I like to stay up to date on what people want to know about writing stories, and one of the questions I’ve seen repeated is “why is writing a novel so hard?”
Honestly, I find a lot of things harder than writing novels, but I wanted to explore this subject anyway. What makes writing a novel so hard? And how can you make it easier? Let’s find out together.
Related content: Why you’re writing the first draft – Beginner writer mistakes to avoid – How to stop CRINGING at your writing (podcast episode)
Why should writing a novel be easy?
Not to be all suffering artist, but I want to ask, why should writing a novel be easy? Aren’t most things worth doing kind of hard?
Listen, you can do things that are difficult. If you don’t know how to do something, figure it out. You’ve found your way to my blog already and there’s plenty of stuff here that’s going to help you. You’re welcome!
If writing a novel was quick and easy, everyone with a half-baked idea would be doing it. Most people who start never cross the finish line. Yes, there are also finished books that aren’t anything to write home about, but at least you can improve a bad manuscript. You can’t edit an empty page.
And thanks to generative AI, we now have far too many people who don’t bother developing any skills of their own and who only want to be able to say they’ve done something, so they have a bot write a bunch of garbage for them. Because these people never bothered learning anything about storytelling, those poor souls think their AI-generated drivel counts as passable writing 🙁 Keep them in your prayers.
What do you mean that writing a novel is “hard”?
I have a 7-year-old who frequently says she can’t do something, and I have to be the detective and figure out what “can’t” means. Does she not know how or is there an obstacle? Is she actually tired? Or perhaps unsure how to do it perfectly? You’re probably older than seven, though, so I’m sure you have more self-awareness.
When you say that writing a novel is hard, what does that mean to you? Do you not know how to start, or is the actual writing hard? Is it difficult to figure out what should happen in your story? Does your writing make you go YIKES? Do you think it takes too long?
Whatever it is that makes writing a novel feel difficult for you, I’m going to offer a few solutions in this post, so keep reading.
What do you find difficult about writing, specifically?
So maybe it’s the actual act of writing that feels difficult for you, but can you be even more specific? Does every single word feel difficult, or do you have other stumbling blocks?
Often, when people say writing a novel is hard, they mean that they have a story idea but they struggle with turning that idea into a full plot with enough events for a full novel. If your idea produces fifty pages at best, it’s no wonder you’re struggling with writing.
Or maybe you can see your story perfectly in your mind, but putting that into words is a lot harder. Maybe it even feels like sorcery of some sorts. When you can figure out what makes writing a novel difficult for you, you can work on improving relevant skills. Because really, writing a good novel is a dozen different skills in a trench coat.
It’s NORMAL that writing a novel feels difficult
Make no mistake: Writing a novel takes EFFORT. You can’t get around that. (You can try, but we already discussed that, didn’t we?)
You know what else feels difficult and requires effort? Lifting heavy weights. You could lift lighter weights, but you wouldn’t be getting any results if it was easy. So really, if writing feels difficult, it’s not a sign that anything is wrong, it’s just a sign that you’re doing it.
Even seasoned and professional writers struggle with their novels sometimes. If you want good results, you need to work for them, and if you want to keep improving, you need to keep challenging yourself. Simple as that. Embrace it rather than fight against it.
How to make writing a novel easier
I’m not the kind of person to just say “yup, that sucks” – I’m here to give you solutions. So what could you do to make writing a novel less hard? Let’s go through one obstacle at a time.
You don’t have a story idea that you’re excited about
When you’re working on something you think you “should” write about instead of something you’re truly excited about, writing is going to feel like wading in oatmeal. So why would you do that to yourself??
Here are some ways to find out if your story idea is the right one for you, and if you’d like to find an idea you’ll LOVE, you should get this free story idea workbook.
You don’t know what happens in your story
Do you believe that your plot will just come to you? That if you think about it hard enough while staring at the blank page, you’ll figure it out eventually, maybe, hopefully, eventually? Yeah, no wonder it feels difficult. Flying by the seat of your pants is a GREAT WAY to write yourself into a boring and nonsensical plot if you don’t know what you’re doing.
There are a lot of people who think you should “just start writing”, but if that approach worked for you, well, wouldn’t it have already worked? Yeah, I thought so. Maybe it’s time to start mapping out your stories before you write them.
