How to write the first draft of a novel in 30 days
Writing a novel can be daunting. But introducing structure to the process can help you maintain momentum over the course of a month without hampering creativity.
The outline you’ll complete using the 30-day method will become a snapshot of your novel. After finishing a full outline, you should feel you’ve got the makings of an entire book (your story should feel complete, solid, exciting and satisfying) and you should be desperate to start writing the book itself.
This first draft outline is the equivalent to the first draft of a manuscript. Because you’ve revised it so thoroughly, it will read with all the completeness and excitement of a finished novel. Using this outline to write the first draft of your book (which, in almost all cases, will be the final draft, needing only minor editing and polishing) should be so easy you might even feel a little guilty about it. All the hard work will already have been done creating the outline.
Throughout this guide we’ll work on the assumption that the first draft of your book isn’t a fully completed draft in the traditional sense, but is instead a comprehensive outline - your first, whole glimpse of the book and a snapshot of what it will be once finished. The outline you create over the next 30 days will become the foundation upon which your entire novel will come to rest. This method is a way to lay out the full course of the story as it flows from beginning to end.