30 Day Novel: How to Write a Book in a Month: Misque Press Writing Guide for Fiction, #1

By Tara Maya

The techniques here are designed to help you streamline your writing...and that includes not wasting your time on false starts or novels with huge, gaping plot holes that torment you during revisions. These are my best No Fail Formulas for starting or re-starting a new or broken novel, for kicking myself out of writer's block, and for making the most of every precious writing minute in a tight schedule. This book will help you: - write fast AND fabulous prose - fix broken plots - avoid false starts and meandering middles - create endings that sizzle, not fizzle - plan your wordcount to fit your book and genre - painlessly add or cut words - end writer's block and recapture you love of writing...even during the tough spots

 

"Clear and concise information! I'd never tried the fifteen beat approach before, but Tara gave me all the details I needed to fill in the blanks along the way. Highly recommended if you're struggling with shaping an epic style story with classic characters/protagonists."

Marshall Banana

"Tara Maya pares down writing rules and makes them easily understood. She takes the writer by the hand and leads him though the process step by step. I'd recommend this to anyone who is interested in writing, especially newbies."

Barbara A. Whittington, author

 

"I'm an experienced writer but I was looking for something to jolt me out of my creative rut. 30 day novel had great ideas for every aspect of writing and has something for new writers as well as grisly veterans."

Darren Censullo

 

"Tara Maya eliminates your excuses, now it just requires you read, and put in the time in the chair typing away.."

Sherry A

 

"Written in a witty voice, 30 Day Novel is both entertaining and informative."

Keith Badowski

 

"It's not often you get a 'how to book' which really does tell you 'how to'. I found it an immense help."

Customer

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tara Maya
• Release date: Mar 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215748299

Book preview

NOTEBOOKS FOR OUTLINE PLANNING

Just like you don’t need chips and candy, you don’t need these blank notebooks to plan the outline for your novel. You really don’t. You just need regular paper and stuff.

But—again, like candy—these little notebooks are fun. They don’t cost more than a plain paper notebooks, but have slots for scenes. I designed these for my own use, and decided to sell them on the off chance other writers might find them useful.

Apparently, yes. The Book Outline Planner has proved quite popular.

The original Book Outline Planner is more open-ended and accommodates two longer novels.

The 30-Day Novel Book Outline Planner helps you focus on a 30 Day project like NaNoWriMo, but available anytime. The 30 Days also doesn’t have to be in the same month. This planner will help you keep in mind exactly how many words and scenes you need to write in a day to hit that schedule, though, so that’s nice.

These are printed planners, not ebooks.

PLAN YOUR ATTACK

There are a million ways to write a book, a million ways to start, a million ways to slog through, a million ways to finish. These will be my personal tips for how to write a book in a month. If you are doing NaNoWriMo this year, or simply trying to write better books, but faster, this book is for you.

My advice will be a little different from the official NaNoWriMo handbook. I think it’s better to start with an outline than just a word flood. In fact, in my opinion, you’d be better off if you ended the month with a 20,000 word tightly plotted rich outline than with 50,000 words of a sloppy draft with huge plot holes.

That’s not to say, however, that there is a place for the kind of break-neck, no-inner-critic writing NaNoWriMo is famous for. But I think that too works best when you have some idea where you’re going.

This may depend on how experienced you are at writing. Fast writing methods are strongly geared toward pushing first-timers into the arms of their virgin book. What I have in mind may be of more use for writers who already have a few under the belt.

If you have already awakened to the usefulness of Outlining, this book will delight you. I have a whole slew of outline techniques to choose from. Or hey, why not do them all? I do. They each have their place, as we’ll see.

If you are a pantser (someone who writes as you go, who writes by the seat of your pants), you may balk at the Tips on Outlining. But, dear pantser, consider giving Outlining a try. I speak as a former Pantser myself. You don’t know the power of the outline… come to the Outline side of the Force! Bwahahaah!

Of course, I understand, if you are reading this in the middle of November, you may be deep into your draft already. That’s okay. The reason I decided to publish all the Tips at once (even as I continue to post them day by day) is that I know some people will find some Tips extremely useful and others less so. Skim the book—it’s short—and pick what suits your needs.

2023 Update: To illustrate each tip, I’ll use a novella of my own as an example. It’s not a full length novel, but it had the advantage that I can share the entire process, because I own the copyright and have all the notes. By using a novella, I can include the full book.

I will also give some examples from other series I’ve written, and from novels by my writing partner, Mathiya Adams. I won’t include the full books.

TIP #1 - HOW TO CHOOSE WHAT TO WRITE

Maybe you want to write a novel, but you have no ideas.

If so, I’ve never, online or in person, met you.

