write your novel in a month how to complete a first draft in 30 days and what to do next jeff gerke dedication To Gregory Manchess, Stephan Martiniere, and Eric Velhagen—artists who send me flying to other worlds, who inspire my own artistic endeavors, and whom I have had the pleasure of meeting. And to Cézanne, Van Gogh, Goya, Caravaggio, Vermeer, Friedrich, and John Conrad Berkey—artists who inspire me but whom I never did get to meet. table of contents introduction part one: planning your novel VICTORY 1: The Ultimate Story VICTORY 2: Genre VICTORY 3: Your Hero VICTORY 4: Your Hero’s Personality VICTORY 5: Your Hero’s Inner Journey VICTORY 6: Plot Particulates VICTORY 7: Three-Act Structure VICTORY 8: How to Begin Your Novel VICTORY 9: Craft to Know on the Front End part two: writing your novel [fast] VICTORY 10: 30 Days of Fire part three: publishing your novel VICTORY 11: Revising Your Novel VICTORY 12: Craftsmanship Revisited VICTORY 13: Craft to Know on the Back End VICTORY 14: Final Touches VICTORY 15: Seeking Publication VICTORY 16: What to Do Next final word introduction One of these days, I’m going to sit down and write that novel… It’s on the bucket list of millions of people. To write a novel—ah, it is one of the great achievements a person can realize. It’s right up there with running a marathon or traveling to Paris or the Holy Land or climbing a massive mountain peak. But it’s the very difficulty of those things that can make them seem unattainable. Hopefully no one would set out to climb Mount Everest without first having gone to incredible lengths and expense to prepare for the attempt. Anyone who takes off on a marathon having not trained for it will rue the decision. Preparation, training, expense … these things stand like the Grand Canyon between people and their biggest dreams. So it is with writing a novel. Lots of people begin writing their heartbreaking work of staggering genius, plunging ahead with great fervor, only to run out of gas after a few pages or chapters. Just like trying to run a long-distance race or climb a mountain without training for it. Is there no hope, then? Must it take you ten years to write all the way to the end of a full-length novel manuscript? Do you have to quit your job, leave your family, and move to a Tibetan monastery to have the time and focus to write this thing? good news I’m happy to tell you that the trip to Tibet is not necessary. (Unless, of course, that’s on your bucket list, too!) It is possible to write that novel in under a decade. Under a year. In fact, it’s my intention to help you write it in one month. Wouldn’t that be incredible? To look at the calendar one month from today and know that your book was done? In the bag? Checked off the list? There are a variety of reasons for wanting to write a novel this quickly. It may be that you’ve not yet written a novel and need help getting that first one done. Perhaps you’ve written one or more already, but now you’re faced with a blinding deadline—previously, you’ve had ten months to write your novels, but now it has to be done in four weeks. Ack. Or you don’t normally struggle with writing, but you’re about to have one month between contracts, and you’d love to crank out this “pet” book you’ve been wanting to write. Maybe, like so many other people, you’ve either lost your job or are looking for another opportunity. People have always told you you’re a good writer. Before finances get too tight, you’d like to pump out that novel manuscript and let it make the rounds with publishers while you’re out doing job interviews. Maybe that’s how money will come in? It certainly won’t have even a chance of happening until you’ve written the novel. Perhaps you’ve accepted the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) challenge to write a novel in thirty days. Whatever the reason you’ve come to Write Your Novel in a Month—How to Complete a First Draft in 30 Days and What to Do Next, I’m very pleased you’ve come. We’re going to have fun together, you and I. the trick The trick to writing a novel quickly is to knock out most of it in a very short period of time. Sounds obvious, I know: “If you want to write quick, write quick.” But here’s what I mean: Once you get a goodly portion of a manuscript behind you, it will build inertia on its own. After you pass that milestone, finishing the journey won’t even be an issue. I’m not one to go all mystical and say that after you reach that point the book will write itself. But I will say that once you pass the highest elevation on the trail, everything after it becomes easier. It’s like you’re walking downhill. My job is to get you to—and over—the high point. If that works, you won’t need me much anymore. I’ll miss you, but I’ll cheer for you as you sprint the rest of the way home. this guy and this book I’ve been writing my own novels—and helping other authors write theirs—since the mid-1990s. I once had to research and write a 100,000-word novel in six weeks. While that