# Novel Writing: How to Write a Novel, Step by Step - Feldar > Novel writing step by step: length, point of view, chapters, subplots, pacing, the middle and revision, shown on Great Expectations, with a free outline tool. - URL: https://feldar.com/guides/how-to-write-a-novel - Site: [Home](https://feldar.com/) · [About](https://feldar.com/about) · [Blog](https://feldar.com/blog) · [Careers](https://feldar.com/careers) · [Pricing](https://feldar.com/pricing) · [Download](https://feldar.com/download) · [Changelog](https://feldar.com/changelog) - Machine index: [llms.txt](https://feldar.com/llms.txt) · [full site content](https://feldar.com/llms-full.txt) --- On this page - Novel writing in seven steps - What makes a novel - Length and scope - Point of view and tense - Structure across chapters - Subplots - Pacing a long book - The middle - Revision passes for a novel - Worked example - Novel planning template - Writing a novel in Feldar - Sources - Questions Updated November 10, 2026 · By the Feldar team ### Novel writing: how to write a novel, step by step 12 min read Length, point of view, chapters, subplots, pacing, the middle and revision, shown on Great Expectations, with a novel planning template to download. #### Novel writing in seven steps #StepWhat it means 1Choose the length and scopeA target for your genre and one main question big enough to fill it 2Decide point of view and tenseWhose eyes, which tense, kept steady within each scene 3Plan the structure across chaptersLarge parts first, then chapters that end on a question or a change 4Add two or three subplotsThreads that mirror the main plot, complicate it and pay off in it 5Pace the long bookAlternate action and aftermath; vary chapter length 6Make the middle turnA reveal or reversal that changes what the main character believes 7Revise in passesStructure, threads, characters, continuity, then lines Each step is explained below, shown on Great Expectations. The novel planning template puts them on one page, and the free AI novel outline drafts a chapter plan from your idea. #### What makes a novel a novel Our guide on [how to write a book](https://feldar.com/guides/how-to-write-a-book) is the path from an idea to a finished draft, for any kind of book. This one is about the form. A novel is long fiction, and its length changes the work: you are keeping a reader for days rather than an hour, carrying several threads at once, and showing a person change over time. The decisions below are the ones a short story lets you skip. #### Length and scope There is no legal definition, but the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association's award rules are a common reference for where the forms divide: Form Words What usually fits Short storyUnder 7,500One situation, one turn, few characters. Novelette7,500 to 17,499One line of action with room to breathe. Novella17,500 to 39,999One main thread and a clear change, little room for subplots. Novel40,000 or moreA main plot, subplots, a cast, and change over time. Publishers expect more than the minimum: most adult debuts run 80,000 to 100,000 words, fantasy longer. Our guide on [how many words are in a novel](https://feldar.com/guides/how-many-words-in-a-novel) has the ranges by genre. Scope has to match: if your plot resolves in 30,000 words, it needs another thread or a bigger question, not padding. #### Point of view and tense Point of view is the most important technical choice in a novel, because you will live with it for every one of those words. Each option gives you something and costs you something: First person"I." Close and voice-driven; the reader only knows what the narrator knows. Great Expectations and Jane Eyre. Close third"She," seen from inside one character at a time. Almost as close as first person, with more freedom to pull back. Several narratorsTwo or more viewpoint characters, in turn. Range and dramatic irony; the risk is a reader who only cares about one of them. Dracula is told in the journals and letters of several characters. OmniscientA narrator who knows everything and can comment. Freedom and wit, at a distance from the characters. Austen's narrator in Pride and Prejudice leans this way. Past tense is the default and almost invisible to readers; present tense feels immediate but makes long stretches of summary harder. Whatever you choose, keep one viewpoint per scene and change only at a scene or chapter break. A first person narrator in past tense also gives you two people at once: the one living the story and the older one telling it, who knows how it ends. #### Structure across chapters A novel is too long to plan scene by scene from the start. Plan from the top down: a few large parts, each ending on a turn, then the chapters inside each part, then the scenes. The [three-act structure](https://feldar.com/guides/three-act-structure) is the most common shape for the parts. Parts Three or four movements, each ending on a change the reader can feel. Chapters A unit of reading. Most end on an open question, a decision or a reveal. Scenes A unit of change. Someone wants something, and leaves in a different place. There is no correct chapter length. In the classics we counted, the average chapter runs from about 2,000 words in Pride and Prejudice to about 6,000 in Dracula. What matters is that a chapter ends where the reader wants to start the next one. For scene-level planning, see [how to outline a novel](https://feldar.com/guides/how-to-outline-a-novel). ##### Draft a chapter plan for your novel, free Describe your novel and an AI drafts a title, a logline, the main characters and 12, 20 or 30 chapters with a midpoint turn, a crisis and a climax. No account; nothing you type is stored. Use it to test the shape, then make the plan