Every writer or wannabe writer, from Newbie to Expert, from high school kid to retired school teacher, has an idea for a novel. Usually a bajillion ideas for a novel. They may have no idea how to write those ideas down, perhaps, or no idea how to translate the idea into a workable plot, but ideas?

A bajillion.

(Yes, bajillion is too a real word. Ask my 4 year old. It comes right between gazillion and five more minutes.)

If you really have no ideas, don’t worry, you can pick one up in the brainstorming session. But if, as I suspect, you have a bajillion ideas, the problem is not finding one but choosing one.

Before you attack writing a novel, choose your battle. Remember the secret of all good generals: Choose a battle you can win.

I have a box of index cards with novel/series ideas with evaluations written on them. I don’t write the drive-by, idle what-ifs, you-know-what-they-should-make-a-movie-about or crazy-dream-I-had-last-night ideas down here. (I do write those down, since you never know which might grow into bigger britches, but I keep those in my notebook.) These are viable, high-concept ideas that I’m enthusiastic about. These are ideas that could become books.

I have a lot of them.

The difference between jotting an idea down in my notebook and putting it into the index card box is that I have taken the time to evaluate the latter. These are the five questions I ask and answer on each card:

Premise / Temporary Title:

What is the genre?

What is the projected wordcount? Will this be a novella, novel or saga (long novel)?

Is this a standalone or series? If it is a series, what kind?

What work needs to be done to write this well?

How hard would it be to do that work?

Here’s why the answer to each of these questions matters.

Genre: Do you love this genre? Is this a genre you know well? Have you read widely in it? Have you written short stories or books in this genre before? The more familiar you are with the genre, as a reader and as a writer, the easier it will be for you to write this book.

There’s nothing wrong with branching out to a new genre, if you’re genuinely enthused about it (don’t do it just because you think it will be more salable; you’ll be miserable), but you’ll have work to do. (1) Read books in that genre—lots and lots. (2) Read How To books about that genre, at least five.

Also, although its not politically correct to point this out, some genres are harder than others. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that some readers are harder on the author than others. Romance readers are forgiving and generous. They’ll usually give you the benefit of the doubt if you accidently claim the Battle of Waterloo took place in Sweden in 1972 instead of in Belgium in 1815, but if you are writing mainstream or literary Historical fiction, they will never forgive and never forget your faux pas.

Hard SF is harder to write than space opera; epic fantasy is harder to write than urban fantasy; women’s fiction is harder to write than category romance. This is not a judgment call on these genres, it is a fact about how much leeway for blunders different readerships will tolerate.

Wordcount: If your novel consisted of nothing but nonsense words pounded out by chimps on laptops, it would still sill take them longer to type 120,000 nonsense words than 45,000. The exception is Children’s Literature. There are often other considerations that go into Children’s Literature (for instance the need to modulate vocabulary, write in rhyme, or include illustrations) which make evaluating Children’s Literature by wordcount alone to be perilous. Still, you need to know it.

Series: A stand-alone book is the easiest to write. All you need to write it is what goes into the book itself. A series requires more planning. If you’ve written earlier installments, you’ve already done much of the work, so that could save you time; but you also have to make sure it’s consistent with past and future episodes, which consumes time.

If you are writing a stand-alone that could become a series…you know, after it’s published to great acclaim, fame and money… but you’ll deal with that later…. For the love of Shakespeare stop and consider possible sequels NOW! Otherwise, you will find yourself faced with a three-month deadline to finish Book 2, which is supposed to set up Book 3 in a trilogy, and you will panic and write one of those horrid, horrid second books that make reviewers type Reviews of Fiery Scorn. Don’t do that to yourself.

On the other hand, ending your book on a cliff-hanger like a complete doofus has its drawbacks too, so there you go. (All of my Unfinished Song books except the last do end on cliffhangers…)

Foundation: If your book alternates between scenes of modern day Navy Seals defusing a bomb in the desert and flashback scenes of a demon-king in ancient Assyria, and you know squat-all about Navy Seals, Assyria, ancient or modern, or demonology, you’re going to have to do some research and world-building before you can write this story convincingly. If you don’t think research or verisimilitude is important… well, I don’t want to tell you how to write your novel. If you really want it to suck, by all means, do it your way, ignore research. Me? No, I’m not a snob, just a historian. Why do you ask?

Ha! you might retort. I am building a second-world fantasy or futuristic dystopia! I don’t need research! I’ll just make everything up.

You have an even bigger task: world-building from scratch. Yes, you make up everything, but it still should be consistent, original and awesome.

There are three stones you must have for a solid foundation: World-building (or Setting, if you prefer to think of it that way); Plot and Character. On the evaluation card, I note if I am missing one or more of these Big Three.

Difficulty