How I Write a Novel

It Never Gets Easier

Photo: Katherine Marks for The New York Times

As a teacher, and even during readings, I’m often asked how I write a novel. Answer: through gritted teeth and with much psychological pain! But frankly that’s the only way to do it.

As I embark on my sixth novel and seventh book overall, I want to share my progress with you, the reader. And I promise to update faithfully as I go along.

The first draft of my last novel, Our Country Friends, was produced in about six months, the fastest I had ever written. It was scribed during the pandemic, which was also the topic for the book (how convenient, Gary!). There was little research to do, and I just wrote down all the crazy things happening in the world that fateful summer. I was upstate at my dacha without any distractions, and very little recourse to alcohol and alcoholic friends, things which usually slow me down in the city.

My current novel requires tons of research and also a very different approach when it comes to pacing. It is the study of three generations of a family but set against the background of an espionage novel. These two different categories often come with different requirements as to when information is presented and who gets to tell which story. But a good example of each requires characters who are both deep and pressed against the wall, psychologically speaking. Le Carre’s”A Perfect Spy” may be the supreme example.

I began writing my novel-in-progress around September of last year and by the end of the year presented my (excellent) editor with 145 pages. His response was interesting. The characters were working out fine and the language was up to my usual decent-verging-on-okay Gary standards, but the way the story was being told remained confusing to my editor.

I went home, had a couple more martinis, and began to visualize (yes, this sort of thing often requires some visual thinking) a way out of my predicament. I decided to take the first 145 pages apart and to save some pages while dumping others (a ratio of about 50-50) the way private equity firms buy up certain companies for parts.

Then I decided to deploy another character — one who I was going to introduce about halfway through the novel in my original conception — from the very start and let her stand in for the reader to make the action more understandable and also more compelling. Now I could tell the story of this family through her eyes.

Yesterday, I reached page 120 of the new draft. Still less than the 145 pages I submitted in December, but working far better, I believe. This is around the one-third mark of my usual first drafts, and more pages get circumcised in the second draft for a usual length of about 330 printed pages.

Now I must embark upon the second third of the novel, and the middle is often the hardest (especially in subsequent drafts when you really need to get out the scalpel and start cutting). Taking off and landing are interesting for the passenger but the middle of the flight often presents nothing but a persistent droning sound and the need for a spicy bloody Mary. I must deliver exactly such a spicy drink to the reader or they will burst through the cockpit door and do terrible things to me.

Okay, back to writing this thing. If it’s okay with you, I will update every time I check in with my editor and let you know how things are going and which new setbacks I have suffered. Because those setback are a part of the process and super important too.

Cheers!