how to write a book

spoiler: I have no answers, but I DO have a Notion template

I once glimpsed a brilliant friend’s Scrivener¹ template, including a doc entitled “how to write a book” in the sidebar.

“GIVE ME THE ANSWERS PLEASE!!” I screamed both internally and externally.

Alas, she had no magic pill. But she did say her cheat sheet helped guide her when she started a new project and wondered how on earth she’d done it last time, and that made me think it might be a good idea to document my own process—because is there a worse feeling than staring at the blank page of a new manuscript, wondering how you’re ever supposed to do this again? (Or… for the first time?²) Whether it’s your first or fifteenth novel, some things get easier, but some things remain just as challenging. Every project feels like starting anew—figuring out these characters, and this structure, and this voice. So any leg up I can give myself sounds amazing.

Please insert all typical disclaimers here: this is just my current process, and it’s changing all the time, and every project and person requires something different, etc. (I can hear Michael Arndt repeating I’m not saying this is the only way to write a story three times just to be safe.³) Plus: all of this is cobbled together from other sources, so it’s not especially original, and I almost didn’t share because I convinced myself everyone knows all of this already, right?

But I did make it pretty.

I documented it in Notion, because that’s where I’m doing a lot of my idea capturing and developing these days. It had a bit of a learning curve for me at first, but the more I used it, the more intuitive it became.

For the first few years of my writing life, I thrived by focusing on one project at a time—brainstorming, outlining, drafting, revising, querying—but now that there are more people involved in my work as it proceeds toward publication (yay! still, eternally, pinching myself), I find myself juggling multiple projects at once, switching to something on the back burner while another piece is in my agent’s or editor’s hands.⁴

Notion makes it easy for me to keep track of everything that’s “cooking,” with a page for each. I can also access it from any computer, from my phone, etc, so it catches ideas that strike me on walks, my lunch break, etc. An improvement on my previous chaotic voice memo/Notes app/email-to-self system!

Anyway, by the time I made a whole Notion template for myself, I thought this might be useful for a) other Notion devotees, and b) anyone looking for ways to approach and organize their own novel development (I for one am always obsessed with other people’s processes and constantly steal their tools for my own toolkit). I’m hopeful even if you’re not a Notion person, you might find some helpful ideas here. You can copy/paste into your platform of choice. :)

Without further ado, here it is! It’s a duplicable template, so feel free to copy it and play around, if you’re a Notion person (or want to try it out. It’s free. I swear this is not an ad).

Let me walk you through it!

Part I: The Initial Inspiration.

I always start by capturing what first sparked my interest—my story seeds. What got me thinking about this story? Why do I want to tell it? Was there an image or scene that struck me, a question I was thinking through, a problem I had with another piece of art? When I get lost in the weeds, I love coming back to this initial spark to make sure I’m still telling the story I set out to.

At some point in this process, I turn this inspiration into what I call my North Star. I try to consolidate my “mission” in this book into the simplest terms possible: who is this for? what am I exploring? who am I writing for, and where will this story sit on shelves? I put this at the top of the doc, but it sometimes emerges much later in the process (after doing character work, finding the glimmers as I write, hearing from trusted readers, etc). Still, it’s the thing I find myself returning to most regularly, trying to be sure all future choices stem from this original goal, so I keep it at the top.

Then we marinate. Sometimes this is captured during that initial brainstorm, and other times I return to it over the coming days/weeks/months (this is where Notion helps with my multiple burners; if I get one project simmering and have to turn to another, it’s much easier to jump back into the recipe after that break).

Lisa Cron’s plot problems from Story Genius live here because refining them usually helps me develop a plot that will drive the story forward over hundreds of pages, but I often don’t flesh them out until I’ve done a bit more work on character below. The fun, messy part of planning for me is its recursiveness—each part informs every other in a story that’s firing on all cylinders, so I’m often jumping back and forth. (Notion may look pretty, but trust me, it’s a chaotic process from start to finish.)

I also start making a moodboard and playlist right around now, and that often generates tons of ideas—vibes of scenes, fun settings, character traits, etc. By the time I start drafting, the story needs to be a movie in my head that I’m essentially transcribing, and this really helps.

By this point, I have enough of a concept/pitch to share with critique partners and publishing professionals. If the story has legs, all of this will continue to gel—but when I have enough…

Part II: The Plan.

This is when I get serious about character and plot. By the time I’ve jotted down all of the above, I’m usually itching to plan in earnest. I’m ready to lose the hard-core “pantsers” among us (and if so, I still love you, thank you for spending half a newsletter with me before you dipped)—but if you’re anything like me, having a roadmap makes the drive a lot less scary. I change a ton along the way, always leave myself open to discovery, and usually have to reverse outline to fix it up when I’m done… but having at least some of the following tentpoles gives me enough to fast draft and have fun.

