This week on the Dover Library blog, in celebration of women writers for National Women’s History Month, GWU alumna and author Jen Guberman shares her writing process.
I published my first book at the age of nineteen. As a sophomore at Gardner-Webb, I spent a lot of my free time between 
classes writing from one of the chairs around the first-floor elevator in Tucker. Many double chocolate muffins and iced coffees later, I finished the first draft at around 75,000 words (it sounds like a lot, but trust me, it’s easier than any of your papers that you write for class). I tasked some of my family, friends, and teachers with a talent for English with editing my book. After much editing, formatting, and cover designing, I self-published my first novel, Eos, just a couple weeks before my twentieth birthday.
Some people think writing a book is easy, some think it’s difficult, and others—impossible. At times, it can feel like all three. Honestly, it has been the most rewarding thing I have ever done and I don’t know if any of my other achievements can top it.
You know how all of your teachers growing up warn you that you can’t write a “good” paper without first outlining it? I never followed that advice. My papers turned out fine. Writing a book, however, is a lot more intensive. You must have the ability to keep track of characters and their development, the plots (major and minor), the settings, and the general story arch. If you don’t plot out your entire story in some way, you’ll get to your end either too quickly or too slowly. Either you’ll have too much bouncing around in your story because you didn’t carefully structure it, or you won’t have enough going on because you didn’t prepare to fill the space between major events. If you have an idea for a book and that idea won’t leave your thoughts—it might be a sign that you need to sit down and write. Write something. Write anything. You don’t have to jump right into the story if you aren’t ready. Every time an idea for that story comes to your mind, jot it down on a flashcard. When you’ve created a stack of these flashcards, lay them all out and organize them into a full story. Then you’re ready to write.
One of the oddly fun parts about being a writer comes from the research. I know that, at the word “research,” you might be considering running for the hills. I’ve had to research first-hand accounts of experiences with hallucinogenic drugs so I could better write from the perspective of a person who tried a weird fictional drug. I’ve searched “where can you get shot to bleed a lot but not die” (when the bullet grazes the top of your head, if you were wondering, you will bleed a lot but it won't necessarily kill you) so I could write plausible gunshot wounds into the story. I’ve researched how long canned pineapple is considered edible.
Even if you’re writing fiction, you want certain elements to be as believable as possible. You never know who is going to read your story and what kind of background knowledge they bring with them. If a doctor were to read a scene about a gunshot wound to the foot and the character died a dramatic, bloody death, the doctor reading your story would have the background knowledge to know that the scene is unrealistic. Immediately, you can lose your credibility and your reader will feel distant from your story. Even if you’re writing about zombies, fairies, elves, or space monsters, if you don’t make the real-life elements believable, you might lose readers. Do your research, even if you end up with the most questionable search history on campus.
The best feeling as an author is that moment when someone talks to you about your own characters. “I can’t believe you killed ____!” “I loved when she punched that guy!” “I’m so glad____ and _____ ended up together!” When you hear these kinds of comments, you’ll realize how real these characters became to your readers, and you’ll know that your work was worth it.
To keep up with the progress of the last book in the trilogy, or if you have any questions about writing, self-publishing, or the Eos Dawn Series, please reach out to me at EosDawnSeries@gmail.com or visit my website, www.EosDawnSeries.com. I’d love to hear from you!
Photo Credits to Lisa Martinat, GWU Student
Announcements:
You can check out Guberman's two novels, Eos and Fortitude, in the Library!
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