yours. #### Subplots A subplot is a smaller story with its own want and its own ending, running beside the main plot. In a novel, subplots do three jobs. A subplot that does none of them is a candidate for cutting. MirrorShow the main theme from another angle: another person facing the same question and choosing differently. ComplicateGet in the way of the main plot, or force the main character to choose between two things they want. Pay offCross the main plot at a key moment, so the climax depends on something set up long before. Two or three strong subplots are plenty for most novels. Introduce each by the first third, give it a few beats across the middle, and resolve it before or inside the climax. A table with one row per subplot and one column per chapter shows at a glance where a thread disappears for too long. #### Pacing a long book Pace is the reader's sense of how fast things are changing. Over a few hundred pages, a book that is always fast is as tiring as one that is always slow. The tools you have: - Alternate scenes of action with scenes of aftermath, where a character reacts and decides what to do next. - Use summary to cross time quickly, and scene to slow down where it matters. - Vary chapter length. A very short chapter after a long one lands like a blow. - Cut between threads at a moment of tension, so the reader carries a question across the break. - Let tension rise in steps, with a small release after each, rather than a straight climb. #### The middle In a novel the middle is the longest part and the one most likely to sag. The opening has its energy and the ending its pull; the middle needs a structure of its own. The strongest middles build towards a turn near the centre that changes what the main character believes, and then make them live with it. A false beliefLet the character, and the reader, build on something that isn't true. The midpoint breaks it. Subplots risingThe middle is where subplots earn their place, taking turns to raise the cost. A changed goalAfter the turn, the character stops reacting and starts to act, often towards the thing they avoided. Great Expectations is the clearest case we know, as the worked example below shows: its whole middle part rests on a mistake that one chapter destroys. #### Revision passes for a novel You can't hold a whole novel in your head while revising a sentence. Revise in passes, each looking for one kind of problem, from the largest to the smallest: - Reverse outline. One line per scene, with its chapter and length. You'll see sags and repeats you can't see on the page. - Spine. Do the big turns land, and roughly where they should? Does the middle turn? - Threads. Read each subplot on its own, start to finish. Pay it off, merge it or cut it. - Characters. Follow each main character's arc alone. Does each change come from a choice? - Continuity. Timeline, ages, seasons, names, and who knows what by when. - Viewpoint and tense. Hunt for slips: a thought the viewpoint character can't know, a sentence in the wrong tense. - Chapter endings. Read the last paragraph of every chapter in a row. Each should pull. - Lines. Repetition, dialogue, rhythm. Read it out loud. Then give it to readers, and expect the biggest change to come late. Dickens rewrote the ending of Great Expectations after the proofs were set, on a fellow novelist's advice. #### Worked example: Great Expectations Charles Dickens published Great Expectations in 36 weekly parts of his magazine All the Year Round, from 1 December 1860 to 3 August 1861. It is about 185,000 words long, in 59 chapters, and Dickens divided it into three "stages" of Pip's expectations. We counted each one with the rules of our [word counter](https://feldar.com/tools/word-counter). Stage What happens Its job Words First, chapters I to XIXPip helps a convict on the marshes, meets Miss Havisham and Estella, is apprenticed to Joe, and learns from Jaggers that he has great expectations.Setup, ending on the change that launches the book60,946 Second, XX to XXXIXLondon. Pip becomes a gentleman, grows ashamed of Joe and chases Estella, sure that Miss Havisham is his patron. Then the convict returns: he is the benefactor.The middle: a false belief, built up and broken62,332 Third, XL to LIXHiding Magwitch, the truth about Estella, Miss Havisham's fire, the escape on the river, Magwitch's death, Joe, and Estella again eleven years later.Consequences: every thread comes home61,969 The three stages are almost exactly equal in length. The book turns at the end of each, and the second turn, in chapter XXXIX, is the midpoint described above. ##### Point of view The book is told in the first person, in the past tense, by Pip as a grown man. That gives Dickens two Pips: the boy who believes everything, and the man who knows better and lets us feel the gap. The snobbery of the second stage is painful to read because the narrator is ashamed of it too. ##### Subplots Each subplot starts early and crosses the main plot later. By chapter number: HerbertA "pale young gentleman" Pip fights at Satis House (XI) becomes his friend in London (XXI). Pip secretly buys him a start in business (XXXVII), the one good use of his money, and Herbert's firm gives Pip work at the end (LVIII). WemmickJaggers' clerk keeps a hard face in the office and a home in Walworth he calls the Castle (XXV). The two lives mirror Pip's. His note "DON'T GO HOME" (XLIV) starts the third stage's chase. OrlickJoe's surly journeyman (XV) lurks around the edges for most of the book, then nearly kills Pip at the limekiln (LIII). Estella's parentsJaggers' housekeeper Molly appears in XXVI. Pip sees Estella in her face in XLVIII, and in L learns that Magwitch is Estella's father. The two halves of Pip's life were one story all