Mile 6: Ready, Set… 🏁 WRITE!

Novel Marathon

Dear Novelists & Novelistas,
🏃Welcome to Mile 6 of Novel Marathon – The 2023 Edition!
Guess what? All that planning you’ve been doing is paying off and you’re now READY TO WRITE!
Scared? Don’t be, because you already have the best tool for creating a compelling narrative in your back pocket: Scene cards.
Scene cards are a way to structure each scene in your book so you not only know what’s happening in that scene, but also what the scene is building up to, and what needs to happen next.
These scene cards become the blueprint for your writing. Fill out as many as you can, always asking “So what?” at the end. Why did you write this scene? What’s the next thing that needs to happen? If your scene cards build logically upon each other, chances are that your narrative will captivate the reader.
About that narrative… let’s talk about word count goals.
My suggestion is to shoot for ~500 words, ~5x per week.
You can pick a different goal. This is one that has worked for me in the past. What I like about it is that it doesn’t require perfection. It’s ok if you miss a day. Maybe you had a rough day at work – or a rough week! Well, you always have the weekend to catch up. But if you manage to write every weekday, you can have the weekend off, which is a pretty sweet incentive IMO.
I will be there with you, every step of the way. I’m sure I’ll stumble. I’m sure I’ll have to catch up at some point. Slow and steady wins the day 🐢There’s a reason this newsletter is called Novel Marathon 🏃
Now that it’s writing time, there will be some changes to this newsletter. Future newsletters will be a little shorter. I need time to write! I’ll still send out the readings & writing prompts, and I’ll share my progress with you along the way.
And here’s the homework for the next two weeks:
📚Required reading
Ch. 11-14 in The One Year Novelist
Ch. 9 in Story Genius
🌟Extra credit
Pgs. 65-68 in This Year You Write Your Novel
Pgs. 20-24 in Refuse To Be Done
✏️ Your Assignment
👟Opening scene
What’s your novel’s very first scene? Start writing!
👟Write the islands
“Islands” is what Matt Bell calls the key plot points in your novel. Remember all those twists and turns you sketched out? Review your Story Spark, One-Quarter Twist, Mid-Point, Three-Quarter Turn, and Climax. Make sure you have scene cards filled out for each plot point and start writing the scenes that you envision most clearly. It’s ok to write out of sequence!
👟Continue to flesh out subplots
Who are your supporting characters?
What are THEIR misbeliefs?
How are they changed, if at all, by the events of your novel?
👟Most importantly: WRITE!
~500 words, 5x per week
Aim for 2,500 words per week
Start May 8, finish an 80k word novel by the end of 2023
Previous assignments can be found at novelmarathon.substack.com
👀 Watch & 🎧Listen
Follow Novel Marathon on YouTube or TikTok. You can also listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Good luck & happy writing! ✍️