How To Write a Novel in 30 Days

Is it possible? Thousands of NaNoWriMo participants say so.

First Draft in 30 Days, by author Karen Weisner, seems to be a straight-up workbook for the novel-writing process. In 6 steps she claims that you can go from brainstorm to first draft in only one month. Her attempt is valiant to be sure, and while the book contains some not-so-common advice for plot work, the huge array of worksheets in the back of the book (it takes up almost half of the book itself) seem like cotton candy, aimed to please the English teachers out there who are looking for a simple method to teach without any real efficacy. By the time I reached the end I wondered: "Karen, did you write your drafts in only 30 days? No wonder I've never heard of them."

Alas, while this method seems designed for massive sales based on the title alone, the content is rather shoddy. However, I won't leave you writers out there diffused. I have a book for you from someone who knows what they're talking about, because a) they've implemented their own method to great success, and b)tens of thousands of other people have.

If your goal is to bust out a draft in 30 days, here is the book for you: No Plot! No Problem! by Chris Baty, one of the founder of NaNoWriMo himself. Reading through this book will bring out a chuckle or two, or even a hearty laugh unless, of course, you're an author with NO humor. I don't believe they even exist...

Well Baty doesn't claim to teach you how to make a story. There's thousands of other books that will do that, and probably better than he ever could. What's so great about this book is that he will encourage you and tell you how to just get it done. He has a grain of wisdom that is so lacking in the writer's reference field, and that is that every person has a story. Every future novelist sure as hell has something to write about, and Baty thankfully skip right over the piece of creating that story. He assumes you already have a story to tell, and he tells you how to sit yourself down and get to business, completing your first draft in 30 days.

He admits that you'll have some serious editing to do, but you could pay someone else to edit it for you. You can't pay someone to give it life. He gives you a solid technique that will motivate you to really write your book in 30 days. It might not be genius quality on day 30, but you can always add that in later. You'll have written a novel in a month, remember??