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re: Writing my first novel
Posted on 6/17/26 at 11:46 pm to GreenRockTiger
Posted on 6/17/26 at 11:46 pm to GreenRockTiger
I finally finished the outline of the final 3rd of the book.
Finished the first chapter today on the ending arc. Roughly 30K words to go.
Final initial draft will be 120-130K.
Finished the first chapter today on the ending arc. Roughly 30K words to go.
Final initial draft will be 120-130K.
Posted on 7/7/26 at 8:29 am to MasterKnight
quote:
Any feedback is welcome. Thank you
J/K. I really like the premise, and am interested in checking it out once it is published.
Posted on 7/20/26 at 2:06 pm to GreenRockTiger
Just finished my 6th revision. Ran it thru multiple AI programs and received high marks (taking it with grain of salt). I took a writing course and the instructor (a published author) told me I write smooth and beautifully. Said I have a strong protoganist and story to work with and the novel has commercial sound.
Have queried 20 literary agents so far. Hopefully one can ask for full manuscript. If not, I'll query 20 more agents and repeat if necessary until 1 likes my manuscript. My 6th revision has 100,600 words. More of a psychological thriller.
One sentence to convey the story :When an old courtroom victory comes back as a deadly trap, Chris Tracker must race through Washington’s elite circles to find the truth before a corrupt Navy power player erases everyone who can connect him to the killing.
While waiting for responses, I'm starting on 2nd novel. Have ideas for books 3 and 4 outlined also.
Have queried 20 literary agents so far. Hopefully one can ask for full manuscript. If not, I'll query 20 more agents and repeat if necessary until 1 likes my manuscript. My 6th revision has 100,600 words. More of a psychological thriller.
One sentence to convey the story :When an old courtroom victory comes back as a deadly trap, Chris Tracker must race through Washington’s elite circles to find the truth before a corrupt Navy power player erases everyone who can connect him to the killing.
While waiting for responses, I'm starting on 2nd novel. Have ideas for books 3 and 4 outlined also.
Posted on 8/4/26 at 7:12 am to LSUAlum2001
Tips:
1. Don't use AI, it will kill your voice, and your voice is the most important thing.
2. The first draft is fun to write and creative but it's always garbage. Don't show anyone your first draft.
3. The second draft is a marathon. This takes the longest and is the most un-fun part of the writing process. You're re-ordering events, fixing characters. Adding characters. Renaming characters. Deleting chapters, adding chapters. All to make a coherent story.
4. The third draft is mechanical. Fixing your compound adjectives, removing weak words. Arranging your paragraphs.
5. This is the part where you hire an editor. I recommend Victory Editing. They will shred your novel, but you'll learn a lot.
6. Here is where you decide if you'll self-publish or query. It all depends on how marketable your book is. If someone thinks they can sell it, querying will work. If it's weak or is a vanity project, self publishing is the way to go. You'll need a professional cover design.
Good luck. Premise is good, story looks fun. It's all in the execution.
1. Don't use AI, it will kill your voice, and your voice is the most important thing.
2. The first draft is fun to write and creative but it's always garbage. Don't show anyone your first draft.
3. The second draft is a marathon. This takes the longest and is the most un-fun part of the writing process. You're re-ordering events, fixing characters. Adding characters. Renaming characters. Deleting chapters, adding chapters. All to make a coherent story.
4. The third draft is mechanical. Fixing your compound adjectives, removing weak words. Arranging your paragraphs.
5. This is the part where you hire an editor. I recommend Victory Editing. They will shred your novel, but you'll learn a lot.
6. Here is where you decide if you'll self-publish or query. It all depends on how marketable your book is. If someone thinks they can sell it, querying will work. If it's weak or is a vanity project, self publishing is the way to go. You'll need a professional cover design.
Good luck. Premise is good, story looks fun. It's all in the execution.
Posted on 8/20/26 at 12:25 am to MasterKnight
Let me know if you need help editing/formatting. I freelance. I've worked on several self-published works.
I also self-published my 1st novel this year.
They're still be MAJOR pushback from traditionalists if AI is used at all. The use of AI to even translate foreign dialog is frowned upon. Make sure you're using it only to find spelling errors or as a thesaurus. I have edited multiple books and I would guess 20-40% of these excerpts are heavy AI-assisted. If I had to guess, I'd say Claude AI.
Not knocking it at all. I actually want to read more.
I also self-published my 1st novel this year.
