Another Humanity

How to write a book in a month?

  • You want to start a story but have no procedure.
  • What about a clean & straightforward one?
  • Do you want to write a 100 pages in a month?
  • Or 30 pages in a week?

Characters

1st Draft Phase (day 1 – 2)

  • Start with 3 Characters.
  • Create Relatability 1st.
  • And with yourself before anyone else.
  • How to love your Characters?
  • Protagonist
  • Define the character’s Goal through her Name.
  • Display her 1 obvious strength in the 1st Chapter.
    • Protagonists are generally designed to be likable
    • Her strength will often be a desirable character trait
  • Display her 1 obvious weakness in the 1st Chapter.
    • Protagonists are generally designed to be likable
    • Her weakness will be amusing or relatable
  • Give her a 1 Quirk/Accessory.
    • Most common : Hairstyle, Item, One-Liner
  • What’s her Initial Relation to the Antagonist?
    • Friend, Ally, Enemy, Foe
  • What’s her Initial Relation to the Support?
    • Friend, Ally, Enemy, Foe
  • Antagonist
  • Define the character’s Goal through her Name.
  • Display her 1 obvious strength in the 1st Chapter.
    • Antagonists are generally designed to be unlikable.
    • Her strength will often be considered undesirable.
  • Display her 1 obvious weakness in the 1st Chapter.
    • Antagonists are generally designed to be unlikable
    • Her weakness should still be relatable at this stage
  • Give her a 1 Quirk/Accessory.
    • Most common : Hairstyle, Item, One-Liner
  • What’s her Initial Relation to the Protagonist?
    • Friend, Ally, Enemy, Foe
    • The Antagonist will often be responsible of the 1st crisis of the Story & create disruption in general
  • What’s her Initial Relation to the Support?
    • Friend, Ally, Enemy, Foe
  • Support
  • Define the character’s Goal through her Name.
  • Display her 1 obvious strength in the 1st Chapter.
  • Display her 1 obvious weakness in the 1st Chapter.
  • Give her a 1 Quirk/Accessory.
    • Most common : Hairstyle, Item, One-Liner
  • What’s her Initial Relation to the Protagonist?
    • Friend, Ally, Enemy, Foe
  • What’s her Initial Relation to the Antagonist?
    • Friend, Ally, Enemy, Foe
  • Supports can either ally with Antagonists or Protagonists

Completion Phase (day 14 – 15)

  • Add 3 other support Characters with predefined Roles.
  • These are 2ndary Characters.
  • You may not need them in the end, but keep them as an option.
  • These 6 Characters can be used in all of your stories.
  • All you have to do afterwards is to switch goals, behavior traits & quirks.
  • Define the character’s Goal through her Name.
  • What are the Resources allocated by the Sponsor?
  • What does she ask for as a Payment?
  • What’s her 1 obvious strength?
  • What’s her 1 obvious weakness?
  • What’s her Quirk/Accessory?
    • Most common : Hairstyle, Item, One-Liner
  • What’s her Initial Relation to the Protagonist?
    • Friend, Ally, Enemy, Foe
  • What’s her Initial Relation to the Antagonist?
    • Friend, Ally, Enemy, Foe
  • What’s her Initial Relation to the Support?
    • Friend, Ally, Enemy, Foe
Rival
  • Define the character’s Goal through her Name.
  • What’s her 1 obvious strength?
  • What’s her 1 obvious weakness?
  • What’s her Quirk/Accessory?
    • Most common : Hairstyle, Item, One-Liner
  • What’s her Initial Relation to the Protagonist?
    • Friend, Ally, Enemy, Foe
  • What’s her Initial Relation to the Antagonist?
    • Friend, Ally, Enemy, Foe
  • What’s her Initial Relation to the Support?
    • Friend, Ally, Enemy, Foe
Arbiter
  • Define the character’s Goal through her Name.
  • Display conflicts the Arbiter will have to judge.
  • Show the Consequences of these judgements.
  • 1 obvious strength – Impartial
  • 1 obvious weakness – Detached
  • What’s her 1 obvious strength?
  • What’s her 1 obvious weakness?
  • What’s her Quirk/Accessory?
    • Most common : Hairstyle, Item, One-Liner
  • What’s her Initial Relation to the Protagonist?
    • Friend, Ally, Enemy, Foe
  • What’s her Initial Relation to the Antagonist?
    • Friend, Ally, Enemy, Foe
  • What’s her Initial Relation to the Support?
    • Friend, Ally, Enemy, Foe

Develop your 3 Original Characters.

