How to Write a Novel in 30 Days: Mojo Writers Guides

By Andi Winter

The writing ride of a lifetime

 

Have you always wanted to write a novel, but didn't know where to start? Or maybe you've tried writing a novel, but struggled with it so much that you gave up? Or perhaps you've been working on one novel for ages, and you just can't quite figure out how to finish it?

 

What if I told you that not only could you write a complete novel, but that you could write it fast and have fun?

 

This book will walk you through writing a novel in thirty days. You will learn how to structure a good story that will last through the length of a novel, methods other writers use to craft their novels (that you can use, too), and strategies to get you finishing that novel in record time.

 

Learn how to write a novel (in a month!) with this compact guide and get writing!

 

Andi Winter is the author of thirteen novels. She is a 10-time National Novel Writing Month winner, and has led a writers group and taught workshops on how to write a novel in 30 days. In 2020, she published her Nanowrimo novel Spring Comes Twice, which she blogged about as she wrote it during the challenge. She writes fiction where reality bends, which ranges from fantasy and science fiction, to alternative history and romance. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andi Winter
• Release date: Oct 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201647070

Book preview

How to Write a Novel in 30 Days

How to Write a Novel in 30 Days

A Mojo Writers Guide

Andi Winter

Rainy Mountain Publishing

How to Write a Novel in 30 Days

Copyright © 2021 by Andi Winter

All rights reserved.

Cover art copyright © slothastronaut / 123RF

ISBN-13: 9798485056773 (print edition)

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

For everyone who thinks, I want to write a novel someday

---

Well, here’s your chance.

When writing a novel, that's pretty much entirely what life turns into: 'House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.

―Neil Gaiman

Contents

Introduction

How to Write

1. Mindset And Expectations

2. Implements of Creation

3. Butt (or Hands) Glue

How to Write a Novel

4. Definitions

5. Where To Start

6. Where To Find Story Ideas

7. Story Basics: Plot

8. Story Basics: Action-Reaction

9. Structuring Your Novel

10. Plot It (Or Not)

11. Pants It (It’s All Pantsing)

12. Hybrid

How to Write a Novel in 30 Days

13. Set Your Intention

14. Be Prepared

15. Expect to Get Stuck

16. Strategies to Get Unstuck

17. Now What?

Afterword

Resources

Read on for a preview

Spring Comes Twice

Other Titles by Andi Winter

About the Author

Introduction

I grew up reading, starting with (as the story goes in my family) teaching myself to read at age four with the ESL books my grandparents brought back from a trip to Jamaica. My reading horizons expanded from there (about bananas and palm trees) to The Poky Little Puppy and The Cat Who Stomped His Feet to childhood classics like The Secret Garden and The Black Stallion and then into fantasy and science fiction with The Phantom Tollbooth, the Amber series by Roger Zelazny, Dune, Stranger in a Strange Land, and then pretty much anything I could get my hands on that was lying around the house: my mother’s historical romance novels, my father’s science fiction, my sister’s Sweet Valley High books. If it was in print, I read it.

You would think with that much of a love for reading, that wanting to write would be an obvious desire. For me it was, and it wasn’t. My best friend growing up was a Writer, and was lauded for his writing. Who was I to even think of writing when he was So Good? Despite my lack of self-confidence, I did write a little: mostly Star Wars fanfic (at age seven) and some unicorn tales (at age ten). And that was about it.

And then National Novel Writing Month (aka Nano-wrimo) came along.

At the ripe old age of thirty (gasp!) I decided that it was time to let go of old thinking limitations (I can’t write! That’s a Michael thing!) and try my hand at writing a novel. I loved novels. Read them all the time. How hard could it be?

So I thought I would give the whole ‘write a novel in 30 days’ concept a shot because I had nothing to lose. And like I had told myself: how hard could it be?

Let me just put it out there: it wasn’t really hard, so much as bewildering.

I made a good faith effort that first attempt. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote, the words flying on to the computer screen, but then when I went to read it over, I discovered something truly horrible.

Nothing had happened.

Oh, sure. The characters said things and did things, but there was no story like in any of the novels I had read.

Zip. Nada.

About half-way through, I