Elif Shafak's Advice on Writing a Novel: Follow the Story, Not the Plan

Elif Shafak is a Turkish-British novelist. She has published nineteen books in two languages. 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World was longlisted for the Booker Prize. The Bastard of Istanbul got her prosecuted under Turkish law for "insulting Turkishness." She writes about the silenced, the displaced, and the forgotten.

Her writing advice comes from David Perell's How I Write podcast, interviews with Writing Routines, and her essay on what she wishes she had known as a young writer.

Let the Love Guide You

"Writing fiction is primarily a work of love." Shafak starts here. Not discipline. Not routine. Not craft. Love. Love for the characters. Love for the language. Love for the readers who will carry the story forward.

This sounds soft. It is not. Love is what keeps you writing when the work is going badly. Discipline gets you to the desk. Love keeps you there when every sentence feels wrong. Most writing advice emphasizes the showing-up part. Shafak emphasizes the staying part.

Be a Little Drunk

Not literally. Shafak means: write without knowing what comes next. "You're a little bit drunk. You don't quite know what you're doing. You take risks." Do not plan every scene. Do not know the ending before you begin. Let the story surprise you.

The form comes with the story. You do not decide in advance that this novel will have three parts and twelve chapters. You write and discover that this story needs five voices and a nonlinear timeline. The structure emerges from the material. It cannot be imposed from outside.

This echoes Lamott's one-inch picture frame. Write what you can see. Do not worry about the rest. The rest will reveal itself.

Believe in the Voice, Even When It Scares You

When Shafak told her agent she was writing a novel with a talking tree, she saw "a flicker of panic and anxiety in his eyes." She understood. If you have a talking tree inside a literary novel and it does not work, the whole structure collapses.

But she believed in that voice. She heard it day and night. "I couldn't resist that voice." So she followed it. The risk is real. But following an authentic voice, even a strange one, produces better fiction than playing it safe. The moments that scare your agent are often the moments that make the book.

Write From the Periphery

"More than the center, I think I'm more interested in the periphery. More than the seen, what remains unseen. More than what's heard, the unheard has always called me." Shafak is drawn to the moment a timid person suddenly shows courage. Or when a brave person is suddenly afraid.

She does not believe in heroes. Characters exist on a spectrum. They go through metamorphosis. The interesting part is not who they are but who they become. A novelist who writes only strong protagonists and weak antagonists writes flat fiction. A novelist who tracks transformation writes fiction that breathes.

Listen, Do Not Just Observe

Most writing advice tells you to observe. Watch people. Notice details. Shafak goes further. Listen. Not just to what people say, but to how they say it. The pauses. The contradictions. The things they almost say and then swallow.

"Not everything is found in written culture." There is knowledge in oral storytelling, ballads, folktales, legends, riddles. When researching the Yazidi minorities for There Are Rivers in the Sky, she spoke with grandmothers who told her that in April, children must walk softly because the earth is pregnant. A novelist who only reads misses this. A novelist who listens finds stories that have never been written down.

Heavy Metal as Creative Fuel

Shafak writes to melodic death metal. She will listen to a single song on repeat seventy or eighty times. "It becomes a loop. That's how I zoom in and zoom out and then I'm in a different place."

She rejects silence. She rejects neat, tidy environments. She writes in restaurants, airports, chaos. The heavy metal is not background noise. It is a tool for accessing a different state. The music is "so honest, so raw" - and it generates the emotional intensity her prose requires.

Weave Storylines Like Braiding Hair

For There Are Rivers in the Sky, Shafak held three storylines simultaneously. She did not finish one and start the next. They were written at the same time. "It felt like weaving a braid." This requires notes, arrows, careful tracking. But the braided structure emerges from writing the threads together, not from planning them separately and stitching them after.

Language Shapes What You Can Express

Shafak writes in both Turkish and English. She has discovered that sadness comes easier in Turkish. Humor comes easier in English. Certain emotions have words in one language and no equivalent in the other.

This matters for monolingual writers too. The vocabulary you have shapes what you can express. Reading widely - including translated literature - expands your emotional vocabulary even within a single language. Shafak credits switching to English with giving her cognitive distance from her subjects. "It's like taking a step back from the painting and then you see it more clearly."

First Loyalty Is to the Story

A writer's job is to ask questions, not dictate answers. Shafak resists the pressure to deliver moral conclusions. "No preaching, no teaching, no lecturing." The story asks. The reader answers. If the writer answers for the reader, the fiction becomes propaganda.

Every reader brings their own gaze. Two friends who share everything will read the same book differently. A couple married fifty years will disagree about it. The writer creates a space of "nuance, freedom, and multiplicity." The answers belong to the readers.

Key Takeaways

• Let love guide your fiction. Discipline gets you to the desk. Love keeps you there.
• Write without knowing what comes next. The form emerges from the story.
• Follow the voice that scares you. The risky choice often makes the book.
• Write from the periphery. Track transformation, not static heroism.
• Listen as much as you observe. Voices and silences matter.
• Use music, chaos, whatever gets you into the creative state.
• Weave multiple storylines simultaneously, not sequentially.
• Language shapes what you can express. Expand your vocabulary through reading.
• Ask questions. Do not dictate answers.

Shafak's "follow the story" principle means the draft is discovery. AI should never write the discovery for you. It helps you tighten the sentences after you have found what you meant to say. The finding is yours. The polishing can be shared.

This post draws from Shafak's appearance on How I Write, her Writing Routines interview, and her Young Writer Award essay. Athens is an AI writing editor for writers who follow their stories.