I know what it’s like. I’ve been there. When I started writing my first draft, my progress was really slow. It took me around 4 months to write the first 10 000 words!!! I was feeling tired and hopeless, but most of all, stuck! Finally, after a long period of dragging my fingers through the keyboard I came up with a system, well, rather a group of strategies that took me from being a slow disaster to finishing my first draft and writing around 70 000 words in barely two months. Then, if you want to write a book fast, this blog post is for you!
Maybe you’re balancing a full-time job or maybe a part-time job and some school classes, college, life. Maybe you have a family, a husband or wife, a significant other. Or maybe it is a dog, a cat, or a fish that needs feeding, etc, life gets in the way and it’s really difficult to find time for writing.
You have all these ideas in your head, all these mental notes for perfect characters or perfect scenes but you just can’t find the right time to write them down. If this is your case, don’t feel lonely. It’s a very common scenario since when we start in this profession, no one is paying us to relax sit by the fire and write the damn book!
We’re not getting paid so we need to keep working on our day-time job so we can keep eating, so we can have the strength that we need, so your fingers can move through that whole book… and the cycle never ends.
If this your situation right now I want to give you some tips so you can balance all the things you have in your life with your dream of becoming a writer
1. Write
Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? But here I am, still saying it. You need to write!! That book is not going to write itself.
Writing a book takes time and a lot of butt/hours (hours you devote to sitting down in front of your computer writing). There’s no formula to become a published successful writer overnight. Overnight is usually equal to hundreds of hours working on perfecting your craft and your process.
If you don’t put the hours and the work, there’s no way in hell, that book is going to get written. SO, if you want to write that book, DO IT. Brace yourself for the adventure. It’s going to be long, but it’s going to be worth it!!
2. Start your week with an objective in mind
An objective in mind will give you direction and will tell you where you need to move towards. It doesn’t have to be big, but let’s say you want to write 3 thousand words in a week or maybe 500 words in one day for each day of the week. Make sure your objectives feel doable, attainable. Don’t try to set big objectives if you don’t have the time.
The importance of setting goals is that they have to be doable, they need to look easy. There’s no point in setting goals that we’re not going to be able to achieve at the end of the week. This will just give you a sense of failure that you don’t need like… at all!
So, instead of setting something big, stick to the little things. For a week, these could be:
- Finishing up a chapter
- Writing 2000 words in a week
- Writing 500 words every day.
The important thing here is to keep yourself focused on the little tasks. If you spend enough time conquering small objectives, consistently, sooner or later you’ll get to the final goal.
So for now try to focus only on one objective. Not the big one because the big one can get really scary really fast.
Ask yourself what’s the next step you need to take towards the big final goal. So, if my final objective is to get my novel finished, or say, published. Then the next thing I have to do is write the next five thousand words.
So, go write those 5000 words, so you can finish your First Act, so you can move to the next one. Start small and build up.
Stick to your weekly objective!! That’s important. You’ll notice the progress week after week. Make sure that at the end of each week, you have smashed your goal.
If you want to learn how to set powerful, clear objectives, then click here!!
3. Accountability
It’s hard to be productive when the only person that you can fail to is yourself. You can forgive yourself pretty easily, can’t you? Your self-preservation instinct dictates so. A killer way to keep in track, and boost your productivity is to have a mind-alike group of fellow writers.
At the beginning of this blog post, I was telling you how my writing speed changed drastically. Well, that didn’t come out of nowhere. My change of speed occurred when I joined a group of other YA fantasy writers. Each week, we tell each other about our goals, and that makes the whole process of putting your mind to the task of writing the damn book so easy!
Your inner self, that’s always trying to save face, will push you to do as you promised at the beginning. You don’t want to fail a bunch of people that are rooting for you, do you?
Accountability is the best thing that could have ever happened to me in this journey. We are not only rooting for each other, but we offer each other help when someone is stuck, we interchange tips… and the writerly vibe is just so inspiring you would never feel like quitting.
Find that group that suits your needs. You can join Facebook groups of writers in your specific genre or age group. Believe me, there are a ton of groups on Facebook where you can find people to form your own awesome group of super writers. Then, you could ask people in those groups to join you in the writing journey. You can take the interchange to Discord, which works just right for this kind of thing.
Another good place to find all kinds of writing groups is the Nanowrimo website.
The feeling of being part of a community of people fighting for the same kind of dream is addictive. Plus, you get to make new friends all around the world! and of course, you’ll write that book fast!
4. Sprint!!
This is probably the most effective tip I can give you to write that book fast, without even noticing. I wrote 60% of my book with sprints. They really work and are time saving AF!
This is how it goes:
Take chances in the middle of your day. Maybe when you take a break in the morning, or before taking a shower. You won’t need more than fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes worked great for me, but you can set another amount of time that suits you. I don’t recommend to go longer than 20 minutes.
You could also set another type of limit. For example, my limits were either fifteen minutes or 250 words in one sitting.
So, take a break from everything. Set a timer or check your word count and write away! Sprint! as fast as you can. Let your fingers run through the keyboard. Don’t stop to look back, don’t edit, don’t check typos, just WRITE! Stop when your timer goes off, or when you have the 250 words. Then change the activity immediatly after.
