I Completed a Draft of My Novel

Yesterday I reached a major milestone in chasing my dreams. I finished a draft of a novel. With 222,221 words written, I’ve come one step closer to achieving the dream I set for myself back in elementary school: to become a published author.

When I started this final push last week, writing the last 7,000 words, I began thinking about what this accomplishment would feel like. Would I feel relieved? Would I cry happy tears? When the moment arrived, it was mostly the former. 

I had finally done it. I had proven to myself that I could finish a complete first draft of a novel. It was an immense weight off my shoulders.

This novel, The Enchanter’s Retribution, has been 13 years in the making. While it shares some foundations with a short story I wrote in 7th grade, I didn’t begin working on the novel until November 2013, when I decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month for the first time.

It’s the first book in my planned Rivithel epic fantasy series. It follows Arrellia Sharp, her brother Audric, and their grandfather Oakley as they respond to the King’s summons to the capital city to help defend against an emerging political crisis. Meanwhile, an enchanter seeks revenge against the Sharp family for their parents' actions two decades earlier.

It’s a story about magic, facing your fears and misbeliefs, and discovering who you are.

I started the novel when I was a sophomore in high school, and up to that point, I’d never seriously attempted to write a novel. I had started a few novels, all written with pencil and paper, but never gotten far. NaNoWriMo changed that.

For the first time, I was going to try to tackle the goal of writing 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days.

And it began like this: “It was a dim day in the town of Klun Die Zue. The brisk chill of the breeze flew past the wood buildings and through open doors. It was early autumn. The leaves were just starting to showcase their array of gold, maroon, and light brown before gliding in the wind to their destination on the soggy ground below.”

​Not a particularly riveting opening, but that’s how my novel began in 2013. 

I managed to write 50,000 words of a novel in less than 30 days. It was the longest piece I’d ever written, and it was far from over.

Over the next several years, I changed the novel dramatically.

I added another 50,000 words in 2014, then restarted it from scratch in 2015. I adjusted the plot considerably. This was the first time the novel even remotely resembled the current iteration, in which many of the current characters first appeared.

Then, in 2018, I restarted the novel again. The plot went through sweeping changes. Instead of drafting whatever I wanted, I applied the three-act story structure for the first time. The 60,000 words I drafted that November became the basis for all further versions.

That year, I allowed some online friends and fellow writers on Discord to read my work for the first time. I received constructive feedback that taught me to view my work more critically.

By the end of 2022, the novel had reached 140,000 words.

I once again restarted it in 2023, overhauling the plot and completely changing the series' plan. I also made the difficult decision to cut one of my favorite characters I’ve created, eliminating his POV. I hope I can bring him back in a sequel. 

That 2023 version is the one I finally finished.

Of course, just because I’ve completed a draft doesn’t mean the novel is done. There’s a lot of editing to do, and I’ve considered rewriting the first few chapters to better hook readers. I’ve also identified several plot holes and inconsistencies that need to be addressed.

But I’m not going to head straight into revisions.

First, I want to read the novel as is and take notes. Then, I’ll kick off the revision process later by altering the beginning of the book, as I’ve wanted to experiment with different prologues and the pacing of the first few chapters.

​Even as I go through the editing process, there’s something else to consider.

222,000 words is quite lengthy. While the word count isn’t unusual for an epic fantasy novel, it is much larger than publishers would likely be willing to take a chance on for a new, unpublished author. Why? It costs more. More time editing, more printing costs, etc. It would also be expensive to self-publish it at this length.

I’m not sure I’d want this to be my first published novel, either. It’s complex, and the start of what I hope is a multi-entry series. It might be easier to write something new that’s shorter, and save this for later after I’ve published something else.

When the time eventually comes, my goal is to query agents and seek traditional publishing first. But if that doesn’t work out, I’ll look into self-publishing. As someone who previously ran a t-shirt business on the side, I know what it takes to market for yourself and attend shows and events. If I have to pay to print my novel and get it listed online and do it all myself, I will.

But for now, I’m going to let it sit.

While I’m tempted to start editing right away, I’ve decided to step back to try writing something else. I think I’ll have a much easier time editing it once I’ve had some time to sit with it.

I have 130,000 words of a different novel drafted, which seems like the natural place to pivot to. However, I have another fantasy novel idea that I tucked away back in 2018, hoping that I’d return to it one day. With everything I’ve learned from drafting this novel, it might be time to revisit that idea.

For now, I’m celebrating the first time I get to say I wrote a novel (in the past tense).

I’m a long way from querying agents. After I take some time to pursue other ideas, I'll return to this book and work on making it the one I always dreamed of publishing.