They're still be MAJOR pushback from traditionalists if AI is used at all. The use of AI to even translate foreign dialog is frowned upon. Make sure you're using it only to find spelling errors or as a thesaurus. I have edited multiple books and I would guess 20-40% of these excerpts are heavy AI-assisted. If I had to guess, I'd say Claude AI.
Not knocking it at all. I actually want to read more.
This post was edited on 8/20/26 at 1:04 am
Posted on 8/31/26 at 9:36 pm to Refrigeraider
I concur about not using AI if your goal is traditional publishing. Agents are shying away from AI, and as of August 5th, AI programs are using watermarks so publishers know if a book was fed into AI.
Lots of great articles on Substack.
Also, I would recommend using Querytracker if you’re subbing to agents. You can cold query to agents open to subs and keep track of response times.
Good luck!
Lots of great articles on Substack.
Also, I would recommend using Querytracker if you’re subbing to agents. You can cold query to agents open to subs and keep track of response times.
Good luck!
Posted on 8/31/26 at 10:27 pm to augustbengal
Is that where you read about the AI watermarks? I hadn't seen that.
Posted on 9/3/26 at 3:01 am to MasterKnight
I’m definitely in for a copy. Sounds right up my alley. Please keep us posted and drop a link when ready.
Posted on 9/3/26 at 9:36 pm to Refrigeraider
Yes. They announced it was starting on August 5th, I believe.
I follow The S**T No One Tells You About Writing podcast and the two agents have been discussing AI ad nauseam. But then again, all the publishing world is after 7 figure contracts were withdrawn due to AI.
As an author it’s scary to me. My books (17 of them) were fed into Claude to help create AI. So I keep thinking that if my publisher (I have a new one) fed my book into a program to check for AI, would it register as AI if they used my books with my voice, syntax, verbiage to create it? Makes me a bit nervous with books being pulled.
I follow The S**T No One Tells You About Writing podcast and the two agents have been discussing AI ad nauseam. But then again, all the publishing world is after 7 figure contracts were withdrawn due to AI.
As an author it’s scary to me. My books (17 of them) were fed into Claude to help create AI. So I keep thinking that if my publisher (I have a new one) fed my book into a program to check for AI, would it register as AI if they used my books with my voice, syntax, verbiage to create it? Makes me a bit nervous with books being pulled.
Posted on 9/4/26 at 8:03 pm to augustbengal
Couldn't agree more. My friend used AI to check for spell checks, and simple grammar errors. And apparently because he used em dashes in his writing that means he must've used AI? I'm still not even sure what that even means. There are em dashes in the Bible and every other book I've ever read.
The book my friend published was a great story. And he's written a sequel, but he wanted to do a rewrite but he's worried that the rewrite won't be viewed as "his voice" and he'll be accused of using AI.
The book my friend published was a great story. And he's written a sequel, but he wanted to do a rewrite but he's worried that the rewrite won't be viewed as "his voice" and he'll be accused of using AI.
Posted on 9/5/26 at 11:22 pm to Refrigeraider
I keep hearing that em dashes are indicative, but they exist for a reason. And I happen to like them. But I have never used AI to write a book. I will, however, use it for other things, like marketing. It was super helpful in helping me get content for my new website. If I want readers to find my books, I need SEO and GEO to find me. And most people will use AI to look for books and authors similar to those they like. Which means I’d be an idiot to not use AI to help AI bring me readers. Well, at least to my site.
But I understand your friend’s hesitation. The pendulum has swung against AI but it will have to correct. And publishers (and booksellers)need to spell out what is acceptable use of AI. Indie writers will likely want to do the same. It protects the integrity of our work.
But I understand your friend’s hesitation. The pendulum has swung against AI but it will have to correct. And publishers (and booksellers)need to spell out what is acceptable use of AI. Indie writers will likely want to do the same. It protects the integrity of our work.
Posted on 9/16/26 at 8:44 pm to augustbengal
AI is a tool, it will not distroy your voice. You just have to read it closely and make sure it does not change your intend. There nothing better for quick typesetting than running it through an AI engine.
Advice, train your ai in the voice you want to use, its not hard. Go grab examples of your writing. Feed it in. Say write in my voice.
Then you give it a topic, like the flying spaghetti monster have it write 300 words. See how close and tweak from there.
I have different AI voices I trained. Some are straight grammar, I have a formal announcement voice. etc.. It all depends on how you train it.
