Writing a Novel in 6 Months or Less

Can a writer really crank out an entire 400 page novel in six months or less? Many books have been written and even more blogs and online articles describing methods to writing a novel in a certain improbably short time period. Most of these have a 90 day rule, but some are audacious enough to promise a complete novel in 90 days if you follow their sage advice. Realistically, however, you need time to develop your material and that does not happen overnight. Even if you wanted to follow a 30 or 60 day time period, it is unrealistic to believe that no other matter in your life would take precedence and work to derail you from your goal.

Having a goal like writing a novel in a pre-determined period of time is a good concept, a grand idea, but the whole point is not following some formulaic progress chart but to start and finish a great novel, one that you can be proud to call your own. The biggest problem with writing a novel is getting started. Few things in life can be quite as daunting as the blank page itself. Even if you have the greatest idea in the history of the written word you might still find yourself staring at the white sheet of paper, wondering for the hundredth time how you are going to write the first sentence.

My suggestion for getting started is to write a sentence, any sentence will do. For example, if your book is about a Mr. Cleary and you know from your big idea that Mr. Cleary is married and has four kids and lives in Liverpool, then your first sentence could be Mr. Cleary lived with his four children and matronly spouse Elizabeth in a two room flat in the industrialized section of Liverpool known as Belly Row. I just made that up, I am sure that there is no Belly Row. But you get the picture. Now you can take off running and of course, you can go back later on and change the sentence and do whatever you like, but at least you have started writing a novel and now you just need to continue.

The most important aspect I believe of writing a novel is to establish rich characters with complex and believable back stories. Before you begin writing the novel itself you should first build your characters and that means writing character studies. Each character study should be at least ten pages long, and should contain rich details of the person. What do they wear, eat, and drink? How do they part their hair? What are their loves, likes, and dislikes? What profession are they in? Where did they study? How did they grow up? What were their parents and siblings like? What events shaped their upbringing and made them into the persons that they are today? Are they moody or happy-go-lucky? Are they responsible or do they travel through life without a care in the world? How do they impact the people around them? How do other people perceive your characters?

These are all questions that you need to answer before placing the character on the page. These character studies should be done quickly and concisely without worrying too much about crafting great sentences. The most important thing is that the person should begin to take substance. When you finally place the character into your book you will recall the character studies that you did for them and then their actions and reactions will be more authentic and believable in the final novel.