How To Hobby: Writing Novels

Douglas L. Beresford
Voice of Experience — July 2025

©2025. Published in The Business Lawyer, July 2025, by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association or the copyright holder.

Voice of Experience (VOE): What's your hobby?

DB: I write fiction, specifically novels.

VOE: How did you get into writing fiction?

DB: I've always been fascinated with exotic stories, with diverse characters and with the power of words to shape perception. I wrote my first short story when I was 11 years old and typed my first novel in law school.

VOE: Did you stop writing fiction after typing up your first novel?

DB: Let's just say my production was low. I wrote an occasional poem or short story, but I had to make a living, so I joined the legal profession. Writing is an integral part of law practice, so I didn't wander far from my first calling.

VOE: Can you describe the difference between legal writing and creative writing?

DB: Sure. Legal writing involves analytical thinking. You take a problem, reduce it to pieces, and put it back together in a new arrangement. Creative writing involves associational thinking. One idea leads to another thought, which produces a related concept, and so on. Then you put them together as a story with flourishes of language.

Both legal and creative writing have a specific point to make, but they make them differently. Good legal writing persuades; good creative writing entertains. Both aim to enlighten the reader.

VOE: How do you choose the subjects of your novels?

DB: I write about what interests me and what I know about. Some of my novels are based on my experiences practicing law.

VOE: What type of law did you practice?

DB: Well, I was a corporate lawyer in private practice in Washington, D.C., for over 30 years. When I was first asked to talk about my hobby, I thought the topic was “How to Lobby.”

VOE: How did you come up with the idea for your first published novel, Beyond the Pale? It's about four prep-school boys in the 1930s who explore the occult. It has nothing to do with law practice.

DB: My father told me the true story the book is based on. He was one of the four boys. It has the horrors of World War I as a precursor, Yeats's “blood-dimmed tide,” the Great Depression as the setting, and the rearmament of Germany looming over the future. All in the context of a coming-of-age story involving privileged boys.

Add in Germans fleeing their own country, as well as the boys’ interest in novel concepts of relativity and epistemology, and you've got wonderful ingredients for a story. The fact that one of the other boys became a Roman Catholic Cardinal and another boy became President of the United States made me realize that truth can actually be stranger than fiction.

VOE: Your next published book, Savings and Loons, is different in tone, as well as in substance. Why the pivot?

DB: In fact, I wrote before Beyond the Pale. I was just letting Loons marinate. When I retired from the law, I started thinking about the outré situations I had found myself in and the eccentric characters I had known practicing law.

I discussed them with my wife, who was also a private practice lawyer with similar experiences. She was a partner in a law firm that specialized in the savings and loan industry. We put our heads together and came up with the often-bizarre vignettes that make up Savings and Loons.

VOE: If someone wanted to write fiction as a hobby, where would they start?

DB: Lawyers have a natural advantage in writing fiction because they have wonderful imaginations. We can imagine good things, and we're trained to imagine bad things happening.

I'd start with an interesting idea from my own experience and expand from there. A woman finds herself in a peculiar and challenging situation. What's her backstory? What motivates her? How does she respond to the situation? How do other people react?

VOE: How long does it take to come up with an idea for a novel?

DB: It depends. I like to carry a small notebook where I can write down ideas as I go about my business. It's amazing how quickly you can forget a great idea you're sure you'll never forget if you don't write it down immediately.

After a while, you'll have enough notes to outline your novel.

VOE: Do you always stick with your first outline?

DB: No. An outline is merely the bones of a story. As you flesh out the bones you find the skeleton may change from a sparrow to a raven. A love story could become a murder mystery. Writing fiction is organic, not static.

VOE: When you begin writing, are the first lines you write always the first lines of your book?

DB: They can be. For me, more often than not, I like to begin in medias res, in the middle of things, like Homer's The Odyssey. Later, you may decide to start at the beginning of the story, or draft a prologue, or stick with plopping the reader in the middle of the action at the start.

VOE: When you're writing a novel, do you keep regular working hours?

DB: Yes. Lawyers are good at keeping regular hours. It's efficient. Some people like to work in the morning, some in the afternoon and some in the evening.

Just block off a chunk of time every day to write. And be sure to take occasional breaks. Walk the dog, get a cup of tea. Taking your mind off the work temporarily can give you a new perspective when you return to it.

VOE: How long does it take to write a novel?

DB: It depends partly on the length. Most novels are between 60,000 and 120,000 words. And of course, it can take longer to write a novel if you get stuck on a plot point or need to adjust a character's actions.