Sorting out this pickle depends on what you already know about your story, how your brain works and what exactly you’re stuck on. In the very least, you need clarity on who your protagonist is, where and when the story takes place, what the big problem (aka the main conflict) of the story is and what needs to happen or change before everything can be fixed.
If you’re anything like me, you might also need to outline the major plot events of your story, or perhaps go into even more detail. You can read this post for different outlining methods, learn more about story structure here or get the Genius Plotting System for everything you’ll need to plan and plot your novel.
You feel like your writing sucks and you don’t know how to make it better
I’m sure writing your novel feels difficult if you think you’re doing a terrible job of it! But what if “bad writing” wasn’t a sign that something is wrong? What if you stopped trying to be good?
Yes, having a good story is important, and it’s easier to ensure you’ve got one when you’ve planned your plot before you start writing. Go back to the previous step to find out how to do that.
But when it comes to “good writing”, you don’t need to think about it when writing your first draft. Yes, every now and then you’ll write something almost flawless, but as a whole, your first draft can and should be a total garbage fire. It’s not a judgment on your writing skills and it’s not something you should try to bypass – it’s just the nature of writing. Great novels are made in the editing process.
So stop putting so much effort into writing your first drafts well. Your writing will flow much better and the whole thing will feel much easier when you let yourself put the words on the page as they come to you.
Okay, but how do you actually make your writing better?
I’m glad you asked!
Instead of just reading writing tips, you need to start applying them to your writing. You could apply them to your existing writing as you edit it, but you could also do these writing exercises.
And as for editing, you shouldn’t approach it blindly and try to fix everything on sight, you need a process. You can read this post to make editing a novel simpler and less over-whelming.
Stop over-thinking and start writing more often
Writing a novel is a big journey, and it’s not just a single task but actually so many different tasks stuck together. No wonder it feels difficult and you don’t know how to tackle it without losing your sanity or selling your soul.
I talk to a lot of writers every week, and I know that it’s easy to spend more time thinking than writing, and that’s what ends up wasting their precious writing time before they can even write “Chapter 1” on their Word document.
That’s why I created Simple Writing Tasks, and yes, some of them are incredibly simple, like “Edit 1 page”, but most of them give you easy, bite-sized steps to planning, writing and editing your novel that you can just do instead of wondering what to do. Instead of thinking you can’t write a novel in fifteen minutes, you can pick a task you actually can finish in that time and make progress that way.
Find your best way to work on your novel
Maybe writing a novel has felt difficult all this time because you’re trying to do what everyone else is doing or what they taught you in school. (Not that they teach you a lot about writing novels in school to begin with.) If you know something won’t work for you because you’ve tried and failed enough times to know it’s a bad fit, not just because you feel it in your heart you won’t like it, it won’t get easier with more and more effort.
I’ve written at least two full first drafts by hand because at the time even just getting to the computer took far too much time and effort. There was always a Windows update when I needed to be writing and I didn’t have anywhere comfortable to put my laptop, and POOF, just like that, my writing time was over and I needed to go and change a diaper or something.
Maybe you don’t need to hand-write your first drafts, but you can only focus in a library. Maybe your first drafts have nothing but dialogue, or no dialogue at all. Maybe you can write your first draft in a noisy house but you need complete silence to edit. Maybe you write your early drafts in Spanish even though you plan on publishing in English.
Whatever works for you, stick to it. As long as it works. Don’t get stuck on habits that you think should work but actually don’t. And if you feel like something about writing is just too hard, try changing your methods or your environment. Be creative and don’t try to work against your brain – work with it.
Writing a novel WILL get easier
If you’re only just writing or attempting to write your first novel, don’t be discouraged by how difficult it might feel. Doing new things is supposed to feel difficult, it doesn’t mean that you suck or that you’re not supposed to be writing. It just means you’re doing something new.
I know we don’t see a lot of people struggling with their craft, we just see the polished end results, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t blood, sweat and tears involved in the writing process. It’s also remarkably difficult to work on a novel alone, and whenever a professional author works with other professionals like editors and agents, that’s a little bit of effort off their own back. It’s like watching a play and being like “wow, the people just showed up on the stage and said their lines, how easy”.
You can do it, but you do have to keep trying. Don’t give the difficulties too much power.
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.
