In this post, I’ll discuss how to write a novella in a week. I begin the discussion with whether it’s possible to write a novella in a week. I conclude with advice on how to write a novella in a week. Let’s begin…
Is It Possible to Write a Novella in a Week?
The most common length for a novella is 35,000 words. To give you a measure to compare against, a standard novel is 80,000 words. So, a novella is 44% the length of a standard novel, or just under half.
There are 7 days in a week, so:
35,000 words / 7 days = 5,000 words per day
That’s a lot of words to write in a day. This is the pace you would have to write at to write a novel in just over 2 weeks.
I write at the pace of 500 words per hour.
5,000 word per day / 500 words per hour = 10 hours of writing per day
Can I write for 10 hours per day for 7 days straight? You bet yeah. Will I be very cranky at the end of that week? Yep!
For your first step in how to write a novella in a week, I’m happy to report that the task is hard, but not impossible.
Write as Short as Possible
My first piece of advice to every budding author is to write as short as possible to justify charging $2.99 for your Kindle e-book on Amazon. You can sell a nonfiction book of as little as 10,000 words for $0.99, but you’ll only make $0.35 on the sale. Whereas, $2.99 is the least you can charge and earn 70% of the sale, or $2.09, in revenue.
Is It Advisable to Write a Novella?
Yes! Definitely!
A novella is the shortest form of fiction that you can write and still charge $2.99 for the book. I call $2.99 the sweet spot because it’s the least you can charge for an Amazon Kindle e-book and earn 70% of the sale, or $2.09, in revenue. Charge $2.98 for your book and you’ll only make 35% of the sale, or $1.05, in revenue. Oh, what a difference a penny makes.
How to Write a Novella in a Week
Now that I’ve established that you not only can write a novella in a week, but that you should write a novella, let’s delve into how to write a novella in a week. It’s all about speed!!!
Know Your Plot, People and Places
There’s no time for outlining. You need to know your plot, people and places before you write and to write as much as you need to, you need to write non-stop.
Write Distraction Free
I’m not just talking about your editor view, though that’s nice; I’m talking about no distractions from family, friends, social media… you name it. See if you can focus solely on writing for half an hour and you’ll be astonished with what you produce. The key to how to write a novella in a week is writing as fast as you can.
Track Your Daily Writing
This is a motivator to keep you writing. I’d recommend using Book Planner, just the Data sheet, to track your writing. The sheet calculates your words per hour based on real life recordings. Also check out my blog post.
Hope this helps,
—Brian
