Green Where You Water It

The cursor blinks mockingly on the screen as you stare at the half-finished chapter of your “big idea” novel—your magnum opus. It’s the story that drew you to writing in the first place, the one you’ve dreamed about for years. And yet, you can’t seem to finish it. Every time you approach the ending, you freeze. What if it’s not good enough? What if you ruin it?

Frustrated, you open the file for an old, forgotten short story you started months ago. “Just for fun,” you tell yourself, a guilty distraction from the “real work.” But as you revisit that smaller story, something clicks. With less pressure, you can see its flaws clearly. Revising it feels less like climbing a mountain and more like solving a puzzle. And when you finish its second draft, you realize something else—you’ve leveled up as a writer. Suddenly, the daunting final chapters of your magnum opus no longer seem impossible.

You realize a powerful lesson: sometimes, the best way to finish your biggest story is to first complete something smaller.

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If you’re at the beginning of your author journey and you haven’t yet crafted a story from start to finish, but may have several WIPs in the works, starting on the second draft of one of your WIPs can give you more confidence to finish the first draft of another WIP. You know, the one you’re having trouble closing off. That big, bad Magnum Opus.

Which is kind of silly to say if you think about it. When you haven’t even written one full story yet, how can you have the skillset to write your magnum opus?

So hear me out: why not keep that big one aside for a bit while you work on side projects to up your skills? Kind of like a video game. Do some side quests to level up your experience points before you tackle the main quests again. (If you’ve never played a video game your entire life—that is, you’re a bookworm and only a bookworm—please expand your horizons and go play some. I promise it’s worthwhile. It will make you a better writer.)

Skillset Required to Write ‘The Big One’

Every skill you need to acquire in order to write your magnum opus:

Craft a Unique Concept

Though I believe if it’s been tugging at your mind and actually got you interested in writing, then it probably is a unique concept, so checkmark for this first point.

Define Your Vision

What message or impact do you want your novel to have? What’s the scope of the story? Big epic saga or small introspective piece? Both can be powerful, it’s a matter of which format would best suit the story you’re trying to tell for the reason you’re telling it.

Develop Rich Characters

Create characters with layered personalities. Characters with depth, flaws, and growth arcs that resonate with readers. Establish an emotional connection that makes your readers care deeply about what happens to your characters. And finally, ensure your character leads embody the central themes of your story, making them unforgettable anchors for your narrative.

Build an Immersive World

Consider political system, education, cultures, appearances, clothing, customs, rules, ecosystems, modes of transportation, botany (plant life), physics (is there gravity? how much?), biology (are the characters made different than regular humans?), relationship dynamics, etc.

Master Plot

Sometimes you need to have a handle on pre-existing well-established story structures in order to take the risk of creating your own to serve your kind of story. Know the different kinds of plot structures currently present & different plotting methods. Know the common story arcs that all stories are usually based on. You’ll need to know the rules so that you can successfully break them when the time comes.

Grow Your Research Muscle

To avoid throwing a reader out of the story because something does not make sense and the reader knows it, it pays grow your research muscle. Know when to research, how and when enough is enough (which is equally important).

Write with Emotional Truth:

This is a huge hurdle for others like me where our guards are usually up almost all the time and we might only skim the surface in our stories. Or write stories that aren’t in line with how we’ve felt so we can’t quite hit the emotional depth required to have it resonate profoundly with others. We can’t shy away from difficult truths or emotions. Magnum opuses require that sacrifice. Infuse the story with your unique voice and perspective.

Seek and Reflect on Feedback

Write the story how you want to write it so that you get the truest form down, but open it up to feedback and reflect on what you hear back. Consider making changes if it will help tell the story better or get the message across in a more impactful way.

Perseverance

All stories require time to draft. Magnum opuses may take the longest out of all your projects.

George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series is a decades-long project of epic proportions. Starting from the first novel of A Song of Ice and Fire, A Game of Thrones, in 1991. As of December 2024, the series is set to run for 7 books, with the sixth book, The Winds of Winter, still forthcoming, with no official release date announced. The final installment, A Dream of Spring, is planned to follow. This timeline reflects over three decades of development for the series, highlighting its expansive and evolving nature.

It goes to show, patience is key to surviving. What I’ve found helps is:

• regularly reconnecting with your original vision. It’s easy to get lost in the details and forget what you’re trying to achieve or get discouraged by how much there is still left to do, but having your vision front and center helps pull you forward.
• breaking things down to a point where you’re able to put one piece in place every session you work so that you can readily see the progress. If you’re not able to complete your goal in one session, that’s a sign you should break the task down even further.

• relish in the part of the story you’re at. Get the juice out of enjoying that particular scene or dialogue as you write it. If you’re someone who listens to songs on repeat once you find the right one, you know what I mean. If you’re a Harry Potter fan that rereads the books at least once every few years, you know what I mean. I used to want the story to have been written already. It was hard to think about what I want to get to and not having gotten there already. Still be at the start or middle, faaar away from the end. But that trick to slowly satiate my senses by reliving the story has unlocked another level for me.

Refinement

Know that the first draft of the story is one version of it. If you write to the finish line, now you know it, start to finish. Now you can rewrite and enhance it. You can change what happens in it and explore a different version if you so choose and determine which version is better. Rewrite until every word feels essential. Ensure the story flows seamlessly, engaging the reader from start to finish.

