When should you start drafting?

When it feels right. But also? You should probably know a few key things about the story.

In most cases, I don’t start drafting a new book until I’ve spent a bit of time brainstorming and daydreaming. (I’ve spoken about this ideation phase before, in a post about developing story ideas.)

If I start before that ideation phase has completed, I rarely have enough information about the new book for the drafting experience to be intuitive. (Notice how I didn’t say easy. Writing is never easy!) Without a firm understanding of what the hero wants, or how the world functions, or where the plot is going, it becomes very, very hard for me to tap into a state of deep work.¹ I have to surface a lot. Move back to my notebook. Research or brainstorm more.

And this in itself isn’t a bad thing. I pause often when drafting. But when the pause is so lengthy that I have to really remove myself from the story flow, I lose precious momentum. And when I lose momentum, I tend to lose confidence in the story itself.

On the flip side, if I wait too long to start drafting, I risk becoming overwhelmed by the story. I end up knowing so much about the idea that it feels impossibly big, far too complicated for me to be capable of writing. In these cases, I end up convincing myself that I need to think/research more before I start. And yes, thinking and researching are important, but you can reach a point where you are spinning your wheels, where thinking and researching are nothing more than procrastination; a way to avoid the writing.

This is why it’s crucial to start drafting at the right time. For me, that magic moment is when I’m both excited to be at the wheel and can also see the rough shape of the road ahead.

What lets me see the rough shape of that road? I typically need to know the following before I can start writing a new book:

• CHARACTER

  • I must know who the hero is, as well as what they the want (their physical goal); if I know what they need (their emotional growth necessary to succeed), even better

  • I must also know who a few key cast members are (the main allies and the opponent(s))

• WORLD

  • I need a decent understanding of the world (locations/geography, technology/magic rules, culture/people, religions, politics, history, etc)

• PLOT

  • I like to have a rough plot planned. (At minimum, a loosely imagined three act structure, or sometimes more, such as the plot points for the Hero’s Journey or the Save the Cat beats.)

I mention this magic trifecta of Character, World, and Plot, aka the foundation of story, in my post about developing new book ideas too. These are the macro elements that I focus on first when revising, so it makes sense that they are the elements I need to wrap my head around before I begin to draft. I rarely have every last detail figured out when I dive in, and how deep I get into each depends on my genre.² But at the end of the day, I need a decent understanding of these foundational elements before I start.

But there’s a fourth element that’s crucial for me to wrap my head around at this point, and that is VOICE. Yes, even for books written in third-person. I need to forge an emotional connection with the story, need to hear it in my head—almost as though the audiobook is playing—before I start drafting. Sometimes I see the scenes too, as though a movie is playing in my mind.

I have no clue how common this is—fellow writers, if you hear your actual prose before you start typing and/or see scenes in your head, please let me know in the comments or complete the below poll—but this has been the thing, time and again, that sends me rushing to my keyboard. Narration in my head. Scenes playing out like a movie.

Sometimes I actually hear/see the story first and, in my excitement, start drafting preemptively. This happened with Vengeance Road. The first chapter came gushing out of me and I indulged myself. (Sometimes the best way to see if a story has legs and that we’re truly excited about writing it, is to draft a chapter or two, even though we don’t know anything else.) But once those few chapters were typed out, I quickly realized I didn’t know much about 1877 Arizona (hello, historical fiction) or the rest of the cast. I set the manuscript aside and spent several months researching and brainstorming. Then I went back to drafting.

For books like Contagion and Dustborn, it was the opposite. Months of brainstorming preceded the actual drafting. I had the world, the characters, and the plot figured out. I was just waiting for the voice to come to me.³ Once I started hearing/seeing scenes in my head, I could finally draft without it feeling like pulling teeth.

In short:

• Sometimes I hear/see the story first and I’ll write a chapter or two, then backtrack to figure out the story foundation.

• Sometimes I figure out the foundation first, then wait for the voice to come to me.

• Once I have both—foundation + voice—I can finally draft in earnest.

  • At this point, I’m not just excited to start and well-equipped to write the thing, I can’t not write it. For me, this is the magic formula which allows the story to become a living, breathing thing inside me that I simply have to get on paper. Foundation (character, plot, world) + Voice = Time to start drafting

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Erin, this post was supposed to be about when to start drafting, but this is just what works for you. Plus, you admit that the exact moment you start writing has varied between books.

I know. Forgive me. The frustrating thing about writing is that it is deeply personal and what works for one person doesn’t work for all, and sometimes what works for us individually can even change between projects.

In some ways, this is freeing. There’s no one answer. There’s lots of advice out there, but no wrong way to do it. YMMV, and all that.

But I suppose the takeaway I’m hoping you’ll find in today’s post is this: Start when it feels right—when the idea drives you to the keyboard—and if/when you get stuck, reflect on your characters, world, and plot. Are you stuck because you are missing crucial information regarding one of these elements? Mull that over for a bit, and in your brainstorming, you might unstick yourself.

If you have all those answers but are still stuck, maybe you’re not in the right headspace to draft yet. Maybe you haven’t found the right starting point or voice/style/format/etc for this particular book. Maybe you have all the ingredients but your muse is still trying to locate the mixing bowl.

Sometimes our novels need us to do a bit more brainstorming—and living—in order for things to click into place. And other times, our novels need us to roll up our sleeves and simply work a little harder, chipping away at the opening, drafting and revising bit by bit, until things finally feel right and you can move on to the next scene. Perhaps that one is a struggle too. And the one after it.

If this happens, I promise it’s okay. It is quite possible to write a book without it flowing freely from you. I’ve done it multiple times myself. It’s not as enjoyable an experience as the “this book poured out of me” route, but it does produce books, and I like to think that in the end, most readers can’t tell how much (or little) you struggled while drafting any given novel.

It would be nice if our books told us which method they needed—more brainstorming/living versus more elbow grease—but they like to keep us guessing.

But look. At the end of the day, no matter when you start drafting, you still have to write the darn thing. When you start isn’t nearly as important as finishing. If you want the story to be more than just an idea in your head, you have to finish it.⁴

So start drafting when you feel inspired.

Just start.

There is no perfect moment. There may me a moment that allows your drafting to be more efficient because you are best prepared to tackle it, but I promise that you can finish a draft whether you start at this particular moment or not.

No matter how you slice it, writing. is. hard.

So just start.

Erin Bowman is the critically acclaimed author of numerous books for children and teens, including the Taken Trilogy, Vengeance Road, Retribution Rails, the Edgar Award-nominated Contagion duology, The Girl and the Witch’s Garden, and Dustborn. A web designer turned author, Erin has always been invested in telling stories—both visually and with words. Erin lives in New Hampshire with her husband and children.

1. Disclosure: I am an affiliate of bookshop.org and I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase of this book or other books linked in this piece.

2. Writing fantasy or sci-fi, for example, will require a lot more world-building legwork than writing a contemporary.

3. Contagion is written in third person past, and Dustborn is first person present, so this isn’t a matter of tense or POV.

4. Lincoln Michel had a great post about this recently.