A few years ago I made a master spreadsheet that combines 7-point story structure (thank you to Turning to Story!), Save the Cat, and Romancing the Beat. It’s a rough overlay, but it helps me visualize the major turning points for character, plot, and romance; I’ll add columns for various character arcs. Story Genius, as you can tell, was a great resource when I started pursuing publishing, and while I don’t use Cron’s whole method, her initial questions are always central to my character development. These are pretty evergreen resources, but if you haven’t checked them out, I highly recommend! I also love referencing this breakdown from Anna Mercier when charting character growth across acts.

This part has gotten even more flexible for me in recent years. I might start with whatever scenes are clear in my mind after my initial brainstorming, or I might first carve out some time to sit down with a protagonist who’s shouting in my ear. I won’t necessarily fill out the whole thing, either! Sometimes I just jot down my 7-pt story structure alongside whatever “cookie scenes” are speaking to me, and I might be feeling so excited to draft that I’ll dive in from there. I love planning, but I do my best to follow the energy when it says it’s time to start writing. I can always come back to my spreadsheet when I get stuck.

Oh: and I started to write about that romance arc section, but it got waaay too long. So… that toggle is blank for now. 🤭 But maybe another newsletter doing a deep dive, if you’re interested?

Finally, if I’m in the mood to give myself structure and deadlines, I’ve been enjoying Notion’s calendar feature—it’s super easy to create tasks (e.g. draft Chapter 1, outline Act II, readthrough dialogue) and drag them to different days.

Part III: The Process.

Now begins the writing. By the time I’ve completed the brainstorming above, I feel itchy and full of pent-up energy, excited to work. That’s how I know it’s time to move into Scrivener for drafting, transplanting my outline ideas into scene docs. But there are a few notes I always keep as I move forward. Previously they lived in chaotic places—my Notes app, my journal, screenshots on my increasingly cluttered desktop—but I’d love to capture all of this somewhere central now that I have my template to end all templates!

I always keep track of inspiring, motivational reminders for the days when I wonder why I ever thought this book was a good idea lol—I call them the glimmers. That’s where I’ll put screenshots of friends’ nice messages, lines that perfectly capture a voice or vibe I’m chasing, reminders of scenes I’m obsessed with, etc. This is where I celebrate any win I can get during the messy drafting process.

I keep even more notes to self of things I know I need to fix or research once I finish said messy first draft, sob. (I’m motivated by momentum, so I try not to slow that down for details I can tackle later.) Finally, Clare Osongco has inspired me to keep a little writing log of daily progress reports—she says it’s comforting both to write out in the moment and to look back on later. It was not, in fact, just a fluke that you somehow wrote a book last time! (Funnily enough, I’ve had this post in drafts for a few weeks, and Clare just released a great newsletter on her own process, in which she elaborates on this as well as many more tips: go check it out!)

And then… well, I suppose we have no excuse but to write, no?

And because I may be organized but I’m also a creature of chaos, sometimes I abandon technology entirely to draw on butcher paper on my kitchen floor. Creating is all about switching up my process to meet any given moment, and sometimes screens are just not the vibe.

That’s it! The planning/organizing process a full three people asked for! But all of the resources here came from friends and mentors who were kind enough to put me on to something that was helpful for them, and as always, I’m just trying to pay forward the generosity shown to me as I found my own way.

If anything here is useful, I’m so glad, and would love to know! Please visit the folks cited for their OG resources if you haven’t already, and let them know too! If there’s anything you’d like me to elaborate on more in a future letter, say the word, I love to yap about process. And if you’d like to tell me how wrong I am and explain your own methods, I’d love to hear about that most of all. (What should I add to my template??)

As I finish writing this, I’m already thinking of a few elements I want to ponder more, that could use some fleshing out—and it really only gets us to the moment we put words to chapter one, so maybe there’s more to say about the drafting process itself?—and and and—⁵

I guess all that’s to say that I might add more in the weeks/months to come, and you’ll be the first to know about it, and isn’t the constantly evolving creative process a beautiful thing?

Okay, back to Notion for me… happy writing and happy weekend, everyone. :)

Much love,

🤍 Emily

1. I assume many of you know the wonders of Scrivener, but in case you’re not familiar: it’s a really versatile writing software for long projects, and I’d say 90% of my novelist friends use it! There’s a slight learning curve, but it’s very worth the investment, IMO.

2. Maybe this is a sign of my own current instability—this is way too many footnotes for the first three paragraphs of a newsletter—but all I can think about is Agador Spartacus in The Birdcage right now.

3. Anna Mercier brought this video into my life and I watch it at least yearly. Thank you. Your service is immeasurable. Someone please count the number of times I’ve thanked Anna in this newsletter.

4. V.E. Schwab describes this feeling as having multiple burners lit on the stove—keeping one just barely simmering in the back while you’re actively cooking another in the front. I love that metaphor, even if sometimes it feels like this over-active stove is going to burn the entire house down.

5. Can you tell I’m a teacher who loves curriculum development?