Think Beyond the Page

Deliver an ending that resonates and provides closure, your magnum opus should leave readers thinking long after they finish the book. Ender’s Game leaves you thinking if you’re misjudging an entire race based on past actions of bygone leaders instead of seeing their current actions as hands outstretched in remorse and reconciliation.

How to Acquire the Above Skillset: Side Quests

All that sounds like a lot to cover in one go on your very first story. Here’s what to do instead: work on side projects to level up your skills. This will be an act of service toward your ‘Big One’. The only way to do it justice is to first level up.

Side projects, especially short stories, as recommended by Ray Bradbury can flex your creative muscles but in a shorter format that gives you a quick hit when you finish. It allows you to experience the whole story writing process at a faster pace. Meaning: planning, drafting, editing x3 (developmental, line, polish) and finally publishing. Plus you can explore ideas in different genres, with different POVs & different ways of spinning the narrative. When you go through it all once on a smaller scale, it helps you build confidence that can help you get through your bigger pieces.

And here’s the key: when you finish the first draft of your short story, you can start on the second. And that’s where the magic really happens.

Why Writing a Second Draft Will Transform Your WIPs

Writing the second draft of a short story can help you see how the second time around, you can make it better. And you’ll start realizing that the first draft isn’t the end-all-be-all material you thought it was. It was just the starting point. And that’s good because you don’t have to get it right the first time. The first draft exists just for exploratory purposes. It’s your chance to explore the land and tell the tale as you think it’s supposed to be told, as far as you know it at that point.

Once you get to the end, you’ll know more and it’s then—after some time away—that you can go back to the beginning and tell it better.

I used to think that if the first draft is bad, it’ll make the editing experience worse down the line, which kept me from writing the first draft of my ‘big one’.

But I had worked on other projects in the background (at the time a guilty distraction). I managed to finish one and after it was done, I found myself retelling it to someone. The retelling was better. Light bulb moment. Then I thought, why don’t I try re-writing it? (As in a complete overhaul.) In the re-writing process, I realized my re-write was better than the original. Imagine that. I went hard with the first telling of it, so I didn’t think I could possibly improve it. But I did.

Now granted, it is a short story and so it was easier to do. Re-writing a longer piece of work might be hard, but not impossible and is absolutely required in some cases.

You’ll need:

• To not be attached to everything that happens, because you may need to scrap ideas to make the entire thing better. I’m not attached to ideas/places/characters, especially if I know I can replace it with something better.
• To love the story more than the prose. Tell the story in basic language, just get the events, emotions and dialogue that originally comes to you out on paper. Don’t marry the prose yet. Make it wait until the end to give it any attention.
• To not worry about the time it takes to get this done right. It will feel like a waste of time until you get to the end. Then you’ll realize the dance was worth it.

The best thing about working on the second draft: you know the story better now. And that can help you do so much:

• You can put in foreshadowing, remove things to add mystery, re-arrange the sequence of events to create the best effect.
• You can plug in holes from the first draft and think of the logistics a bit better.
• Do the research in a way that’s not distracting (you know exactly how much you need to know to tell the story, less danger of getting sucked into a rabbit hole of things you think you might need to know but really don’t)
• Because you understand your characters better now, you can deepen their motivations, really lock in & refine dialogue, and ensure consistency in their arcs.
• You can add subtext and symbolism (if you so choose), or add additional details. Wrote “she walked through the field” the first time around? Now’s your chance to add that strange flora she saw, and the little creatures that peaked out from within it to inspected her, safe in their hiding spaces. Improving imagery, and adding depth can be a satisfying creative process, allowing you to see your story evolve into something more compelling and well-crafted.
• If you write all the way through on the basic plot of your story, the one main thread that goes straight through, you can spend time in the second draft adding the other threads that weave in & out of your main storyline. Complicating your character arcs and adding intricacy to your plot.

The second draft is when your story transforms from a rough, raw idea into a more cohesive and engaging narrative, making it a fun stage of refinement and growth rather than the initial struggle you faced when working on your first draft. (Unless you were smarter than me and sped through it, knowing the second draft is when you make the magic happen.)

Your Magnum Opus Awaits: Trust the Process and Keep Writing

Although writing your first draft should always be a race to the finish line, writing your magnum opus isn’t—it’s about embracing the journey of growth, discovery, and refinement. By focusing on smaller side projects and diving into the transformative process of second drafts, you’re not just honing your craft; you’re preparing yourself to do justice to the story that means the most to you.

Your magnum opus deserves the best version of you as a writer, and every project you complete—every skill you master—brings you closer to that version. Remember, the first draft isn’t the endgame; it’s the foundation. So with each skill you level up, try your hand at ‘the Big One’ again so you continue making progress. It’s the second draft where your story will begin to shine, and with each iteration, you’ll see your vision come to life in ways you never imagined.

So, give yourself permission to put the “big one” aside intermittently. Level up through side quests, practice without pressure, and learn to trust the process. Your magnum opus will still be there when you’re ready—and when the time comes, you’ll have the tools, foundation and confidence to tackle it with all the skill and passion it deserves. Happy writing!