What You Need to Know to Write a Novel in a Month

It all begins with an idea. Not necessarily a great idea in the beginning, but an idea nonetheless. With creative energy, you can turn that idea into a story and that story into a full novel. Yet, there are more steps to take before you can write that novel in a month.

Let’s run through them!

The Obvious Step First

Let’s run through the obvious step first so you don’t have to read about it later. When writing a novel in a month or a year you need to establish some guidelines that are strict enough to keep you writing and making progress, but not so strict that they throttle your creativity.

The first is establishing a daily word count. How many words you need to write every day in order to finish your first draft. A deceptively easy first step that many get wrong. It is easy enough to set a total word count and then divide it by the number of days you set yourself, but it’s difficult to be realistic.

Look at the days you have allocated yourself and properly set a word count for each day. See what plans you may have set, what those days of the week are like. If you are working a full-time job it might be better to set smaller word counts on the days you are working and larger word counts on your days off.

On Chapter Planning

I find it important to have as much free room to write as possible. As such the planning is kept vague enough that you can develop the story with a better feel for it than you did before you started. Yet, there is no harm in planning out a skeleton of a plot to work with.

Chapter-by-chapter you will need to construct a story, one that contains all your character and plot developments till the final chapter. Yet, don’t overdo it and write anything more than a paragraph describing the events of each chapter.

Plans often change in the writing process, so you will need to plot with that in mind. With a proper skeleton of a plot established, we are pretty much ready to talk about your writing habits.

What Time Should You Write?

​If you are working a job this question is pretty much answered. Depending on the hours you already have a good idea in your head of when you will be writing each day. Yet, there is something to be said about some experimentation when finding the ideal time to write.

Generally speaking, it is best for you to write when you are most comfortable. Not when you are tired or your mind isn’t focused on the task at hand. Your ideal writing time can be just before work or after dinner or even before bed.

Personally, I didn’t find out my ideal writing time until months after my writing career started. I wrote at midday, then in the evening thinking I was more a night owl. Soon I discovered I was a morning person, although previously a lazy one. I spent my morning relaxing with some mundane entertainment.

Now, I spend my mornings fuelled by creative energy to write my novels and articles such as this one. My advice to you is to find this comfortable writing time before you start.

If you are working a job this question is pretty much answered. Depending on the hours you already have a good idea in your head of when you will be writing each day. Yet, there is something to be said about some experimentation when finding the ideal time to write.

Generally speaking, it is best for you to write when you are most comfortable. Not when you are tired or your mind isn’t focused on the task at hand. Your ideal writing time can be just before work or after dinner or even before bed.

Personally, I didn’t find out my ideal writing time until months after my writing career started. I wrote at midday, then in the evening thinking I was more a night owl. Soon I discovered I was a morning person, although previously a lazy one. I spent my morning relaxing with some mundane entertainment.

Now, I spend my mornings fuelled by creative energy to write my novels and articles such as this one. My advice to you is to find this comfortable writing time before you start.

Putting Writing First

Depending on your life outside of work, you might be distracted by special events that can easily come up during your writing month. You might push your writing to the next day, saying you will catch up which is all well and good.

Yet, procrastination is an easy flow to get into. It carries many of the unproductive you give in more than once. If you find yourself spending less time writing than you think you should, you need to reevaluate your priorities.

Now, I am not one to tell people what their priorities are. You are not just a writer, but a human being. You have responsibilities and desires just like everybody else. That means only you can decide if a social event or a new episode of your favorite show is more important than meeting your writing goal for the day.

Bear in mind, as much as I enjoy writing, I often put it off to meet my own personal responsibilities. The challenge should for second to what is important.

Prepare for Writer’s Block

​Now, let us assume you have the time and minimal distractions. You have the work ethic that keeps you to your schedule and perhaps you get ahead as well. Everything is looking good and you are feeling confident.

Yet, you are suddenly plagued by writer’s block, the infernal mental barrier that stunts your writing flow and leaves your fingers hovering above your keyboard.

It is easy enough for it to hit you, but not so easy to get out of. There have been books written in the past purely addressing the creative problem of writer’s block, yet few have ever hit the nail on the head.

You lack at that moment the inherent interest to write or the interest in your story. You are uniquely bored and wish to do something else.

OR

You are afraid that you messed something up. Yet, in order to keep with your schedule, you kept writing each day. That insecurity has built up like the number of mistakes you believed you made in your story, to the point where you are wondering if you should start over.

To address the first scenario, you have simply had a burnout. You lack interest or energy to continue writing your novel and you know that continuing will only lead to mistakes you don’t want to make.

When dealing with this writer’s block a break is necessary. Simply take a moment to enjoy the fun activities that often fill you with inspiration. Read a book that put you in the writing mood or watch a show that gave you inspiration. Refind your energy with some much needed R&R and you will soon return to your writing.

For the second scenario, realize that any mistake you make will be corrected when you write the second draft. It might be a slower process or perhaps it will take you the same amount of time, but you will fix what you believe is broken.

With that in mind, let this thought not fill you with the dread of future work, but with the reckless inspiration to continue. You need not be perfect in your writing, you need only get the job done. Use this energy to revel in the messy moments along the way, knowing that it is a necessary bump along the way to your destination!

Write with Others

Finally, a method deserving of mention. Write with other writers who want to take the same challenge. You can join a writing group or perhaps ask your friends to join you. Form a schedule that works with you and them so that way you can check in on each other.

In other words, work with like-minded people to achieve your goal. With the added encouragement of those in the same situation, you will feel more resolve to write. You are not only writing to meet some personal goals, but you are also writing for the people who joined you.

You might even turn it into a competition to see who writes the most words. If you are the competitive type you can turn falling short into the burst of energy that can rocket you ahead of your piers. Of course, if the competition is not to your liking, then simply having others to enjoy the experience with will be enough.

You will have all you need to write your novel at this point!

Conclusion

Writing a novel in a month is a difficult challenge that became more common with the creation of the National November Writing Month. Many writers push themselves to write their novel in a short space of time when it typically takes a writer six months to a couple of years to write their novel.

Yet, I believe it is a necessary challenge for those developing their own writing work ethic. You need something pushing you in your writing, be it encouragement from those who support you or a deadline that you feel anxious to meet. It helps you cut through wasted time and leave you with a sense of fulfilment.

Even if you do not beat the challenge, you are still left with the thought that you do so much still in the time you gave yourself. You improved your pace and developed your writing style. That is something that you as a writer can feel proud of and perhaps it will be just the encouragement you need to try the challenge again one day.

Now, as always…

Good day, goodnight and happy writing!

Thank You

Dear Writer,
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Thank you for reading!
Kind regards

Matthew Dewey, Writer

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