I WRITE ONE NOVEL EVERY FIVE WEEKS: HERE’S HOW I DO IT
For the last three or so years of my life, I have written on average one novel every five weeks. These aren’t short stories or novellas either. They’re full-length novels, averaging 80,000 words each.
And this wasn’t done in a vacuum, a situation where writing novels was my only means to pass the time. During these three years, I had a full-time job that had nothing to do with writing. I have a close group of friends who I saw often. I still watched movies when I felt like it, read nearly every day, and had plenty of ‘me’ time — which is just a fancy way of saying that I sat about and did literally nothing for long periods of the day.
My life didn’t stop so that I could write, yet even still, one novel every five weeks without fail. Period.
Now, this might sound close to impossible. Or improbable. Or just not very likely. But I assure you that it actually isn’t that hard to do, can be achieved by anyone who is serious about their writing, and is worth it for a whole variety of reasons (I’ll get to that soon).
So, if you read the heading for this article and want to know how I write one novel every five weeks, and how you can do it too, please read on and you’ll be pumping out your own speed-written novel in no time. And heck, you might even enjoy the process if you’re really lucky.
WHY DO I DO IT? AND IS THERE A POINT?
There’s a reason that I write so much, and it has nothing to do with fame and riches. I’m a ghostwriter, which basically means that I write novels so that other people can put their own name on them. With this in mind, fame and riches is the last thing that I expect when I complete each piece of work. But that doesn’t mean it’s all for nothing.
For me, I equate ghostwriting novels with hitting a tennis ball against a wall. It’s practice. A means to improve my skillset in what I believe is the most meaningful way. I was never one for literary theory. Although reading does help improve your writing, it can only help so much. Producing content is the number one way to evaluate your own abilities, and then improve upon them.
If you have a story idea that you think is an absolute winner, something that might even be published and read by many, then the following isn’t for you. But, if you have a story idea that you don’t think you’re quite ready for, but want to get yourself to a place where you are, then I highly recommend that you read on.
Malcolm Gladwell claims you need 10,000 hours of practice at something to become a professional. When it comes to writing, there’s really only one way to do it. And that’s to write.
1. KNOW THE GENRE THAT YOU’RE WRITING IN
Before you start writing anything, or before you even start to plan your eventual story, you need to know what genre you are writing in. And by this, I don’t mean simply knowing the name of the genre. That’s easy. What I mean is that from a story telling point of view, you need to know everything about the genre. Everything.
The majority of my novels are romance novels, simply because that’s the genre that I get requested to write the most. I don’t particularly like romance novels, nor did I ever read them growing up. But when I was hired to write my first, this soon changed. Oh, how much it did.
But it wasn’t enough to just read them. I had to learn how they were structured, how the story usually unfolded, what beats there where in both character and plot. And on characters for a moment, I had to learn the typical tropes of characters in romance novels. I had to know what types of characters the audience expected, and preferred. I had to learn the rules of the genre before I could write in it.
Step one of writing a novel — even if you’re not doing it in five weeks — is to know the genre you are writing in as intimately as if it was your first true love.
2. PLAN YOUR WORK — IN DETAIL
To all those ‘gardeners’ out there, I want you to take note: If you’re planning on writing a novel in 5 weeks, you’re going to have to start planning your work before writing it. This is easily the most important step and one that cannot be missed. It’s just that crucial.
Now, how much planning you do is really up to you and your writing style. But I will tell you this. The more you plan, the easier it will be in the long run.
For me, I know that an 80,000-word novel requires between 20–25 chapters. I will thus write up these 20–25 chapters in as much detail as I can. Some are only a paragraph with the ‘gist’ of the story written out, where others are a page long, making sure to detail vital aspects of the story and character. But every single chapter is planned before I start to write.
The importance of this cannot be overstated either. Unnecessary revisions are the number one way to waste time when writing a story. I call them unnecessary because if you had planned out your novel in the first place, you wouldn’t be doing as many. You would know what your character’s flaw is. You would know how they addresses that flaw as the story progresses. And you would know how it is paid off in the end as all those story elements come together in one glorious crescendo.
Yes, things will change in the writing process. Sometimes, ideas that sounded great in these early stages just don’t write that well when it comes to putting them on the page. And this is fine, and a natural part of writing. But a thorough outline will help negate most of these changes.
3. CREATE A SCHEDULE AND STICK TO IT
Alright. This is it. Where things start to get serious. If you want to write a novel in five weeks — or any period of time — you need to create a schedule and stick to it. But this is about more than just time management. Having a detailed schedule allows you to break the process down into pieces, making the once daunting task seem less-so in the long run.
For me and my writing, my schedule looks a little something like this:
Week One: I come up with my story, I write up the outline in full, and I write the first 2 chapters. How I break that down over the week depends on the week itself, but by its end, all three of these stages needs to be hit. These two chapters usually amount to about 5000–7000 words all up.
Weeks Two-Four: I make sure that I hit 20,000 words a week for three weeks straight. I don’t edit. I don’t re-write. I simply sit down and crank out the words. Sometimes, I’ll do two big days of writing. Others, I might just concentrate on the mornings, or do a couple of hours after dinner. But I have to hit 20,000 each week no matter what.
