions, have a clean work area, be productive, don’t look back.
Be the best parent you can be. It might be hard to believe, but your kids are more important than any book.

Setting aside one day a week to write is difficult, and don’t develop any delusions about this being the perfect solution for busy parents. But it has already helped me work toward publishing one book, finish the first draft of another, and finish several short stories. Hopefully it will work until I go back to work or my kids start school.

Watching a book grow by only 3,000 to 5,000 words a week is difficult, but it beats your novel not growing at all. Don’t give up!

I usually tweet about my Sundays with the hashtag #SundayIsMyWritingDay.

What are your methods for finding time to write? Please share below.

One Trick That Helps Me Finish First Drafts

June 18, 2014 / Ryan McSwain / 12 Comments

I’ve shared this with other writers before, and I’ve been told it was helpful. For some it might seem obvious, and I’m sure some variant is standard operating procedure for many. Still, this technique is a primary reason I’m able to finish my awful first drafts. I use it for both short stories and novels, and I’m sure you’re clever enough to find more applications.

Years ago, I was newly married and attending graduate school–perfect time to start a novel, right?

I obsessively outlined the entire book. I wrote and rewrote the first chapter a dozen times. When I finally made progress, I went back and rewrote that first chapter again and again.

I’m still married, and eventually I graduated. But I never finished the first draft of that novel.

We could argue it was the wrong time to start a book, or my detailed outlines killed my creativity. After all, I knew how it ended, so where was the fun in getting to the end? But this post isn’t “Outlining vs. Flying by the Seat of your Pants.”

Back at the time, I was obsessed with the story of Orpheus. For the unfamiliar, Orpheus descended into the underworld to rescue his lost love, Eurydice. He’s told she will follow him back to the surface as long as he doesn’t look back. Just before he reaches the surface, he doubts and turns around, only to see Eurydice disappear back into the abyss.

These themes even worked their way into my unfinished book–but I never made the crucial connection. Just like Orpheus, I was doomed because I kept looking back.

If only he had finished his first draft!

To avoid this terrible end, I stopped looking back.

That’s very poetic, Ryan, you’re thinking. It brings a tear to my eye. But it doesn’t tell me anything. Everyone knows you have to press on through your first draft, but how did you do it?

I make a supplemental file for every short story and novel. I use Google Drive, a free service. One Note is another free option, and you may already have it on your computer. Use whatever works for you. I use Drive because it’s simple and allows me to access the file from any computer or my phone. I name my files “(Title of story) – Supplemental.”

The supplemental file is for all the things I want to go back and change, my ideas for scenes I haven’t written yet, and anything else I need to remember but I’m not writing into the novel that instant. You can also delete a section from the story but stick it in the supplemental file if you want to hold onto it.

Brilliant idea while standing in line? Put it in the file. Finishing chapter 10 but realize the perfect way to reorder the first three chapters? Put it in the file. I type it in right away, before I have a chance to forget. Middle of the night, middle of a meal, doesn’t matter. I know better than to believe I’ll remember, and a grand idea once forgotten is an immeasurable loss.

How does the supplemental file change the game? It keeps me from meddling until the first draft is done. I finish the first pass and then work through the supplemental file, making those changes one at a time.

I’ve just started revisions on another novel, and today was a perfect examples of the supplemental file’s power at work.

I realized, fifty pages into the first draft, one male character should be female. In the old days, I would have gone back and changed what had come before to make the draft cohesive. But that way lies only madness. Instead I made a note in my file: “Change childhood friend to a girl.” I named her and kept on writing as if she had been in the book all along.

Today I returned to the completed draft and changed the character in those earlier sections with ease, without losing any of my sweet, sweet momentum. What could have cost valuable writing time instead made these early revisions a treat.

During revisions, I prioritize the changes I still want to make–I usually do the largest changes first. I highlight entries in the file once I’ve implemented them and use strikethroughs to show ideas I’ve discarded. This way I remember what’s taken care of and hold onto discards in case I change my mind a second time.

This process might go against the general advice to trim at least 10% off your first draft. If it helps, consider additions made with the supplemental file to be part of Draft 1.5. After making your supplemental changes, then you can start cutting and tightening everything up.

Using a supplemental file accomplishes at least three things:

You plow through the first draft without losing momentum.
You don’t forget those beautiful ideas.
You don’t waste time going back to cram in terrible ideas.

It’s also good practice to keep a separate character file and, if necessary, a world building file. And don’t forget to back up your supplemental files often; they’re nearly as important as your first draft, and you should back up your first draft after every writing session.

I hope this post has been helpful and encouraging. Do you have any advice for cranking out a first draft? If so, please share in the comments below.

Remember, don’t be like Orpheus. Don’t look back. Keep looking forward to your success.

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