5 signs you SHOULDN’T write a book (yet)

I firmly believe that being able to write books belongs to everyone and it’s my mission to make learning the necessary skills accessible. That said, sometimes the answer to the question “should I write a book?” is “no… not yet”.

First, let’s clear something up. When I talk about “writing a book” in this post, I mean writing it with the purpose of sharing it with other people, possibly with the goal of getting paid for your writing. But if you want to write books just for your own amusement and you have no intention on sharing them with anyone, I give you full permission to not care at all what I think. You do whatever pleases you.

With that out of the way, here are a few signs that you’re not ready to write a book (quite yet).

1/ You don’t know what your story is about

So let’s say you have an idea and you’d like to write a book about it. But does your story take place in a dystopian world or in a fantasyland? Are you writing for children, teens or adults? Is this a novel or actually a memoir? You kinda need to know that.

The tone of your story is something you need to know from the beginning and you need to stick to it. Is your story serious but hopeful, or is it a sad story with a few humorous moments? Figure that out before writing, or be prepared to rewrite your story – almost completely.

You should also have a clear idea of who’s the protagonist of your story. There are stories with multiple main characters with their own points of view, but even then there’s usually one that is THE main character. The most important reason for knowing this is that your main character’s wants and needs are the meat and bones of your story. If you don’t know THOSE, then you don’t actually know what your story is about.

Why it matters

Yes, every novel needs to be edited, and it’s not a quick and easy process. But if your story is a sprawling mess that spans over 800 pages and you can’t even identify your main plotline and there’s no clear resolution, you’re making the editing process far more difficult than it needs to be and you might be completely put off from completing your story.

Even if you can kind of keep your story together, it won’t be a very good read if it isn’t cohesive and if your reader can tell that even you didn’t quite know what you were writing. Writing a book is not at all like reading one – you can’t just start from page one and continue until The End and then be happy with that – and it requires quite a bit of forethought to do it well.

How to fix this issue

Although writing based on vibes alone can be a fun way to get some writing in when you don’t want to invest your time and effort on a full novel, it’s not a good tactic to go into your story blindly.

Fortunately for you, there’s plenty of resources for plotting and planning your story in my blog. When you want to figure out what your story is actually about, it’s probably most helpful to look into story structure and start by focusing on your character’s flaws and existing problems, as well as the Big Problem and what your protagonist learns along the way.

If you want a unique and super effective way of figuring out what actually happens in your story, you get my best methods of generating plot events from your main character and all my bestselling outlining tools bundled together in the Genius Plotting System. If you just felt a little overwhelmed by the need to plan your story, the plotting system will hold your hand all the way through.

2/ You think you know all there is to know about writing

So hey, maybe you already knew all that about planning your story. You’ve always been a good writer after all, and surely writing a book is no different from a few creative writing exercises.

The thing is, a writer’s work is never done. That doesn’t just mean that there are always new things to write, it also means you’ll never learn everything there is to learn about writing. There’s ALWAYS room for improvement.

If you’re a perfectionist, you might find it depressing to think that you’ll never be able to write a perfect book. But the great news is that you have almost an infinite capacity to improve and learn more. The only thing that can stand between you and becoming an even better writer is thinking that you already know everything.

Writing a book is a process, and a big part of that process is fixing things that don’t work. If you think that there’s nothing to fix because you’re already such a great writer, I’m afraid that the quality of your writing will suffer A LOT. In addition, if you want to be a professional writer, it will require you to work with multiple people and accept that sometimes someone else knows more than you do.

How to learn more about writing

A while ago I saw a comment on Pinterest, saying that NOBODY tells you how to learn about writing or what to do, they just tell you to write, which was extremely silly because the comment was on my pin, pointing to my blog that is all about learning how to write. What I’m trying to say is, you’re here, welcome.

Don’t just read writing tips or craft books, though. Actually apply what you’ve learned, either to new stories or to your existing writing. And don’t forget to read a lot as well, because it helps adjust your thermometer for good writing.

If you’d like to get my best way for applying writing tips, you should get my totally free collection of writing exercises. There are currently over 60 exercises because I keep updating it with new exercises from this blog.

3/ You don’t want any critique

People are going to have opinions about your book. There’s no escaping that.

If you look up any of your favourite book’s reviews on the internet, you’re bound to find one-star reviews among them. Pride and Prejudice? One-star reviews. Secret History? One-star reviews. And yet nobody is writing those reviews out of spite – they’re simply sharing their experience with the book.

There’s no contesting someone’s personal experience and no point telling them they’re wrong. It’s also good to remember that reviews are not for the writer, they’re for other readers so that they can make the right choice before buying a book.

Do you want to write for everyone? Then you’ll probably write for no one. Anything that is designed to appeal to everyone is probably so bland that no one will love it, and I’m guessing you don’t want to waste time writing a book that is meh at best. Let me reiterate: it is a GOOD THING that somebody doesn’t like your book.

Don’t get me wrong, you’re allowed to have feelings about any reviews or critique you get. That’s normal and human. But if you think bad reviews are inherently malicious and you want to control how people talk about your writing, you’re simply not ready to share your writing with the world. I’ve seen authors reporting reviews that they don’t agree with and that’s so insecure and cringy.

