How I wrote a novel

A line I read from an essay a few years ago claims no one tells you the protagonist in your first novel is you but with a better personal life. At the time, I was trying to write a draft of a novel. I had no idea I was writing a book about me until I read that line. I realized, in that moment, the romance novel I was writing was historical fiction, in the sense that it stole some facts from my life, but threaded them together in a fantastical sequence.

I started out by typing three sentences into a word document summarizing what I thought would be an adventure novel several years ago. An American expat cancer researcher in Norway is awarded a grant by a Norwegian philanthropist who builds her a research boat to perform her studies on a group of Indonesian islanders who should get cancer but don’t. And she falls in love with an Indonesian.

I had no idea what was going to happen in between the beginning in Norway and the end where she steps off her custom built research boat with only her backpack onto an island to live out her life with this Indonesian man.

So I just started writing. The book that came out drew heavily on my experiences as an expat in Norway where I got to take many holidays to Indonesia. Clearly facts derived from my life.

When I thought about it, my own historical fiction was a way to write a memoir about an important part of my life that didn’t end in some kind of fireworks. My time in Norway ended with me waking up one morning and saying, “I’m going nowhere here. The rest of my life has to start now.” 

I had wanted to (or still want to) write a memoir about my experiences as an expat in Norway. I had so many wonderful adventures and struggled through many challenges both professional and personal as an expat, but they didn’t culminate in any grand finale, i.e., I didn’t get the guy or find the cure for cancer. I thought, “I lead a vanilla life.” And while there is something to be said for that, vanilla doesn’t make for great story telling. 

A memoir also requires details. The details are hazy a decade after leaving Norway. And even though my time in Norway was extended travel in my mind, I almost only ever wrote in my journal when I traveled away from Norway, leaving out the details of the day to day living in Norway which was pretty extraordinary. 

So in the process of writing my novel, I realized I was writing about the life of an expat – mine maybe – but my character is embroiled in a love triangle. I was not.

Writing the book was cathartic, and a way to write about difficult events in my life – love and work – in disguise. Fiction is a shield for any harsh commentary that comes through in the book. Hello Academia! 

In the end, I had a story of triumph, of how a woman can make it on her own, how things work out in a different way, in unexpected ways. The caveat is you have to try something for anything to happen in life.

How did I do it?

The first thing I learned during this process of writing the book is that I’m a pantser. I knew the beginning and I knew the ending. I just didn’t know what was going to happen in between. That is, I’m sure, why I stole basic facts from my own life to tell the story. I mean the main character is an American expat working as a cancer researcher at a university in Norway. And she scuba dives in Indonesia. These are overriding themes of my life. 

What could be more romantic or adventurous? Getting the guy and finding the cure for cancer.

I had the idea for the book for years

I’ve always wanted to write a novel. Everyone wants to write a novel I suppose. Everyone dreams of writing a best seller, but I set my goals, like usual, in a more modest way – I just wanted to see if I could write a book from the blank page to the end. 

Many quotes have addressed this desire in most people. Some quotes motivated me, while others made me think I should just leave the book hidden on my computer. Christopher Hitchens said, “Everyone has a book in them, but in most cases that’s where it should stay.” 

But I took a first step outside of my head and my computer. I went to a meet-up for writers held at the local library once a month. I thought all I would have to do is sit and listen. No, no, no. The first time I went, the leader asked for a 60-second elevator pitch describing our books to introduce ourselves. I made mine up as the leader went around the room. Wanna-be authors,  and even published authors, proposed their ideas for fiction and non-fiction books. Most ideas were pretty interesting. I got the sense that most in the room weren’t really amateurs.

When the leader pointed to me, I blurted out, “A cancer researcher goes to Indonesia to find the cure for cancer and falls in love.”

He said, “Now that, that sounds like something I’d like to read.”

I didn’t have the guts to ask him why, but his comment, a simple one in the grand scheme of life, was my permission slip to try. Like when someone offhandedly tells you on a snorkeling tour, you might like scuba diving and then you go and do it. You can’t remember their face, but you remember where you were when they said it and that their words changed the course of your life. 

On my walk home along the beach, I thought of a reason for the protagonist to do research in Indonesia. I wrote a summary when I got home and then took years to complete the work.

How did I reach my target of 90,000 words?

I couldn’t get past a few pages. I tried writing different pieces of it, not in any special order, like the ending first. I kind of abandoned the project. Then one summer, I started to read The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. One of the exercises is to write every morning in a journal for an hour. Free thought. A warm-up. I wrote every morning for a couple of months and then thought, “I should use this time to just write my book. Whatever comes out, I can work with it.”

