November 23, 2015

21 Days To A Novel: A Review

Copywriting Product Reviews, Daily Writing Blog, Writing Fiction And Books

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I have written short stories for years, as well as non-fiction books.

 

I have planned novels out for years too. However, like many writers, I have a lot of unfinished manuscripts dating back a long time. I have books that are 200000 words long. I haven’t finished them, and they sit waiting for my hard drive to fail so they can sleep forever.

 

Really.

 

The fact is, writing a novel is a big undertaking. You often don’t realize what an undertaking is until you are half way through and you realize that you don’t have the material or the theme that’s driving you through.

 

Luckily, there are hundreds of books on the subject, and whilst no one book is going to give you all of the answers, you can piece things together for yourself if you read many books on writing.

 

21 days to a Novel is one.

 

21 Days To a Novel Review

 

I quite liked the idea of this book. It has a chapter a day, exercise-based structure. I like that, because a lot of books on writing devolve into the theoretical very quickly.

 

For instance, the Mythic Journey is a book about structure. However, it doesn’t have any meat and potatoes pen to paper exercises. It’s great for a Sunday read, but for an “I’m stuck in writers block hell, get me out quickly,” it’s not so great.

 

21 days to a Novel is exactly the opposite of that.

 

Pros of 21 Days to A Novel.

 

I mentioned above – this is practical, no fuss information. It gives you a point, say, “Character Motivations” and then gives you an exercise with your character to build that motivation into dialogue. Then it gives you an example of what the author has suggested you do. The examples are a bit wooden, but it is great to see that you can build words and worlds out of the advice given. I really got the sense that this was the exact system the writer uses in their own work.

 

The second pro is that it will break writers block. If you keep reading, you will see in the cons section and the closing thoughts section that i recommend using this book for a slightly different purpose. This book will kill writers block, because it addresses every part of a book – plotting, characters, dialogue, world building and gives you exercises to add a potentially unlimited amount of details that you might have skipped.

 

Cons of 21 Days To A Novel

 

One problem with it is addressed, one isn’t.

 

The first problem is that you will need to structure this for yourself. I would never, for instance, start with characters and leave the plot until day 15. The author writes about this. Also, the pace is messed up.

 

By day 15, you have about 500 words in your actual novel. The exercises are mostly less than an hour per day. If you read my writing reports, you will know that I am only comfortable with writing thousands of words per day. The idea that I could spend less than an hour writing and only have a couple of hundred words isn’t my style.

 

Secondly, the creative structure of this book doesn’t take inspiration into account. Most novels start with inspiration. At least in my process, I’ll have a great “What if?” idea that I’ll then brainstorm. I can’t imagine following this book’s structure in that sort of situation.

If I have, for instance, a massive plot idea about what would happen if a meteor plunged into the earth, and it turns out there were alien spiders on that meteor, I would then wait until two weeks later to flesh out the plot whilst I wrote a day in the life of the characters.

This is a slow burn process for if you have no ideas.

 

Thirdly, the book uses a particular example that it builds all the way through. I was expecting the book to actual show a finished piece of writing at the end, to demonstrate what the finished writing would look like after following the exercises laid out.

I can kind of piece together what the story would look like, but it would have been nice to have been given it. I feel like I’ve watched The Happening waiting to see if there’s any real reason why the trees were killing the people.

Closing Thoughts

I like to close off any review with what you can learn from a product and three reasons to get it and use it correctly (or at least, how I’d use it.)

  1. Use The Book To Flesh Out A Novel that You’ve Already Written

Like I said above, if you’re a novelist or fiction writer of any sort, those first few days where you have an idea are probably the easiest. That’s not to say you’ll always be full of ideas, but it’s probably better when you have them to let them take over until that initial burst of excitement runs out.

So I suggest waiting to use the 21 Days to a Novel structure until that burst is gone. If you’re like me, and you have several would-be novels sitting at two thirds of the way through with no completion date in sight, then refer back to your notes on 21 Days To A Novel in order to kick-start your project.

  1. Pull this book apart and use it for your own ends.

Immediately after reading the first chapter, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to stick to the structure of 21 Days To a Novel. It’s too divorced from how I write. I can’t imagine on the first day of a new project spending just twenty minutes on it and writing a handful of sentences.

Now, I could have stopped reading at that point. I would have missed out on some great novel writing and writer’s block busting ideas if I had.

Instead, I’d suggest reading and making notes on the exercises. For instance, “Write a dialogue between A and B that highlights their incompatible goals.” Then, use those notes as a cheat sheet when you need them.

I’d truncate all the character building stuff into a single day.

I’d do the plot before the characters.

You might do something completely different.

  1. Don’t Overcomplicate Novel Writing

Far too many people over-complicate writing stories. I’ve known people who spend six months on world building.

If you buy this book, it covers everything you need to know in a few simple exercises. You don’t need to dedicate hundreds of pages of notes to a 60,000 word book.

Usually, I write into the dark, or with minimal planning. The reason I do this is because otherwise books have a tendency to not get written. There’s going to be a point where you just have to “go for it” and start writing.

If you have 21 Days to a Novel, then you already have the tools to build enough research to see you through a novel.

 

 

You can get it as part of a bundle here (limited time only):

https://storybundle.com/nano

Or you can buy it on its own from Amazon Here:

21 Days To A Novel (USA)

21 Days To A Novel (Amazon UK)

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