From the first idea to the rough draft, I usually take a year.

VOE: What about editing? Do you do all of that yourself?

DB: For me, editing is harder and less enjoyable than writing. But it's essential.

First, edit yourself, but then you should have other people look at your work. Beta readers are great, but they are often friends or family who may not be as critical as your efforts demand.

There are established authors who you can pay a few dollars a page to review your novel. You may find that the extra pair of objective eyes is worth it.

VOE: What do you do when you're satisfied you've got a good first draft of your novel?

DB: If you have the opportunity, put the draft in a drawer for a couple of months and forget about it. Travel. Come up with an idea for a new novel. Write a synopsis for a sequel to a previous novel.

When you go back to the novel in the drawer, you’ll likely have a different perspective on your writing. You may want to tweak a character or even rewrite whole scenes.

I once read that Evelyn Waugh gave similar advice to Scott Fitzgerald.

VOE: When do you approach a publisher?

DB: I've found that most publishers won't consider unsolicited manuscripts. They have personal relationships with gatekeepers called literary agents.

VOE: When do you approach a literary agent to find a publisher?

DB: Not until you have a solid first draft that you are happy with. There are lots of resources to find agents. For example, the website Poets & Writers has a literary agents database.

Look for one that seems to understand your genre and has promoted novels similar to yours.

VOE: How do you approach a literary agent?

DB: Typically, you write a one-page “query” letter to them. Sometimes they respond, sometimes they ignore queries that don't interest them.

VOE: Do you have an agent?

DB: No. From what I've observed, agents are not particularly good at identifying a quality novel or even choosing novels that will be commercially successful.

They are good at identifying current trends: What type of novel is popular now? Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, their crystal balls for future popular success generally aren’t better than anyone else’s.

VOE: Why do novelists use agents when self-publishing is relatively easy?

DB: Some authors think being attached to a particular agent or publisher gives them some cachet, and perhaps it does.

There is no question that agents and publishers are helpful in marketing. They can get a novel reviewed, they can place it in a storefront or airport bookstore. Some will even take out advertisements promoting a book.

But, of course, agents take a share of the royalties, too.

VOE: Are you likely to make a living writing novels?

DB: Everything I've read points toward “No.” One statistic I read was that only 0.08% of published books make the U.S. Best Seller lists.

My advice: If you want to write novels, do it as a hobby. Write because you love writing, not to make money.

VOE: Has this writing hobby led you to do unexpected things?

DB: Absolutely. It's led me to some amazing social reconnections with old friends and introduced me to new people.

VOE: Can you give an example?

DB: Sure. My best friend from kindergarten through high school became a lawyer and moved away from D.C. I hadn't seen him in over 40 years.

He read Beyond the Pale and asked me to speak to his book club in Philadelphia about the novel. His book club had a dozen or so men, some but not all retired, from various professions: scientists, politicians, doctors, lawyers, bankers. Their wives had their own book club, so they were all serious readers.

I was warmly received by the group and have happily renewed my connection with my old friend from kindergarten.

VOE: Can you give another instance where you reconnected with old friends?

DB: There are many of them. A good friend of mine from college, who I hadn't seen in 30 years or so, also read Beyond the Pale. He's a psychiatrist and was interested in the Jungian aspects of the book.

We corresponded and then met again at a college reunion where we discussed the novel at length. We still keep up.

A classmate from law school read the same novel and shared it with another classmate we had both been close to. Time had separated us (Wordsworth’s “The world is too much with us; late and soon, / Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;”), but now we correspond again.

I can give you similar examples of old friends I've reconnected with who live in Palo Alto, Cambridge, Montboulard (France), Majorca (Spain), Kentucky and Vermont.

VOE: Your most recent novel is a detective murder mystery called Trouble Is At Hand. What caused you to go in that direction?

DB: I was reading some of the classics -- Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, Ross Macdonald -- and a lawyer / lobbyist / detective based in Washington, D.C., came into my head.

I saw him investigating the motives of three powerful Washington political families and the money that lay behind their political fortunes. So, I tell his story in Trouble Is At Hand.

VOE: How would you describe Electric Shock? Your next novel that's going to be released soon?

DB: [Laughs.] A priest, a rabbi, and an imam sabotage a nuclear power plant in California, causing an energy crisis and threatening global chaos.

VOE: Do you have some final advice for any of our readers interested in writing fiction as a hobby?

DB: Yes. Don't hesitate to start and, if you like creative writing, please keep going. You'll know pretty quickly whether it's your cup of tea.