If you have made the decision to peruse a career as a writer you have chosen grand profession. When you look at the statistics, the percentage of professional novelists is small compared to other vocations, we are rare breed.

But when you look at how many unpublished or published writers for that matter trying to make a living compared to the amount of publishing houses out there in each country you will see that publishers get inundated on a weekly basis. So much so, that even if you are very good it is still near impossible to get in the game.

One of the best ways to get in the game is not just through an agent. Most agents will only look at you if you have a publishing history or if you have been referred by an already published author. No, the best way to get in the game is by being prolific, because above all it’s a numbers game. Can the publisher sell enough? Can the publisher by taking you on, make more money in the future? Not only that, but if you have ten different books with thirty different publishers you are pushing the numbers again. There is also the domino affect, one published novel gets the rest published too. So the greatest road to success lies in having more out under consideration than your competitor and don’t put all your eggs in the one basket.

Don’t think writing a book in under a week is an impossible task, some of the greatest works in history have been written in under a week. Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein was written over a long weekend as was Brahm Stoker’s Dracula, actually they both wrote them for a competition to see who could write the best horror novels in the fastest time. Nor am I advising you on something I haven’t attempted myself, my own novella (21000 wds), Day of Rest, was written in three days.

Know your Market

There is no sense in trying to catch the wind. In that I mean that the best way to achieve the target is to have a clear sense of the audience you are trying to catch. It is also the best way to come up with ideas.

Take genre fiction for example. In genre fiction there is a ready audience. If you sit down and try to come up with an idea that will be noticed and get published, but not only that: sell as well. With genre fiction you have a ready market in every area. Romance, horror, sci-fi and every other genre out there have a particular publisher and ready fan base for each of them. Mills and Boon publishes hundreds of titles a year and accepts many unpublished or little heard of authors. Stephen King, the master of the macabre started out with a punchy little vampire novel.

That is the great thing about genre fiction and brings up another great time saver. Genre fiction has a formula; a set way of doing things that makes the task of writing them that much faster. As in romance, we all know the boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back formula. They might sound corny but it’s what the public wants out of their genre fiction. That’s not to say that you don’t add your own unique style and flavor. Formula is what is what gets the reader into a certain genre, adding your own unique twists are what gets the reader into you.

Brainstorming and Note Taking

This is a crucial step.

There is a big trap in just thinking, I’ll write a horror novel. Then picking up and pen and sitting down to write. This will just lead to you forcing something out before it’s ready and most likely ending up half way through with nowhere to go.

So brainstorming and taking notes will definitely stop this happening. Pick your genre; learn the formulas of that genre. Also what a genre will aid you in doing is coming up with a plot, take the Romance plot offered earlier. Make it simple, only add those things that make it intersting. Boy finds girl, but boy likes all girls a little too much and loses girl, but boy realizes that this girl is the girls of his dreams and has a change of heart attitude, he comes up with crazy and even crazier still ways to win her back. Boy gets girl again. Genre fiction is great for custom made plots.

Then create characters. Write down as much about those characters to flesh them out as fully you can. Not only that, have enough characters to keep the story moving as easily as possible. Then think of situations that will develop those people and add life to them in the mind of your reader.

Already you book is taking on form. But we still have setting. Where you story takes place can be very important too. Take Sci-fi. Your where can be anything the imagination can spawn, there can also be a when. Also you there is a wealth of incidental add ons like inventions, such as space ships or time travel. Horror gives you an abundance in monsters and powers of good and evil characters.

We can now create scenes that develop plot. Incorporating all these bits into a coherent whole that move the story in the way you want it to go. If you have enough material in characters, plot and the crucial incidentals like scenery or history or anything else that will flesh out the story coming up with enough scenes to drive the book along shouldn’t be too hard at all.

Good note taking will prove invaluable when it come down to writing because you can easily reference it as you go.

A Writer Writes

All the hard work is now done. You have done the homework and all there is left to do is to give your mind free reign to do what it loves most. Pulling everything together and sitting down to one joyous burst of creativity.

So the last piece of advice I have is to clear your schedule. Leave yourself the space and time so that you can concentrate all you effort into you work.

Clear away everything that distracts or hinders. If you can, go somewhere where you can be alone with your project.

Set your mind totally on your goal. Make a decision that your going to sit down where ever you are and that the only thing your going to do for the next couple of days is write.

Really sometimes this can be the hardest part of all, getting the time and the space and holding on to the firmness of your goal.

Keep your head down and don’t let anything turn you from your purpose. I often find it helps to do a regular word count to gauge how I’m going every so often to make sure I am keeping on track.

But don’t be scared to take a breather if you need to. If it stops being enjoyable then you should do something to blow the cobwebs out. Because above all else writing should be something fun, that you love to do.

External Links:

• Day of Rest. Ian K Claridge - A great book written in 3 days.