How I wrote a book in a month: part 1
Are you doing NaNoWriMo? Maybe these tactics will help you!
Happy NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)!
Full disclosure, I am not planning on attempting to write 50,000 new words this month. I’m deep in revision on a middle-grade novel I’ve been working on for years—and I am determined to get an updated draft to my agent this fall. (I’ve finally figured out what’s been missing all this time!) I’ll also be starting to outline something new, hopefully under contract. In short, it’s simply not a drafting moment for me.
But I’ll be cheering all of you NaNoWriMo-ers on from the sidelines! If this were a marathon, imagine me shouting “Wooo!” and clanging my cowbell, holding my hand out to high-five you as you run past.
In the spirit of NaNoWriMo, I thought I’d take some time this month to tell you about my most recent writing marathon. I wrote a complete draft of a new MG novel in four weeks over the summer. This is not my usual drafting speed!
The situation was this: I had a new book to write, with a deadline, and it needed to be approximately 40,000 words. (This particular project is short, illustrated middle-grade.) My daughter was enrolled in four weeks of summer camp. That meant I had 20 proper “work” days in which to write those 40,000 words. 40,000 / 20 = 2,000 words per day. (I left the weekends open for either rest or catch-up, as needed.)
Not to brag, but I crushed it.
I couldn’t have done it without employing a few strategies that made writing at that marathon pace a whole lot easier. Some of these strategies are things I often use in my writing life. Others were unique to this fast-drafting scenario.
Now, for the record, I don’t believe in one-size-fits-all writing advice; that’s why I called this post “How I wrote a book in a month” rather than “How to write a book in a month.” Hopefully, some of what worked for me will resonate with you and help you conquer NaNoWriMo—or whatever writing challenges you face in the future.
Also, when I started this post, I didn’t plan for it to be a multi-part series…but then I just had too much to say. So, for the next couple Fridays, I’ll dive deep into a few different tactics that helped me hammer out my draft this summer. First up:
Prep
Are you a plotter or a pantser? I usually fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. I like to have a rough idea of where I’m going, while leaving room for discovery and digression along the way. In order to write a book in a month, however, I had to put on my Plotter Hat. I needed to do so much prep work before beginning to draft!
I began by creating a very detailed, chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the whole story. How detailed? At least a paragraph per chapter, if not two or three. I included:
Major events and conversations that needed to happen in each scene
Important character moments, such as realizations or misunderstandings that would result from the events of the scene
Smaller character moments: running jokes, family interactions, instances of BFFs doing silly BFF things
Reminders for myself and for the reader of what had happened before the story began (did I mention that this was the second book in a series?)
Hints to set up possible events in book three…and beyond!
Obviously, not every chapter included all of these elements. I just want to give you an idea of how deep my prep work went. Normally, before drafting, I plan out the first two bullet points: big, landmark moments in the plot and the character arcs. The other things I mentioned often come later, either as I draft or in revisions. But this summer, I threw every idea I had into that lengthy synopsis document.
I needed those things written down in advance, so I wouldn’t forget about them in the rush of trying to meet my word count.
When I was plotting out the book, I ended up with exactly 20 chapters—a happy accident, given that I had 20 summer camp days earmarked in my calendar for writing! Thus, I knew that if I wrote one chapter a day, and if each chapter was approximately 2,000 words, I’d meet my goal. That was an excellent feeling.
(A note: with NaNoWriMo, you’re attempting to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That breaks down to 1,667 words per day. Turns out, I was pretty much on pace to win NaNo, if I’d been trying to reach 50K!)
Even once I had this chapter-by-chapter outline—it was 10 pages long, 1.5-spaced—my prep work wasn’t done. Before beginning to write on the first day of summer camp, I did one more thing: I went ahead and created a blank document and divided it up into 20 chapters. (I draft in Scrivener, a program that makes it super-easy to divide your book into chapters and include notes, comments, and questions off to the side, where they’ll be visible to you as you write. I highly recommend Scrivener for book-drafting purposes!) In each chapter’s “synopsis” section, I pasted in the summary I’d written. That meant that each writing day, when I opened the document, I could see exactly what I needed to accomplish. I didn’t have to go to a separate outline for a refresher. It was all right there in front of me, ready for me to turn ideas into words.
At the heart of it, that’s what all of this prep work was about: ensuring that I could sit down at my laptop and jump straight in to drafting. I knew what I had to write. My job, each day, was simply to write it.
But Kathryn, you might be saying, it’s November 3rd. NaNoWriMo has already begun. It’s too late to do that kind of in-depth prep!
It’s never too late! Seriously.
If you’re struggling with spending your valuable writing time trying to figure out where to start or what comes next, why not take a day or two to create a road map for yourself? Break your book down into bite-sized chunks. Don’t only think about it in terms of the daily word count that will allow you to win NaNo or meet your deadline. Think about specific scenes or chapters or story arcs. The words will flow from there.
Once more for the folks in the back:
Don’t just figure out how many words you need to write per day.
Figure out what those words need to be.
One last quick point: the draft that I wrote in a month this past summer was what I call a “zero-draft”—a.k.a. the draft before the first draft that I send to people (in this case, my editor) for feedback.
A “zero-draft” doesn’t have to be perfect (or even good). It only has to exist.
Details can change. Entire plot points and character arcs can change! Nothing about a “zero-draft” is set in stone. If you avoid doing too much prep before drafting because you don’t want to box yourself in…maybe try letting go of that fear. You’re allowed to change your mind. You’re in charge of your own creative work. Preparing for a marathon before you hit the ground running can help you achieve your goals.
That’s all for this week! Tune in next Friday for part two, with more fast-drafting tips!
~Kathryn