How to Build a Champion

How did you write How to Build a Champion?*

Honestly? The first draft was written seated, on my bedroom floor, in long-hand; an A4 lined note-pad in front of me, a blue pen between my fingers. (I dislike writing in black; ‘funereal’ undertones.) It took 4 hours a day – every day. I’d write the first version of a ‘scene’ in a morning; take a break for half an hour, then write the ‘scene’ over with any bits I’d noticed were ‘missing’. Then, I’d put it to one side. On the evening, after my mind had worked on other things, I’d write the ‘scene’ over again, then file the sheets of A4 paper into a plastic wallet and put the day’s work out-of-sight. (Not for any superstitious reason; I’d ‘clocked-off’ and I didn’t want to be reminded of work.) I followed the same rhythm – day-in, day-out – for around 6 or 8 weeks, until the first draft was finished. And… I took a week off.

Then, with a keen eye and a red pen, I struck-through what I felt didn’t ‘read right’, typed up what did, assessing each ‘scene’ as a stepping-stone with a purpose of achieving the project’s overall aim.

I put the story – at this point I couldn’t call it ‘the book’ – to one side.

I read through the work, and shared the first part of what I’d written with a friend – who also writes – and occupied myself for the next few months. (Anyone who has written anything of length, will not be surprised to learn that, when I read through what I’d sent my writer-friend, two months later, I spotted so many things I couldn’t believe I’d missed: It was too long-winded; too detailed; took too long to get to the point; I’d wrote the ‘scenes’ out-of-sequence, so there were parts which simply didn’t add up. (For one thing, I had a character arrive in a vehicle then walk home.) All of which my writer-friend noticed, and which I’d noticed, when looking with ‘fresh-eyes’, days before I read their feedback.)

After a wallow – not over my friend’s feedback – over how much work there was to do, to get the work into publishable shape: I revisited the storyboard I mentioned in a previous post; culled a few ‘scenes’ and some (minor) characters; adjusted the novel’s ‘tone-of-voice’; changed a fair amount of dialogue; narrowed down any descriptions; had the characters I’d kept do the opposite of what I’d originally thought they’d do – which made things a lot more interesting! – and wrote new ‘scenes’ to give the novel additional colour, texture, and flavour, while truncating several ‘scenes’ to quicken its pace. The only thing that stayed the same was the structure; I refined my overall aim, too. (Too wide a scope, in its first iteration.)

Then I wrote (most of) the novel over – which took, roughly, a month. (I typed the changes, as I can pummel keys, quickly, whereas my hand-writing descends into something resembling chicken-scratches, quickly.) And as I measured the changes against the refined aim and objectives, I put it to one side for 9 months. (For reasons that had nothing to do with writing a novel.)

Summer 2025: I read through How to Build a Champion, which until that point had a slightly different title, gave it what, I thought was the final proofread – but it never is, is it fellow writers? – and began scouring literary agents’ websites, compiling their contact information, and writing querying letters. (I thought traditional publishing could be the way to go.) And well, I’ll share more of my adventures with you, next time…

Stay tuned!

*This post is an expansion of an answer in this post.