Writing Tip: Reaching 50,000 useing the 13 Step method

Writing Tip: Reaching 50,000 useing the 13 Step method…

I wrote this for NaNoWriMo, but it works for all your writing.

My secret to reaching 50,000

I use the 13 step method… actually it's the 10 step method, but I like 13, so I changed it.. The 10 Step Method it's quite a popular method used by many professional best selling writers, not sure who invented it…

anyways it helps me to write a lot of words, real fast, so I thought I'd tell you guys about it, in hopes that it'll help someone else reach the 50,000 goal too

but here is my 13 Step version of it

Write down

Scene 1
Scene 2

etc, all the way to 13… these are your chapters, plan on having 13 of them

Think about your plot, in terms of 13 tiny stories, than write a title for each… now you have your 13 Chapter Titles

Your list should now read:

Chapter 1: "title here"
Chapter 2: "title here"

etc, all the way to Chapter 13

Now, go back to your list and add the actual scenes:

Chapter 1: The Title Here

scene 1
scene 2
scene 3
scene 4

etc, all the way to 13 scences.

do this for each chapter.

Now go back and write one scentance to describe each scene of each chapter.

Once you have completed this, you well have a complete and detailed outline to take you step by step through your story… print it up and keep it on hand when you are writing, so that you can keep your story running smoothly from one scene to the next (though you can change anything in you outline that needs changes once you start writing… it's not a hard and fast law that you stick to the outline… the outline, just helps you to write faster, by keeping your original story idea where you can see it)

once you get going the actual writing, you plan on say, write 5 scenes a day… and you'll find that by useing the writing a scene at a time, rather than going for word count or page count, you well write more and write faster…

I average 3,000 to 10,000 a day useing this method. yet, when I try for word count, I usually get stuck after about 500

try it and see, you'll be amazed at how well this method works

why does it work? because you are focused on your plot, not the word count, and when you stop thinking about the words, they just start flowing out of you with out you even realizing it

thinking in chapters has helped me so much… I used to just slog along trying to write 1o pages a day… that was the goal I gave myself, 10 pages… it was murder, I kept looking down at the bottom where it said page 1 of 1, etc, and I'd stop and think:

man… I typed all that and I'm still on page 1!

than I tried for word count… and after every sentance I'd stop and check to see how many words I'd done…

"What only 7 words in that sentace! /i'll never get done at that rate"

than one day, I'm complaining about this to my editor, and he says "get this book"… so I go and I get the book, and it's pretty good, than I get all the books by this author (writer's how to books) and all the books she recomended as well… ended up with like 50 books on the art of writing

and in one of them I found this 10-Step method… well me writing horror I changed it to the 13 Step method, cause I try to alway have 13 chapters… and I tried it and wow… I write so fast now! I can't believe it!

13 works for me, cause I write horror, and I design my stories to be in 13 chapters, with 13 scenes each, cause that's te way I've designed my stories to come out…

you can change it to whatever you need… say you only need 8 chapters with 5 scenes each… than that's what would work for you…

of course, you don't need to have the same anount of scenes per chapter either… 5 scens in chapter 1, 2 scenes in chapter 2, 12 scences in chapter 3… whatever you need to carry your story across, is what you should use

that's what's so great about this method, you can change it to whatever works for you and your story… there are no hard rules

it helps keep me focused on my story too…

for me, I have a BIIIIG problem, with rambling… I'll go waaaay off topic inside the thoughts of a minor character… which in itself is not bad, but it goes off the story. Good thing about it is it gives me ideas for a spin-off story, which I write a lot of.

The outline thingy, helps me to stay on my story, I keep looking back at it, and I know where I should be, and I can stay on track easier

bad thing, is, all my spin-off need outlines, and each of them reasult in more spin offs, and I end up with too many outlines and not enough stories LOL! 

I hope this helps!

~~EK

This Article Copyright 2006 Wendy C. Allen