Here’s an article I just wrote for a writers’ newsletter.  If you’re an aspiring author, maybe you’ll find it useful advice:

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Once a year, Michael Palmer and I teach a course together, aimed at doctors who want to become novelists.  Both Michael and I are physicians as well as thriller writers, we’re both amateur musicians, and we both share a lot of common interests, so you might assume that we approach the writing of our novels in the same way.  We take turns telling the class how we write.  Michael explains that he very meticulously plots out his stories ahead of time.  He maps out what will happen, chapter by chapter, before he even begins to write.  This outlining process may take him as long as half a year, but when he finally sits down to write the actual book, he can fly through the story.  He won’t get trapped in blind alleys, he won’t suffer from writer’s block, and he won’t have to face endless re-writes to make the story hang together.  He’s already done the foundation work, and he finds the writing itself a joy.

 
After Michael finishes, it’s my turn to get up and talk about how I write my books.  By now, the class is probably expecting me to echo everything Michael has just said.  We’re all doctors, after all. We think of ourselves as logical and methodical, and when you’re about to embark on the yearlong journey of writing a book, it only makes sense to know ahead of time where you’re going. 

 
So they’re probably surprised when I stand up at the lectern and tell them that I write my books an entirely different way.  I have no idea where my story will take me when I sit down to write the first page.  I don’t do character sketches and I don’t do outlines.  I’m forced to come up with a three-page synopsis for my editor (just so my publisher can start planning the cover design) but more often than not, my final story will end up completely different from the one I promised.  If this sounds like a chaotic way to write a book, it is.  It means I write myself into corners.  It means characters will suddenly transform into other people halfway through the first draft.  It means I spend many sleepless nights trying to figure out how to fix a story that’s gone off the rails.  It means I may suffer from weeks and weeks of writer’s block.  It means I spend months on the re-writes.  But it’s the only way I’ve ever been able to write my books, and even though I wish I could do it Michael’s way, I find that I just can’t write an outline.  Or, if I do, the book turns out different anyway.

 
What Michael and I are trying to teach our students is this: There is no correct way to write a book.  His way works for him; my way works for me.  And if a writing instructor ever tells you that your method is wrong, my advice is this: ignore him and just write your book. 

 
It’s taken me years to learn this lesson.  When I was starting out, I’d go to writers’ classes and hear that the only way to write a book is to use an outline, and I’d get panicked because I couldn’t write a decent outline.  Or I’d learn that I have to write elaborate character sketches ahead of time, and I’d dutifully write the sketches, only to end up with characters meticulously described right down to their charming dimples and freckles, but utterly lifeless on the page.  I discovered that I never really know my characters until I’ve written the whole book anyway, because characters are like people; it takes many conversations and many weeks of spending time with them to know who they really are.  Relying only on a character sketch is like getting to know someone through her college application.  You know all her vital statistics, but you don’t really know who she is until she actually arrives on campus.

 
After twenty years of writing, I think the best advice I can give a new novelist is this: find the method that’s comfortable for you, and use it.  And don’t apologize. 

 
I, for instance, have never been able to compose fiction at a keyboard.  I have to use a pen (never pencil) and paper (always unlined) to write my first drafts.  I can write nonfiction at the computer, as I’m doing right now, but every time I try to write a novel on the computer, I end up blocked and frustrated.  I envy people who can pound out a first draft on the keyboard, who don’t have to go through the additional step of typing in their handwritten words.  Other writers think I’m a dinosaur.  My editor, who’s accustomed to getting a peek at her authors’ first drafts, knows that she’ll never get a peek at mine because it’s in pen and paper, and no one except maybe a pharmacist can read my handwriting. 

 
I’ve learned to accept that my first draft will be horrible, and that I’ll have to set aside enough time to fix the problems.  I’ve learned that there’s no point in being a perfectionist the first time through, because much of the story will change in later drafts. 

 
I’ve learned that the most important thing is to keep the story moving forward.  Even if I realize that the story’s taken a sudden turn and I’ll have to go back and re-write three chapters to make the plot work, I just keep moving ahead.  Only when I’ve written THE END do I allow myself to go back and fix things.  The consequence is that anyone who sees my first draft may think they’re reading a half dozen different books spliced together.  Characters’ names will suddenly change midway through (because I decide that I really didn’t like that name Olaf anyway.)   Once, after writing about a third of a manuscript, I changed a character’s sex from male to female.  Did I bother to go back and revise the early chapters?  No.  I just kept writing, using the character’s new gender. 

 
Nothing in a first draft is set in stone.  It can all be changed before anyone else sees it.  And that’s a very comforting thought.

 
Experienced writers will find my advice a no-brainer because they’ve already figured out what works best for them, and they’ve learned to accept what may seem to others to be a uniquely quirky process.  But for beginning writers, the writing itself may fill them with anxiety because they’ve heard there’s a “right” way to do it, and they think that success is all about the process.  It isn’t.  Success is all about creating a great story with unforgettable characters, and whatever way you do it is the right way.