Week Five: Finish the novel, and then edit. By now, I should only have about 10,000 words or so to write before the novel is finished. What I like to do is crank this out at the very start of the week and get that first draft done. I then spend the remainder of the week re-reading the novel and editing where I need to.
This is a rather simple, broad schedule, and when creating your own, you are welcome to complicate it as much as you like. I used to divide my days up further, making sure that I hit X amount of words each hour, just to keep myself on track. Whatever you need to do to keep yourself accountable, I suggest you do.
But when it’s all said and done, the easiest way to write a novel is to actually just write it. Yes, planning is important, as is outlining. But none of this will matter if you don’t have the will-power to sit down and write the damn thing.
4. BECOME CONFIDENT IN YOUR ABILITIES
This one is vital, and will come with time. But in order to write a novel in five weeks, you need to be confident in your own writing ability. Confident enough that you can write up a quick chapter in an hour or two, and then not feel the need to re-write, edit, rewrite and then change the entire thing a day later.
A few days ago, I was at party, talking to someone about my writing (as I often do). They asked a question that I get all the time, and one that I promptly swiped away as I am want to do. What they wanted to know was, ‘do I get writer’s block, and how do I overcome it.’
I don’t believe in writer’s block. I believe that some days are better than others, and on these good days you need to capitalize as much as you can, and on these bad days you need to grind. The good days are fine, easy, the ones where words flow out of you like ink from a pen. The bad days though, that’s where the confidence comes into it.
The more you write, the more confident you will be. When you are writing a novel, especially one at speed, you will eventually just need to give in to yourself and let the words come. So often we do this and think that what we are writing is trash, only to come back to it later and realize it isn’t that bad. Or sure, it might need edits and a few changes, but you’re a writer, so how bad can it be? Probably nothing on what you thought. And what’s more, because you gave in and just wrote, you now have 10,000 words done and dusted. Well done!
Confidence is a huge part of writing, but the longer that you write, the more you’ll see it grow. My advice here (you’ll sense a theme in a moment) is to simply write. Be confident in your own abilities, and know that even if the words you are writing are shit, you can always come back and change them later. For now, simply get those words on a page and the rest will come.
5. SAVE THE EDITING FOR THE END
As a ghostwriter, everything that I write eventually goes through an editor. My clients hire these people separately from myself, so it’s a process I don’t have too much say in. But, having said all of that, I still edit my work. I want to send off the best piece that I can, so it’s a must. I just save it for the end.
Because I have written an outline, and because I was so thorough in those early stages, I never feel the need to edit until I’ve written up my first draft. Even when the story changes on the page, the same premise and structure is always there, ensuring that I stay on track and don’t lose myself in the story.
But you also have to know what to edit, and how to do it. It can be tempting to re-read a chapter and want to write the whole thing again. Or to finish a story, decide that the character didn’t come out quite the way you liked, and feel the need to re-do his entire journey. If this is a story you truly care about, then go for it. But if you’re writing at speed, and just need to get this one done, try and avoid any of that where you can.
My edits do three things:
1) Cleaning up the prose and making it read better. I might read through a chapter a couple of times to ensure that it is the best that I can do, but I try and avoid major changes where I can.
2) Double checking that all the story beats are hit in the way that my outline dictated. Often, when writing a story for the first time, we lose track and forget certain elements. Or in that first draft, we weren’t as clear as we wanted to be with certain details. That’s fine. These things happen. Use the edits to fix these problems and make sure that they read smoothly. But don’t get bogged down in them.
3) A final read through, to make sure that the story makes sense. This is the final stage of an edit, and if you have done everything else correctly, than you shouldn’t need to touch a thing. But a final read through is always important, just to make sure that the story is as good as you know it is.
6. DON’T GET HUNG UP, THE NEXT ONE WILL BE BETTER
The final point, and another vital one for anyone who plans on writing as many novels as they can. I wrote earlier that I do this for both income, and experience and with these two points firmly in mind, it’s important that I remind myself there is always another story around the corner… and that hopefully it will be better than the last.
At the moment, I’m writing my first proper novel. This is a novel that I have spent ten months planning, and only two months so far writing. It’s one that I will edit one million times, re-write a dozen, and probably never be happy with. It’s a vast contrast to how I usually write, but it wouldn’t have been possible without all of the novels I put out beforehand.
I don’t like everything that I have written, while some of the things I’ve written I like aspects of, but not all of it. But that’s alright. When I finish a novel and send it off, I know that I’ll be starting a new one the next week, one that will probably be better than the last. And where some might think it’s a waste to write something you don’t like, I couldn’t disagree more.
This writing thing that we do, it’s all about practice. It’s all about learning to become confident in your own abilities, but through practice. It’s about writing as much as you can so that you will get better so that one day you can produce something truly spectacular… thanks to practice. The first thing you write won’t be this. Nor will the second, third of tenth. But eventually, it’s going to happen… unless you spend all your time on the last piece, unable to get past it.
Write the novel. Follow the steps. When it’s finished, even if you hate it, move onto the next. But when you do, take what you learned from that last and apply it to the new one. You will see yourself getting better in a way that didn’t happen when you spent weeks working on one chapter that has now gone officially nowhere. I might not be the best writer out, but after writing novel after novel after novel, I’m a lot better than I was when I started. And that, is impossible to deny.