The thing is, our brains are designed to pay attention for only 20 minutes. After that, you’ll start deviating, and worst of all, procrastinating!
Do these writing sessions a few times a day. If you take 15 minutes now and then, let’s say 4 times in a day or if you stop for a while, to write 250 words, and no more, you could find yourself writing 1k daily, and that my friend, is a really respectable amount of words. Let’s say, your limit is 300 words, or maybe in 15 minutes you can write 400 words, that would represent a huge progress for your manuscript.
The key point here is getting into your manuscript, do what you have to do, and get out before your brain shuts itself down and tells you it’s about time you do something else.
I do sprints for a lot of things, even for writing blogposts… wink wink. That way, I force my brain to refresh its functions.
If you put sprints and the writer’s group together… oh my friend, then you’ll be unstoppable. A collective sprint is so encouraging and fun, you’ll find yourself asking for more, and your book will be written in no time. Remember, small steps are the key to success!
Try this tip and thank me later.
5. Study the structure
Every story needs structure. It doesn’t matter if you’re a pantser or a plotter. There are certain beats your story needs to hit, so your plot doesn’t fall flat. This will make your story a lot better, but how does this help to write faster?
Well, knowing in advance what is the next step for your story is certainly an advantage. This will save you from writer’s block, and will have you ready at all times for what is to come.
So for example, if you are past your Midpoint, then you know, that ther come a period in which your MC needs to reflect on the things and look like he’s lost, before hitting that second plot point. Or maybe, you’ve just written your inciting incident, what’s next? well, making sure, your MC refuses the call for a while, before taking the next step towards the adventure.
In a nutshell, studying story structure, not only will improve your craft, but will also have you ready at all times for what’s coming next. So, forget about sitting in there for hurs for the inspiration to come. F* inspiration! Being ready and getting the job done is the new sexy.
6. Think ahead
One of the most recurrent problems writers face is sitting down to write and not having a clue of what the next word should be. This brings along trust issues, despair, and time-wasting! Write your book faster with this tip!
Well, with this tip in here, we can solve that. This can be very useful, especially if you are a pantser. Your sprint writing sessions would go much faster if you aleady had in your head what’s coming next in the story.
So, you study the structure, you know what plot point comes next, now let’s get specific! Try to think of your next scene while you do something else, like during your morning walk, or maybe while you take a shower.
Evaluate the possibilities for your characters and your plot beforehand. What does the story need now? Which would be my MC’s next move? What things need to be discovered in the next chapter and what new questions will arise.
Trust me, if you figure out the next move before your writing session, when you do sit down to write, you just have to empty your brin’s hard drive and vomit the words into the page. This way, getting to your daily or weekly goals will take no time.
7. Use writing tools
Technologies can make our lives so much easier, in every aspect, and can definitely help you write that book fast! There are tools that can get the process go faster.
One of these amazing tools is Scrivener, which is especially designed for writers. It costs 53 USD and is completely worth it with a ton of features that can really help automatize the process. However, if you don’t want to spend money, you can use Reedsy’s book editor completely for free. It will organize your book into chapters, sections, you can leave comments in it and you can get your book automatically formatted. Plus, as it is an online resource, you can have access to it fro all your devices.
If you want to know about other FREE writing tools, please, make sure to check this link.
8. Outline
This is very reated to tips 5 and 6. A lot of people don’t like to outline because they would have to do it before starting to write the novel, and people just want to go directly to writing the damn thing.
But, trust me, the process exists for a reason. An outline can help you have everything mapped up before you start. The more detailed the outline, the better. Then, you just have to go and fill in the blanks.
Use some online tool like Trello where you can make all kinds of notes and arrange them however you want. It’s FREE.
An outline can also make the whole editing phase a hell easier as it would be less probable for you to have plot holes that need fixing.
9. Don’t Edit
Yes, all of us have an inner editor inside, a perfectionist that know that the previous line could have gone better. But you know what, leave that for later.
Don’t do any editing while woring on t¿your first draft. You’ll have time for that later… and you wann know a little secret about what happens most of the times when you edit and write at the same time? you wanna know? YOU’LL NEVER FINISH. period.
Going back once and over again is extremely time consuming. I know I’ve said this before, but DON’T LOOK BACK. GEt that story out of you. LEave edits for the editing phase.
Summing up…
Writing a novel takes a lot of time and effort. But don’t let the task scare you. If other people just like you have done it before, why not you? Besides you can simplify the process and write that book faster than you think by following the tips I gave you in this blog post.
- Plan ahead: study the structure and prepare for the next step. Prepare an outline or just give your story some thought before the writing session.
- Set a goal for each week: make sure is quantifiable and attainable.
- Find a community of like-minded authors and rely on them for support and accountability.
- Use the tools available for you: Make your writing easier and more automatized. The tools are out there.
- Sprint!! It saves tons of time.
Try these tips and let me know how it goes.
If you have any other effective tip to write faster. Let us know in the comments.
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See ya!