I started writing whatever came to my mind. I started with a character surviving some of the difficulties of being an expat, focusing on the unique structure of Norwegian society and academia. The book started to take on a life of its own, with another major character showing up that changed everything. The character was a surprise to me, but fit into the storyline. I pieced together a basic plot, using my experiences in Europe, that turned into an adventure romance. 

Getting someone to read it

I suppose you can write a book, but having a reader makes it officially “published”. The easiest way to get someone to read your book is to pay them. To get an editor. I did contact an editor, two editors in fact. I just couldn’t afford one. I know the editor I wanted would have helped me tremendously. I went in kind of naively, even though I’m an editor myself (of scientific articles), with the idea that I would pay them some nominal fee just to read it and give me an impression. But the amount I had in my mind was embarrassingly low relative to their abilities. I didn’t want to insult the person. So I abandoned that idea.

It might be a mistake that I never used a professional editor, but sometimes the only way to know is to try. Who am I writing for anyway? It’s a very niche story, expat scientist romance who scuba dives. 

My imagination only went so far. The book would never be a compelling read, but I could present a decently written book, even without an editor.

So I finished it. Came to an end anyway. 

I went for Plan B. I got brave and asked a close friend to read it. People have only so much time. So to ask someone to read a work that’s half-baked is a big ask. My friend agreed, but I didn’t really think they would ever finish reading it. I didn’t pressure them, and I didn’t wait for their response. I sent it off hoping they would get around to it, but thinking it would never happen. To my surprise, they did read it over a summer and at the end, they said, “I like it. A good beach read.”

I knew the version I sent them wasn’t the final version. After another two years, I decided to get back to editing the book. Once I had a book of nearly 90,000 words, I found it was easier to cut out parts that made no sense to have. Some extended scenes, a lot of romantic scenes, I cut down or cut out because I had a story and nearly 90,000 words. 

I was writing the book for myself after all. It didn’t have to adhere to any conventions, especially in the world today with options for self-publishing. 

Each time I read the book, with the goal of getting rid of the spelling mistakes, I got bolder with the editing. I moved paragraphs around and tackled issues with the writing and the story. I started to see little themes running through the book and some details that could be used at different points in the book. I discovered the editing became easier, even though it’s a huge editing project, once I was no longer stressed about how long the book was because I had a book.

I’m happy with the final version. Some parts are silly, kitschy, or cliché, but in the end, I think my characters are endearing. Although I don’t know if it’s because of the country the story begins in or the country the story ends in, or the characters are truly ones you can fall in love with.

There’s nothing stopping anyone from publishing their story today, however good it might be, because of self-publishing. I was further emboldened to self-publish, because at the time, I reasoned a major publishing house published a book written by someone for no other reason than that pathetic person had the right last name. Lucky for that person.

There’s a lot to be said for just doing it

You read books. You tell stories. Each chapter is like a little story taking place in bigger story. Somehow by telling this series of stories, you reach the end. Then some details you put in that seemed to have no purpose, come up later in the story, and you can now stress the significance of that detail or event that seemed in the beginning like some kind of random thought.

You learn by doing. I could have taken a class or read a book about how to write novels. It might be better if I had. But sometimes reading a book about how to write a book or taking a class takes the place of the inevitable. That you have to write words.

I’ve thought a lot about the Christopher Hitchens quote. And the fact that many famous authors have said their first novel remains in a desk drawer. But a person close to me said, “Why wouldn’t you publish it? You have to.” 

When is it done?

Maybe when you start changing words back to the way they were. Maybe when you’re just tired of reading it.

I think in the end I have all the right elements for a good story. I didn’t put them together in the most compelling way. Some parts are filler waiting for the next big moment to happen. But I decided to publish it for a couple of reasons. One, I just wanted to try it. And two, because the structure is largely based on a certain part of my life, it made me realize my life is much more interesting than I thought. My life is just different than the way life goes for most people. 

And that’s an important lesson. So I wanted to emphasize that fact, not just for myself, but for others. That others out there may have a book in them because of their life and that their life is more interesting than they might think. Think of all the funny people in your life. Or even the ones who have challenged you. It’s kind of fun going through all the parts of your life that can fit into a book. And in this day and age where most of us are lucky to walk through life without major tragedies, filling in the parts of a putative memoir to spice it up make the perfect way to write a book of fiction. 

And three, the life of my characters was a way to escape for a couple hours each day. The story was a safe haven away from the news of today.

The end

So the book is a realization of the theme of the book, things will happen, but you have to try something. And I can dream. There are some self-published books that go on to hit it big, but that maybe wasn’t the point. The point was to try to write a novel. Maybe it’s a long-winded version of a travel log, but I have the experience of writing a novel now.

The book took me years to write. I suppose my whole life. Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love fame says, “It takes your whole life to write the first book. It takes less time for the next one.”

I’m trying to find out if it’s true!

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