Writing a book is not an easy task, and I certainly can attest that it could take significantly more than a month to complete the writing process from start to finish. Then again, I often like to draw out my writing so that I have proper amounts of time to plan, but still, there have come times where I’ve been able to successfully write a book in a month, or a first draft of one at the very least. Either way, today, I’ll be giving you several tips on how you can write an entire book in 30 days from cover to cover as well as some general tips.
IS IT POSSIBLE TO WRITE A NOVEL IN A MONTH
First of all, yes it’s entirely possible. If you’ve been writing for quite some time, chances are you’ve heard of NaNoWriMo, which is a challenge to write a novel in a month. It’s a goal that many writers end up meeting and some writers took those NaNoWriMo books they wrote and publish them later.
Now, I will let you know from now that you need to keep your expectations realistic on the quality of your novel: It will not be your best work if you’re rushing to finish it in a month. You can finish writing a book in 30 days, but I would always recommend to take time after that to edit, adjust, add, or remove things. Trust me, editing is the longest step in the process for a reason.
HOW TO WRITE A BOOK IN 30 DAYS STEP BY STEP
There are a couple of steps that I’m going to cover in how to write your book in 30 days, but you can realistically do these in the order that you see fit.
To note, we can’t really expect to do insanely high levels of world building when we’re writing an entire book in 30 days, so bear that in mind.
STEP 1: PICK A GENRE AND SUBGENRE
The first thing that you need to think about is your genre. Now, genre is an interesting thing to consider because alongside genres are subgenres. A genre is basically what your book falls under in a general sense, so fantasy or sci-fi and then a subgenre is what your book falls under within that particular genre. An example of this is contemporary fantasy or grimdark fantasy. It’s basically a more specific term to help readers of these subgenres find your story.
Knowing what genre and subgenre your book falls under automatically orients your mind to start thinking from the perspective of that genre and subgenre. For example, if I’m writing a grimdark story, I know that my story will have war, corruption, power struggles, violence, etc… If I’m writing a romantasy, then I know my story centers around love in a fantasy world.
STEP 2: PICK A TARGET WORD COUNT
The next thing I recommend doing is to pick your target word count, because this will be the foundation for breaking down the writing process over a period of 30 days. I suggest that in this case, try to pick one that is realistic for you. Trust me, writing even 2,000 words a day can be a struggle sometimes, so you don’t want to burn out halfway through the month.
A lot of us out there work in jobs other than writing our books, so the smart thing is to select a word count that can fit around our busy schedules. I work full-time in my family’s company, so a lot of the time, I may not get the chance to write as much as I’d like to, but that’s why planning ahead helps because it sets your goals well.
Word count can depend on your genre and target audience. For instance, you can probably get away with 80,000 words in a YA fantasy story but you might have a tough sell with that word count if you’re catering to adult fantasy readers.
If you’re looking to traditionally publish, don’t go above 120,000 words. I’ve seen a lot of agents just cut off at that point regardless of if they like your story or not. It’s hard to market a really big book for a debut author, so try not to exceed that count. If you’re self-publishing, do what you please, but know that the higher the word count, the more pages, the higher the base printing cost, the more expensive your book will need to be to turn a profit.
With the word count established say at 100,000 words, you’ll need to break this down into smaller chunks to set as a daily or weekly goal. If a month has four weeks on average, and you want to write 100,000 words in four weeks, each week you need to write 25,000 words. Each day, you’d need to write approximately 3,600 words give or take. This is the math that you need to think about when setting your word count.
STEP 3: OUTLINE YOUR NOVEL
The next thing you need to do is to outline your novel. You can actually do this pretty easily in just one day, and I’ve talked about it over in this post.
The key to outlining a novel in a single day is understanding your characters, your plot, your conflict, and how the story will pan out over the length of your word count.
Do note that you are easily subject to changing this pre-planning stuff as you write, but it’s nice to go in with a game-plan so that you have a base to work off of.