doesn’t seem to be a novel in thirty days, it really was. Within those six weeks, I had to do enough research to convincingly write about life in the Sudan and plan the novel and create the characters and write it in six weeks. The actual writing time was four weeks. It was backbreaking work to get 100K words written in that time, but it was worth it. My goal in this book is not as aggressive as that. Because the NaNoWriMo challenge is to write 50K words in a month, that’s where I’m going to set the bar for us. We’ll do your planning work first, and then you’ll just have to get to the 50K-word mark in those thirty days. Absolutely doable. The techniques for writing quickly that I present in this book are drawn from my own experience and from the experiences of authors I’ve known and/or helped over the years. So if my own techniques don’t work for you, some of the others might. A bit about me. I entered the publishing industry in 1994 when I received contracts to write a trilogy of near-future techno-thrillers (under the pen name Jefferson Scott). A few years later, I wrote a trilogy of military thrillers. Parallel to my fiction-writing career, my career as an editor was taking off. I worked on staff as an editor for three publishing houses before going freelance in 2006. Then in 2008, I launched my own indie publishing house, Marcher Lord Press. Between that, my freelance editing, and the fun I have teaching novelists how to better do what it is they’re trying to do, I’m busy. In this publishing career I’ve become friends with over two hundred multipublished novelists. As I mentioned, the tips and techniques you’ll find in this book come from my own experience as novelist and editor as well as from these friends, all of whom I polled as I was researching this book. You’re getting the expertise of multiple successful authors—not just one—on how to write a novel very, very fast. Even if you’re not writing a novel quickly, though, I hope you will find this to be a useful resource for you. It is the compilation of all my best teaching on how to plan, write, and revise a novel that will engage and satisfy your reader and please agents and editors. This book is arranged in three sections: 1. Planning Your Novel 2. Writing Your Novel (Fast) 3. Publishing Your Novel First, we’ll do all the preliminaries you need to have in your pocket before writing the first word. This includes your character creation, inner journey work, three-act structure, genre, villain, setting, and more. If you’re a seat-of-the-pants writer who wants to plunge ahead trusting your muse, you can do so. But for the rest of us, this early work will save you headaches later. We’ll also talk about a few fundamental craft issues as well, though the main craft discussion will come in Part 3. On these main things, it’s easier to do it right the first time than have to redo it all later. In Part 2 we’ll talk about how to write this novel in a hurry. All my own tips and the tips from the colleagues I interviewed will be presented there. In Part 3, we’ll talk about revising your novel (that’s where the rest of the craft discussion will happen) and what to do with this work of fiction awesomeness you will have created. the only easy day When I was writing my military thrillers, I learned the motto of the Navy SEALs: “The only easy day was yesterday.” I think it fits as a motto for what we’re doing here as well. It’s not a small thing to write a novel. If it were, everyone would do it. It’s going to take your best work—a lot of it, all in a row—to get this done. As much as I’d like this book to magically write your novel for you, it’s not going to happen. The main thing that separates the people who could be writers from the people who are writers is a completed, novel-length manuscript. There’s nothing glamorous about writing a novel. You might think there is, but there really isn’t. On the other hand, there can be lots of glamour in having written a novel, especially one that gets fabulously published. But actually writing it…? Not so much. It’s a long road of concentrated days sitting alone with your keyboard, looking like you’re doing basically nothing. It requires the kind of mental discipline that regularly brings very smart and capable people to their knees. It’s not for the faint of heart. For the most part, no one cares if you write it or not. You’re creating something from nothing, and until it’s created, no one will wonder why it had never been created. It’s only when they read it that they can see the value you’ve brought into being. But in that period when you’re writing it, it’s a lonely time, and some people won’t understand what you’re doing or why it matters. But if you have the mental toughness of a Navy SEAL and the stick-to- itiveness of an Olympic athlete—and you are willing to devote the time to writing a novel in a month—you can absolutely do it. It will mean saying no to a lot of great opportunities during that month. It may mean not seeing family and