along. ##### Pacing Chapters average 3,140 words but range from 780 (chapter VI, a breath after the chase on the marshes) to 5,738 (chapter XIX, Pip's last days at home before London, which closes the first stage). Each weekly part had to make readers buy the next one, so most parts end with something unresolved. ##### Revision In a letter to John Forster dated 1 July 1861, Dickens wrote that he had changed the end of the book, from Pip's return to Joe's onward, because Edward Bulwer Lytton urged it after reading the proofs. The ending that was printed lets Pip and Estella leave the ruins of Satis House together. Both endings have their defenders, which is a good reminder that revision is a choice, not a correction. #### Free novel planning template The form decisions, a parts and chapters plan, a subplot tracker, a pacing map and the eight revision passes as a checklist. Copy it into whatever you write in, or download it as a Markdown file that opens in Word, Google Docs or Feldar. THE FORM Target length: Point of view (whose, first or third): Tense: SUBPLOTS Subplot | starts in chapter | crosses the main plot in | resolves in [ ] Each subplot mirrors, complicates or pays off Copy template [Download .md](https://feldar.com/assets/templates/novel-planning-template.md) #### Writing a novel in Feldar In Feldar, each page has an [Outline](https://feldar.com/features/scenes) of scenes, and your subplots can live as Plot cards on the [Canvas](https://feldar.com/features/canvas), linked to the characters they belong to. For the later revision passes, Checks reads a page for five things, from critical mistakes to unclear character perspectives, and you decide what to change. Your words stay yours. Feldar is [novel writing software](https://feldar.com/novel-writing-software) with an [AI novel writer](https://feldar.com/ai-novel-writer) that suggests and leaves the choices to you. Checks Writing quality86 / 100 - Fix critical mistakescompleted - Improve accuracy and claritycompleted - Tighten word choicecompleted - Smooth dialogue transitionscompleted - Clarify character perspectivescompleted #### Sources All checked November 8, 2026. Great Expectations[Project Gutenberg eBook #1400](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1400); stage and chapter counts from this text with the rules of our [word counter](https://feldar.com/tools/word-counter) Serialisation[The Victorian Web, the serialisation of Great Expectations](https://www.victorianweb.org/victorian/authors/dickens/ge/geserialisation.html) The changed endingDickens to John Forster, 1 July 1861, in [The Letters of Charles Dickens, vol. 2, Project Gutenberg eBook #25853](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25853) Length categories[SFWA Nebula Awards rules](https://nebulas.sfwa.org/about-the-nebulas/nebula-rules/) Chapter lengthsOur counts; method and book totals in [how many words are in a novel](https://feldar.com/guides/how-many-words-in-a-novel#method) #### Questions How do you write a novel? Choose a length for your genre and a story big enough to fill it, settle the point of view and tense, plan in parts and then chapters, give the main plot two or three subplots, make the middle turn, and revise in passes from structure down to sentences. How many words is a novel? SFWA's award rules count 40,000 words or more as a novel. Most adult debuts run 80,000 to 100,000 words, and fantasy and science fiction often longer. See [how many words are in a novel](https://feldar.com/guides/how-many-words-in-a-novel) for every genre. Should I write my novel in first or third person? First person suits a book driven by one voice and one point of view. Close third gives almost the same closeness with more freedom, and lets you add viewpoint characters later. If you can't decide, write the first chapter both ways and keep the one that sounds like the book. How many subplots should a novel have? Two or three strong ones are enough for most novels. Each should mirror the main plot, complicate it or pay off in it. Long books with large casts, like Great Expectations, carry more, but every one of them crosses the main plot. How long should a chapter be? As long as it needs to end where the reader wants the next one. In the classics we counted, average chapters run from about 2,000 to about 6,000 words, and within one book they vary a lot: Great Expectations has chapters from 780 to 5,738 words. How many drafts does a novel need? There is no set number. Most novels go through a first draft, at least one structural revision and a line edit. Working in passes, one kind of problem at a time, matters more than counting drafts. Is writing a novel different from writing a book? A novel is one kind of book: long fiction. Our guide on [how to write a book](https://feldar.com/guides/how-to-write-a-book) covers the path from idea to draft for any book; this guide covers the choices the novel form adds, such as point of view, subplots and pacing. #### Keep reading [Guide How to write a book Nine steps from first idea to a revised draft.](https://feldar.com/guides/how-to-write-a-book) [Guide Three-act structure The acts, the turns and where they fall.](https://feldar.com/guides/three-act-structure) [Guide How many words are in a novel? 43 classics counted, and what agents ask for by genre.](https://feldar.com/guides/how-many-words-in-a-novel) [Free tool Word counter for writers Counts, pages and how your length compares by genre.](https://feldar.com/tools/word-counter) [Free tool Character name generator A shortlist of names for a cast that has to last 300 pages.](https://feldar.com/tools/character-name-generator) [Guides All guides Every Feldar guide to starting, planning, writing and publishing a book.](https://feldar.com/guides)