You can also learn from critique

Not all critique is just a question of taste. Especially when you’re working with professionals like an editor, it is their goal to make your book as good as it can be. You don’t have the skills to be the best at everything related to writing, and even if you did, you’ll eventually become blind to what you’ve written. It’s completely normal. Even professional editors need editors.

Your readers can also have totally valid critique even if they’re not professional writers or editors, and since you’re writing for THEM, you might want to listen to them. You really don’t want to be that author who dismisses well-written, critical reviews pointing out problematic elements in your book just because you don’t want to admit being in the wrong. I’ve seen this happen, too, and it’s gross. Listen to your audience.

“But I’m scared! My feelings will be hurt!”

And? Your feelings will be hurt a million times in your lifetime. It won’t kill you.

Whatever you want to do in life, you need to focus on what you can control. You can write a book, you can learn more so you can write a GREAT book, and you can learn from what people tell you about your book. What you can’t do is control what people say or think about you, and you shouldn’t try. You can only do your best, you can’t force anyone to like you.

4/ You want to write a book as fast as you can

Another sign that you’re not quite yet ready to write a book is that you just want to get it over with as quickly as possible. Being able to finish things and seeing the results of your work is nice, but if you want to write a great book and not “just a book, I guess”, you do have to give it all the time it’s going to take.

If you’ve never written a novel before, you probably don’t know what an undertaking it is. It’s an entire journey with twists and turns that can be hard to anticipate, and it’s also a process with multiple, equally important steps. Not everyone’s process is the same and it’s always going to look different when you’re getting published, but if you’d like a general idea of what writing a novel really entails, I have written a post about my writing process.

When it comes to writing a novel fast, some people are tempted to use ChatGPT and the like, but the truth is, AI can’t write a novel. Having a book full of grammatically correct sentences after another doesn’t mean you’ve written a novel and I can tell you nobody wants to read that drivel.

Yes, deadlines are a thing. And sometimes they need to be pushed back if the book isn’t ready to come out of the oven yet.

What if you just want to write a book faster?

I hear you, you love your story and you want to see it finished sooner. The thing is, you shouldn’t strive to be fast, but instead, your goal should be efficiency. If you want to make the most out of your writing time and efforts, you should check out the Efficient Writer workshop and workbook.

But really, what it boils down to is this: identify how you’re wasting time and stop doing that stuff. That sounds overly simple, but actually, over-complicating things is what keeps you stuck. Don’t scoff at the simple stuff if you’re not even doing them.

Are you prioritising writing, or do you keep planning to do it “soon” or “one day”? If so, you need to stop doing that and actually make time for it. Are you letting faffing about waste your writing time? Remember what your real goals are, and stay focused on them with integrity. Are you actually writing, or at least in front of the computer, but you’re frozen by writer’s block or you keep writing stuff you just delete later? You need to plan your stories better and create an outline that supports you.

5/ You don’t want to edit your book

Outlining your novel might be optional but editing it definitely isn’t. People who are completely new to writing might think that you can just write a story from start to finish and then call it a finished book, but unfortunately it isn’t quite that easy!

Editing your story usually takes longer than writing the first draft does. I know that’s something many beginner writers don’t want to hear, but I think it’s nothing but good news. It gives you so many chances to improve your writing.

When I talk about editing, I also mean revising and rewriting. Those are things that you have to do for your story and you can’t outsource them, unlike proofreading which is just a small part of editing a book. And all of it is necessary.

Why you can’t just hire an editor to do the work for you

Just recently, I got a comment in a different post where I wrote that you probably shouldn’t write a book if you’re not willing to edit it, and this commenter said that it was BS and that you could just write something and then let the “experts” (quotation marks were hers) edit it.

First of all, I’m not barging into people’s houses, telling them they shouldn’t write books. That post was about answering a specific question that people ask: “How to know if you should write a book?”, and unwillingness to edit is a sure sign that you’re probably better off doing something else instead.

But also, professional editors, as in experts without the snide quotation marks, can’t do all the work for you. You don’t just write a hasty first draft and then let someone else deal with it without any input from you ever again. In addition, if you hired an editor to help you from the very beginning all the way to the end, it would become quite expensive. I’m here to make writing more accessible, not less, and that’s why I want YOU to have the skills you need.

What to do when you’re ready to write a book?

So maybe reading this blog post made you realise that you really ARE ready to write a book. Now what?

If you want to save yourself countless hours and avoid most writing-related headaches, you should join us in Writing Your First Novel 2.0. It is THE novel writing course for people who want to start their writing journey on the right foot and write a book they can proudly share with the world instead of stashing it in their secret Google Drive.

Whether you’d like to make money with your writing or you simply want to be known as an author and share your stories with the world, WYFN2.0 will turn your cool story idea into a book you can hold in your hands. Pretty cool, right?

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Protagonist Crafts is a blog about writing fiction, written by a published author and creative writing teacher. You can find more writing tips and inspiration in the blog and you can get the best author tools at Writer Lifestyle on Etsy.