A Novel Process

Some thoughts on the process of writing a novel

I've been working on a young adult novel for the past few weeks, and find myself faced with a dilemma. Should I workshop the individual chapters as I get them completed, or wait until the entire thing is done?

I'm leaning towards the later, because I'm finding that each chapter tends to shape not just the chapters that follow it, but its predecessors as well. As I discover these nuances, I end up going back to those past chapters and inserting moments of foreshadowing, filling in backstory, and trying to build up to revelations that will come later on.

Part of the difficulty, at least in my opinion, is the linear nature of the approach. Last time I worked on something this long, I used an entirely different approach and wrote it in scenes, not necessarily in the same order that they'd appear in. Once I had all the scenes, I went through and filled in the gaps. And yet with the latest work, I find that sitting down and writing consecutive chapters seems to work much better.

I first realized this after letting my writing group see the first chapter. It ended up getting reworked into three chapters after their feedback and then I just wasn't sure anymore - workshop that chunk and make them reread some things? Or move on to the next chunk of narrative and figure that they wouldn't notice some of the gaps? It's tricky.