Planet Comicon was last weekend. I got to moderate a panel with some of my fellow Metamorphosis Literary Agency authors called “How do you write that book? (And get it published!)”

It was one of my favorite bits of the weekend, seeing all of those writers in the audience, hungry for advice of varying shapes and sizes. Of course, it also led to come people coming up to our table after with more questions, seeking more advice.

Over and over, people would talk about how they’re struggling to finish their manuscript.

So, over and over, we would repeat the same advice:

Here’s the thing. Novels are so big, your brain cannot contain the entire thing at once. Of course, you can remember the broad strokes, but you cannot contain every detail of the book at the same time. You have to think about it in pieces.

This also means that you don’t fully understand the shape of your novel until you finish the first draft.

It doesn’t matter how much you outline and plan. If you’re being faithful to your characters and making sure to follow who they are as your plot unfolds, they’ll inevitably surprise you. You’ll have to change those carefully outlined plot points.

Or, even better, you’ll think of something better than what you’d planned as you’re writing the thing. After all, it takes months (at least) to write that first draft, and your imagination is hard at work the entire time.

I hear this a lot. You’re writing, but you don’t like what you’ve written, so you go back and try to make it better before proceeding to the next chapter.

Or, you’re writing chapter seven, and realize there’s something in chapter one that you need to change, so you go back, fix it, and rewrite everything that follows.

Then it happens again. And again. And again. You’ve rewritten and edited the first few chapters of your book multiple times, but you’ve yet to write any further into the book. You’re feeling frustrated and burnt out.

Here’s the thing: you need to keep going forward in the manuscript. Because, again, you don’t know the full shape of the book until you finish the first draft. That thing you noticed that you need to fix? You might wind up making a different decision in 10 chapters. Once you’ve finished the first draft, you have a pretty clear idea of EVERYTHING that needs to be changed, and you can make all those edits in a single pass.

Yes, all of them. Even that one. From that author.

All of them.

The first draft isn’t supposed to be good. It’s supposed to be you throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks. You’re building the scaffolding of your story. It’s during the editing process that you start to sculpt it into something good or even great.

Not knowing this also leads to burnout. You’ve written for days on end and you feel like all of it was terrible. Yeah, it probably was. But that’s because it’s supposed to be. Here’s a fun surprise, though: when you go back through it, you’re going to find more that you like than you imagined.

So keep going. Finish the damn book. Make it good later.

As with all writing advice, this may not work for you. Some people just absolutely have to edit while they write. That’s okay. Find what works for you.

But also…

Write the damn book. You got this.