How to Write a Novel

What I do

I don’t write outlines for my novels. I am not a meticulous thinker. As of next year, I will have published three novels, with many more, mostly finished in my twenties, tucked away. I’ve been writing novels, almost continuously, since I was eighteen. The learning I did was through reading and repetition; I imbibed no grand theories, only pursued what I liked and what struck my fancy. I admire those who think analytically about fiction. Incapable of pursuing a doctorate and bereft of an MFA—I applied to one and did not get in—I have been self-taught in this venture. Like the old rōnin, I wandered. My mentors were what I read. I had no patron or particular booster, no professor who recommended me to so-and-so. There is nothing virtuous or advantageous about this. It is just my reality.

Glass Century, my new novel, was finished in 2020. I spent several years trying to get it published and finally succeeded. I wrote it in a white-hot rush, what would end up at 482 pages in nine months, doing my best to produce something like the panoramic social novels I always wanted to read, those which were grand and polyphonic and grappled with the American century. I urge you to pre-order it because I think it is very important, and you will help me greatly. If you read this newsletter for free, consider this your way to boost me: a subscription here costs $60, but the novel is only $33.99. That’s a steal. Own a novel that National Book Award finalist Christopher Sorrentino said was “generous and funny” and “smart and expansive” or Adelle Waldman, of Nathaniel P. fame, declared “stylish and original.” Or one that Junot Díaz deemed “spectacularly moving.” (If you are into audiobooks, Penguin Random House has got you covered.)

But enough self-promotion. (Well, not really—I’m going to do a lot of between now and May 6th, so buckle up. It’s like the fireballer Bob Feller once said, if you’re not going to promote yourself, who will?) I want to talk a bit on craft, since I know some are interested in that and what I do when I write. How does one write a novel, exactly? It’s bit like asking how one lives a life: there are many ways. To use a baseball analogy, I am not so much a guess hitter as one who is reactive. Some batters like to suss out, through statistical analysis and the tells of a pitcher, what type of pitch is coming next. Fastball or curve? Change or sweeper? Others simply see the baseball out of the pitcher’s hand and try to hit it, worrying less about what kind of pitch it might be. I do not worry about the novel when I am starting out. I write and write, pressing on into the darkness.

Here is what I always need: the vaguest idea of where I might be headed. I compare it to a lighthouse in the fog. You’re at sea seeking land and the weather is treacherous. You know, somewhat, where home might be. Through the fog comes the light, but it’s many miles off. Maybe it’s due north, so you’re sailing north. I think of the end of the novel as my fogged light. I don’t know exactly what it resembles. John Pistelli recently had a sharp dissection of plot versus narrative and I think much more in terms of narrative than plot. A novel with a strong narrative thrust and a compelling worldview will, by default, have a plot that can hold the reader. You need to know what your book is about. What is it, exactly, you want to say? Convey? This isn’t a political question, or one of didacticism or morality. I knew, for example, Glass Century would be about a family and an illicit love affair that spans decades, into the twenty-first century. I knew my interests: the psychic impact of 9/11, the tumult of the 1970s, tennis and baseball, and vigilantism. I knew I would need to tell the story through the perspectives of at least two or three characters. I knew, as Covid was rising around me, I would probably want to end there, in the uncertain present. I thought Donald Trump, in his younger form, would have to rumble through. And I had certain images. My protagonist, Mona Glass, would be in the streets, taking photos. Tad Plotz, the wayward son, would be in the wilderness. What would it all mean? I’d figure it out eventually.

But I didn’t grow anxious over mechanics. When I write a novel, I am moving scene to scene. Each scene, in its own way, must have some charge or tug, a means to take us from here to there. Each should have a purpose. Write on and worry about the next one later. If you feel yourself stalling or fretting plot too much, just try to see your character anywhere. Nineteenth and twentieth century novels didn’t fear the discursive. They didn’t fear what the modern reader would call a “side quest.” In the end, you may feel it’s ancillary or worth cutting. That’s fine. The importance, really, is in keeping the forward momentum. Lincoln Michel once wrote that the greatest lesson he could impart to young writers is to finish things and I can’t agree more. Get to the end of the novel! If you’re not sure of where you’re going to land, land anywhere. Conceive of a final scene, even if it does not satisfy you. You can always rewrite it later.

I don’t like to discuss works-in-progress very much but I am currently writing a new novel. I am, as of this moment, about 16,000 words into it, and I only figured out last night what the driving force of it might be—where it would go and how it could end. For several months, I’ve been happily puttering along, describing a wealthy attorney’s night out with a New York Yankee and his mistress in 2020s New York, all of them watching an illegal underground fight in a nightclub the attorney partially owns. The attorney, I decided, is also sleeping with his secretary who is objectively much less attractive than his wife. A murder is coming. I only just realized who might be committing the murder and what it could mean. If I hadn’t, I would’ve kept writing anyway. It’s a joyous slog.

Do you write for a market? This is the eternal question that the contemporary novelist confronts. The self-publisher is liberated in this regard, and as the stigma around going your own way disappears, we will likely see more literary novels appear in this manner. The aforementioned Pistelli first published his great novel Major Arcana this way before a traditional publisher decided to reissue it in 2025. One of the more penetrating novels I’ve read in years, Incel by ARX-Han, was self-published and is gradually becoming, as it should, an internet cult classic. Other writers, me included, have stuck to the traditional route. There are many advantages, of course, to having a publisher: the money might be better, and you don’t have to sweat cover design, layout, and distribution. Prestige matters, if that melts away with each passing year. Do I write for a market? There is no straightforward answer. With the exception of one time, when I was twenty-six and an agent off-handedly suggested I write a politics novel and I proceeded to do this, in a near-manic state, over the span of two months (this novel will never see the light of day, but it did presage one of the Anthony Weiner scandals), I have never begun a novel with the idea that I will reach a certain market niche, agent, or publisher. This is how Demolition Night arrived, a book virtually none of you have read but one that is probably ripe for rediscovery, given its genre-bending, acid satire, and surprising pathos. (If you like time travel, check it out.)

When I wrote my second published novel, The Night Burns Bright, I was thinking about “cult” books like Emma Cline’s The Girls and I did believe the material could be more marketable. But that wasn’t where the inspiration lay, and it wasn’t the impetus for starting it. I wanted to lock myself in the perspective of a child and understand how cults came to be, and why otherwise reasonable people may be led down the road to terror and violence. I wanted to call the novel Blood Earth or Every Side of Darkness but the publisher vetoed both titles. I remain a bit sore about that. This novel also came very quickly, in the summer of 2019, and it seemed to have its own momentum. I do find that happens with books. They must call to you first. A vision, of sorts, must come, and then you sprint after it. You do your best. You have to, first and foremost, write for yourself—not for friends, lovers, or the marketplace. If you don’t believe in what you are doing, you are lost. I won’t tell you to not think about money because I think about money but it’s better to hold the novel apart from that. It’s not your meal ticket. The odds are long that it ever will be—advances tend to be small, and earning out on royalites is unlikely—and many of the biggest publishers are shying away from innovation. Fight, of course, to make it public—to get it published and receive accolades. Enjoy the fruits that may come. But also find another way to make a living and treat the novel like an art object, a sacred work that exists for its own sake and is testament to your creativity, ambition, and will. Treat it like the child destined to outlive you.