I recently saw a quote about how you never really learn to write a novel. You learn to write this novel. Each one is different. Some are easier, some are harder, even when you have something like 30 books under your belt.

But you can hone your process along the way and figure out things that usually work for you and things that definitely don’t work. Some of that may change as you get into different phases of your career.

For instance, there’s the advice that it’s best to write the whole book before you start revising it. That makes sense on some levels. It’s especially important for your first book because that tendency to try to make chapter one perfect before moving on has stalled out way too many writers who end up never finishing a book. It doesn’t make much sense to fine-tune and perfect the early part of the book until you see how the whole book comes out and know whether that part will have to be rewritten.

On the other hand, there’s no point in plowing ahead when you feel like you’ve taken a wrong turn. If you keep writing on the wrong path, you’ll just have to rewrite everything. You might as well go back to where you feel the problem is and figure it out before you move forward. My general rule is that you backtrack to fix plot, not details. If you just need to pull a Bill and Ted and go back to put a trash can there for when you need it later, you can leave yourself a note. That’s why I like using Scrivener for writing — it’s quick and easy to find the scene that needs fixing, and there’s a space for notes on the scene, so as soon as you realize you’re going to need that garbage can, you can go to the scene where you need to set it up and write a note saying “put garbage can here,” then go back to writing as though the can has been there all along. You definitely don’t want to go back to make the words pretty, since the words are likely to change.

I generally find that my process involves writing a scene, then that night realizing what I did wrong and how the scene could be better, maybe some stuff I forgot to include. The next day, I start my writing session with revising the previous day’s writing to fix it and add the stuff I forgot. That gives me momentum to plow ahead.

Based on the book I’m working on now, I think I’m going to add a mid-book review to my process. At around the midpoint, I need to review what I’ve already written, since by that time there are a lot of versions in my head and I’m not sure what’s actually in the book. There’s what I thought of when I was outlining, there’s the initial scene, and there’s the “oops, I did it wrong” rewrite. I often drift far from my outline. It’s hard to write the end of the book when you aren’t sure what’s in the beginning, so it’s a good idea to go back and reread it all. That reread may reveal things that need to be fixed. In straying from the outline, did I forget to include some critical elements? Have I been meandering and writing whole scenes that lend nothing to the story? Do I have too many scenes that are essentially the same thing happening over and over? Is the plot even working? Fixing all this stuff at the midpoint means the ending goes more smoothly.

In the current book, I’ve realized that a different character is the protagonist for one of the story lines, so I’m rewriting to make him a viewpoint character. I can’t adequately tell that story from someone else’s perspective. As soon as I went back through the various story outline models looking at it that way, all the story beats clicked into place and I figured out how the ending should go. That’s a good sign.

So now instead of getting near the end and realizing I have no idea what’s going to happen, I think I’m going to plan to review when I get to a particular spot in the story. I’ll build that into my timeline so I won’t feel like doing that is putting me behind. That should also make my production schedule more realistic. If I need less time than I plan for, I can get a head start on the next project or work in another project in between (or take time off!). It’s a lot harder to adjust when I need more time than I planned for.