How to Write a Book Faster: Strategize Your Novel Writing

Writing a novel can seem like an insurmountable task. You may not know where to start, or you may be worried about the time it will take to finish. This blog post is here to help! We are going to talk about how you can write your book faster by strategizing–including brainstorming ideas, writing scenes in advance, and outlining your storyline before starting on the first chapter.

In order to write a book faster, you need to strategize. This includes brainstorming ideas, writing scenes in advance, and outlining your storyline before starting on the first chapter. In this blog post, we will go over these three strategies in more detail.

Brainstorming Ideas

The first step in strategizing your novel writing is brainstorming ideas. This can be done by following these three steps:

Step one: Brainstorm all of the story elements that you want to include, such as characters and setting.  Examples could include themes like love or revenge, an exotic location, a historical time period, or even a character who is witty and sarcastic.

Step two: Brainstorm all of the plot points you want to include, such as action scenes or dialogue between characters.  Examples could be an accident that leaves your protagonist unable to walk, an assassination attempt on your main character by another person in their life, or a heated argument between your protagonist and their love interest.

Step three: Brainstorm all of the information that you want to include, such as facts about history or scientific concepts  You can do this by researching online, in books at your local library  or bookstore

 

Write Your Scenes Out in Advance

Once you have brainstormed ideas for character, setting, plot points, and information you can start to write your scenes out in advance. While this may seem counterintuitive (since we want to be writing faster), it will actually help you write a book faster by:

Helping with continuity If you know what needs to happen at the beginning of each chapter then you won’t have to do as much editing.

Making you an “outline believer” If you have actually tried to write your scenes out in advance, you will see how much easier it is to stay on track when writing the rest of the book. You may even start implementing other strategies that help with outlining!

Just starting? No problem! Try this tip for just five minutes.

 

Outlining Your Storyline Before Starting on the First Chapter

Once you have brainstormed ideas, written out your scenes in advance, and done research for information, it is time to start writing your book! If this seems overwhelming, try making an outline of what will happen before starting on chapter one. You can do this by following these steps:

Step one: Write out the beginning of your story, including all characters and setting information. It is okay if this outline doesn’t make sense yet–you are just trying to get everything down on paper.  If you need help with writing a good introduction for your book, check out our blog post about how to write an attention-grabbing first chapter.

Step two: Write out the end of your story once you know what will happen in the beginning and middle, it is easier to figure out what should happen at the end.  You can even go back later to fill in any holes that are still open!

Once you’ve done this process for one or more chapters (or even the whole book!) you should notice that writing is a lot easier.  You will also feel less stressed and more confident about your novel.

If this sounds like something you want to try, let us know how it goes! We’d love to hear from you in the comments below or on our Facebook page.