If you want to read more about this step in-depth, then check out my post on it.
STEP 4: WORLD BUILDING
World building is a very important component of the writing process no matter what genre you’re writing in. Of course, the less fantasy you write, the less you need to world build because you’re eliminating some things like magic systems and you probably already have a base in the real-world to go off of. However, it doesn’t matter what genre you’re writing in, world building is important to do!
World building helps to immerse you into the story, create a foundation for the ‘why’ components of your story, and helps you as the author of the book understand what the world of your book is like and why it is the way that it is.
I won’t dive too deep into world building here because I have a beginner’s guide on my website that you can check out, but just know that world building is an essential component of the writing process.
STEP 5: START WRITING
The only thing left to do now is to actually start the writing process. This is going to feel daunting at first, especially if you have a large daily word count, but you need to remember that this is supposed to be a fun process!
Your ultimate goal in writing this book is to enjoy the writing of that book and to see your story and characters come to life on the pages of a story. You should take your time and try to meet your daily word count goals. If you happen to miss a goal by a few hundred words, that’s alright, just stick those words onto another day and keep moving forward.
GENERAL TIPS
TIP 1: DON’T WORRY ABOUT ORDER
A lot of the times, we’re tempted to write a book from start to finish in chronological order or in chapter order. Well, sometimes, that’s just not the way it works. A lot of the time, when we’re writing a story, we can get ideas and inspiration for scenes later in our story than the point we’re on.
That’s totally alright! What I recommend is just writing the idea you have anyways. That counts in your word count, even if it’s going to be much later in the story. If you’re bored with a certain chapter or you can’t really think of any ideas for it, then just move on to the next chapter.
That’s why I enjoy writing with a program like Scrivener, which I’ve talked about in another post. Scrivener just makes it really easy to write in the order I want to write and to focus on scenes rather than focusing on chapters. Scenes make up chapters, but the more you’re constantly concerned about writing in chapter order, the less the writing becomes fun.
TIP 2: DON’T STRESS IF YOU’VE HIT A BLOCK
Writer’s block is a dreaded thing for many writers, but it’s a natural part of the writing process. This can especially happen if you’re trying to finish up a whole book in a month. You’ll find that you may hit a wall in what you’re trying to say in a certain chapter or you can’t find the spark of inspiration needed for your story.
In this situation, I’d take a step back from writing. I would go do something entirely different because if I’m frustrated over trying to come up with ideas, chances are, I’m not going to be coming up with ideas anyways.
I’ve talked about overcoming writer’s block before, but if you just want a short-term solution, go watch a video on YouTube, read another book for a bit, play some video games, etc… and then come back to writing your book. That’s really the best short-term way you can disconnect from your story and then head back to it.
TIP 3: GET HELP
If you’re ever at a point where you’re really stuck and you just have no clue how to proceed or what to do next, that’s the point when you’ll need to request help from someone else.
If you don’t know anybody willing to read your story for you, then you can go to forums or websites like Reddit where you can search for communities full of people willing to help other authors out. There are a lot of people on Reddit for instance that are willing to beta read, so there’s a chance you’ll find someone interested in your story.
If you can find a writing partner, do so. A writing partner can be an invaluable asset because they may be facing the same struggles that you’re facing, so you can share in the struggle together!
TIP 4: TRY TO STAY ON-TARGET
I know that the well of inspiration can dry up sometimes, but if you’re trying to finish a book in 30 days, then you’re going to need to do your best to stay on-target.
If you’ve set for yourself to write 2,000 words every day, it doesn’t matter what time of the day you’re doing it, by the end of the day, ensure you’ve gotten 2,000 words done at least. Again, if you can’t, stick the remaining words onto another day, but the important thing is that you stay on-target and meet your goals.
At the end of the day, writing a book in 30 days is complicated, which is why you need to keep up and keep writing.
And before you go, don’t forget to check out my series, The Fallen Age Saga. You can buy my books over on Amazon right now!