If you’re like me, you often wish that writing a book was MUCH faster. While I’m fairly patient in most areas of my life, writing is one of those things that easily frustrates me. Oftentimes, I’ll spend a month or two working on a book, then I’ll get bored and move on to the next project.

I have finally found a method that works very well for me, and hopefully it will work for you too. I have tried so many different writing techniques to encourage myself to write more quickly. I tried setting daily goals for myself, I tried writing as much or as little as I wanted until the book was done… but neither of these methods really worked.

Online college has drastically improved my organization skills, and contributed to my new writing method. This is what I have been doing:

– First, I made my book synopsis. It doesn’t have to be detailed; it’s just a list of basic plot points from the beginning of the book to the end. I like to use a plot chart from Stephanie Morrill’s website (click HERE to print it out). According to this chart, the plot structure of a book is as follows:

. Beginning

. Inciting Incident

. Second Thoughts

. Climax of Act 1

. Obstacle

. Obstacle

. Midpoint Twist

. Obstacle

. Disaster

. Crisis

. Climax of Act 2

. Climax of Act 3

, Obstacles

. Denouement 

. End

– I then printed out a calendar for this month and next month. I looked at my synopsis, and estimated how many days each portion of the book would take. For example, I decided that the inciting accident would take me a very short amount of time, so I wrote down ‘1 day’ beside the section. The next section was quite a bit longer, so I wrote ‘3 days.’

. After I did this for every plot point, I went to the calendar and began to make deadlines for each one. The reason that this works is because it gives you a lot of freedom to write as much or as little as you want each day, but it still forces you to get stuff done by specific points of time. Once you do this for each deadline, you will know the exact date you’ll get the first draft done (as long as you follow through).

Then you should have the basic structure of the book, and you can always add fillers later.  Remember, you can’t edit a blank page. 

Let me know if this works for you. What is your favorite writing method?

Also, if you haven’t already, check out my WRITING CONTEST! There are awesome prizes, and I would love it if you entered.

Until next time,

~ Carynn