My goal for 2025 was to write the first draft of my young adult fantasy novel. I didn’t finish writing the entire book, but I have written over 67,000 words. I planned for it to be around 80,000, but I’m just now entering the last quarter of the storyline. I still plan for it to be about 80,000 words by the time I query it, which means I will be cutting a lot in the editing phase.
So far while writing it, I learned that I know nothing. Not literally, but it certainly feels that way. It’s like I forgot how to write a book, even though I already wrote a full manuscript years ago. It also made me feel like I didn’t understand fantasy books, despite it being my favorite genre and having read literally hundreds of them.
My first big I-don’t-know-how-to-write moment was my first chapter. I completely changed it, turning my initial one into chapter two. I had thought starting with the scene where my FMC sees my MMC for the first time in years would immediately put my readers in the heart of the conflict. But I got a third of the way into the story before I realized that it just didn’t work well as my opening. The standoffish way my FMC is with my MMC doesn’t accurately depict her character and makes her seem unlikable. By adding a preceding chapter in which my readers can get a better understanding of her and see the origin of her journey, it makes her–and the story–a lot more appealing.
I also discovered that I am no longer a pantser, at least not with this book. I had had my vague outline with the order of events, but no actual details of what to include in the connective scenes. That was probably the thing that hindered me most while writing last year. I spent two months writing three chapters because I didn’t know what to include in them to get from plot point A to plot points B and C. That’s also why I’m going to have to delete a lot of the first quarter of the book because nothing really happens. So many scenes can be condensed and combined, which will save me thousands of words. Midway through 2025, I finally created a more detailed outline, and it has helped me write quite a bit faster.
Another thing I realized is that I don’t have as diverse a vocabulary as I thought I did. The number of times I have used “sighed” and “nodded” instead of finding synonyms or alternate body movements is embarrassing. I also didn’t notice how often I use words like “just” and “so” until halfway through writing the draft, and now every time I reread an earlier scene it makes me a little angry at myself. I have also discovered that I don’t know alternatives to phrases like “modus operandi” or “en masse”. In real life and in my other books set in present-day America, that’s not a problem, but I feel like I can’t use them in a fantasy book because those phrases are from foreign languages that don’t exist in that world.
I have also struggled greatly with determining how basic things like mail and inns work in a fantasy world. Do they use couriers or pigeons? If pigeons, can I call them pigeons, or do I need a unique name for the birds? If couriers, do they need some sort of address? Did old-timey (see what I mean about vocabulary?) inns have front desks? How did guests get water? Were there trash cans in the rooms? Bathing rooms? Chamber pots? I know that YA books probably don’t need to have that level of detail, but what if my potential readers and editors flag it as not making sense? My “solution” thus far has been to spend hours overthinking it.
As you can see, drafting my YA fantasy WIP has involved a lot of second guessing myself and doubting that I even know how to write a book. Despite all of that, I am continuing to work on it and will write every day until I finish this draft.
Allison Burton 