Write Your Novel in a Month: How to Complete a First Draft in 30 Days and What to Do Next

282 Pages·2013·1.05 MB·English

by  Jeff Gerke

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