Advice, train your ai in the voice you want to use, its not hard. Go grab examples of your writing. Feed it in. Say write in my voice.
Then you give it a topic, like the flying spaghetti monster have it write 300 words. See how close and tweak from there.
I have different AI voices I trained. Some are straight grammar, I have a formal announcement voice. etc.. It all depends on how you train it.
This post was edited on 9/16/26 at 8:46 pm
Posted on 9/26/26 at 10:09 pm to FreddieMac
I just can’t risk using AI for any of my writing. I can use it for other tasks, but the actual writing won’t happen for me. I have a contract I don’t want to lose, and publishing houses have been pulling offers because of suspicion of AI.
But I think AI has some great uses and some writers use it for their actual writing. Each to their own in that regard. But I’ll stick with the “old-fashioned” way when it comes to my actual writing. ????
But I think AI has some great uses and some writers use it for their actual writing. Each to their own in that regard. But I’ll stick with the “old-fashioned” way when it comes to my actual writing. ????
Posted on 9/29/26 at 1:53 pm to MasterKnight
I'm writing one right now as well. I wonder how other people do it because my method is weird as hell. It's like it's being downloaded to me. I'll go for days or weeks without touching it, just thinking about the scene I'm working on. I'll go to bed and put a question that's got me stumped to the universe and quite often I'll wake up with the answer. That will get me to write and once I start I'll be locked in for a couple of hours and have no real clue what I just wrote. I have to go back and read it.
I assume that's what people call "The Muse". The book has been haunting me since I was born. I knew I'd write it eventually, I just never knew what it was. Turns out I had to wait till I got old and AI came along to be able to research it. Once that happened I could put the timeline together of events, "It's based on a real story" and then I figure out what everyone is thinking. I'll think I've got it laid out and start writing and when I'm done I'll go back and it will go places I had never even considered. Things that are not going to be relevant till the end and I had no clue how I was going to make it work. The Muse already had that under control.
Wish I could say what it's about, but when I'm done, I'll post the link here and explain it. It's a piece of Louisiana history that was suppressed so hard afterward even the judge that was over the trials was scared to death he'd get killed if he published a book from his notes because he was told he shouild be. Papers wouldn't touch the subject at the time so the fact that I even knew anything about this is kind of wild considering it was all the way back in the late 1800's. A lot of people got killed. A lot.
I'm writing it with TV/Streaming in mind. But the book will be first. If the muse will hurry up.
I assume that's what people call "The Muse". The book has been haunting me since I was born. I knew I'd write it eventually, I just never knew what it was. Turns out I had to wait till I got old and AI came along to be able to research it. Once that happened I could put the timeline together of events, "It's based on a real story" and then I figure out what everyone is thinking. I'll think I've got it laid out and start writing and when I'm done I'll go back and it will go places I had never even considered. Things that are not going to be relevant till the end and I had no clue how I was going to make it work. The Muse already had that under control.
Wish I could say what it's about, but when I'm done, I'll post the link here and explain it. It's a piece of Louisiana history that was suppressed so hard afterward even the judge that was over the trials was scared to death he'd get killed if he published a book from his notes because he was told he shouild be. Papers wouldn't touch the subject at the time so the fact that I even knew anything about this is kind of wild considering it was all the way back in the late 1800's. A lot of people got killed. A lot.
I'm writing it with TV/Streaming in mind. But the book will be first. If the muse will hurry up.
Posted on 9/30/26 at 12:26 pm to Captain Rumbeard
There is no right way to write a book. Every author does it differently. So it’s not weird if it works for you.
One thing I would encourage is to find a few writers near you or to attend a nearby writers workshop. One of the things that helped me most when I got started writing was learning from other writers. There are always writing conferences and since it sound like you’re writing suspense/crime fiction, you could look for conferences or workshops for mystery/suspense writers or just general genre fiction.
It took me three years to write my first book. I sometimes went months without writing. Then the muse would catch me and I would get absorbed. So you’re not doing it wrong and I wish you he the best.
One thing I would encourage is to find a few writers near you or to attend a nearby writers workshop. One of the things that helped me most when I got started writing was learning from other writers. There are always writing conferences and since it sound like you’re writing suspense/crime fiction, you could look for conferences or workshops for mystery/suspense writers or just general genre fiction.
It took me three years to write my first book. I sometimes went months without writing. Then the muse would catch me and I would get absorbed. So you’re not doing it wrong and I wish you he the best.
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