  • Protagonist
  • Did the Character’s goal change?
  • Did she abandoned it to pursue a new goal?
  • Present 1 strength to hone to reach her goal.
  • Unravel 1 hidden weakness that may change the Public point of view on the Character.
  • Did her Quirk/Accessory change?
    • Most common : Hairstyle, Item, One-Liner
  • What’s her New Relation to the Antagonist?
    • Friend, Ally, Enemy, Foe
  • What’s her New Relation to the Support?
    • Friend, Ally, Enemy, Foe
  • Antagonist
  • Did the Character’s goal change?
  • Did she abandoned it to pursue a new goal?
  • Present 1 strength to hone to reach her goal.
  • Unravel 1 hidden weakness that may change the Public point of view on the Character.
  • Did her Quirk/Accessory change?
    • Most common : Hairstyle, Item, One-Liner
  • What’s her New Relation to the Protagonist?
    • Friend, Ally, Enemy, Foe
  • What’s her New Relation to the Support?
    • Friend, Ally, Enemy, Foe
  • Support
  • Did the Character’s goal change?
  • Did she abandoned it to pursue a new goal?
  • Present 1 strength to hone to reach her goal.
  • Unravel 1 hidden weakness that may change the Public point of view on the Character.
  • Did her Quirk/Accessory change?
    • Most common : Hairstyle, Item, One-Liner
  • What’s her New Relation to the Protagonist?
    • Friend, Ally, Enemy, Foe
  • What’s her New Relation to the Antagonist?
    • Friend, Ally, Enemy, Foe

Environments

1st Draft Phase (day 3 – 4)
  • Start with 1 Environment.
  • Whatever the Scale you’ll need to find the same elements in each of them.
  • A place to Rest.
  • A place to Fight.
  • A place to Prepare/Converse.
  • If you design a City start with a District.
  • If you design a District start with a House.
  • If you design a House start with a Room.
  • Everything is Scalable Up & Down.
  • The Preliminary Phase is there to offer your characters a Place to Start.
  • Once you’ve started, the Story will write itself more easily.
  • This Place will allow you to display events.
  • It will allow your characters to meet each other.
  • Every Room, every setting is a place of representation.
  • What you need to describe?
  • Atmosphere – Climate, Light, Colors.
  • People – Quirks, Daily Conversations, Daily Life.
  • Organizations – Goal, Hierarchy, Leaders.
  • Landscape & Landmarks – Animals, Symbols.
  • Keep it at 1-2 sentence for each.
  • Develop only if necessary.
Completion Phase (day 15 – 16)
  • Create Generic Environments you can reuse.
  • 1 City template.
  • 1 Town template.
  • 1 House template.
  • 4 Natural Environments.
    • Mountain & Rivers
      • Atmosphere
      • Fauna & Flora
    • Plains & Lakes
      • Atmosphere
      • Fauna & Flora
    • Seas & Islands
      • Atmosphere
      • Fauna & Flora
    • Forests & Ponds/Creeks
      • Atmosphere
      • Fauna & Flora
  • Create Specific Landmarks that will frame your Story.
  • 1 Tower/Mall.
    • People
    • Furniture/Objects
  • 1 Park.
    • People
    • Furniture/Objects
  • 1 Library/Museum/Cinema.
    • People
    • Furniture/Objects
  • 1 Hotel/Inn.
    • People
    • Furniture/Objects
  • 1 Café/Restaurant/Dinner.
    • People
    • Furniture/Objects

Story

1st Draft Phase (day 1 – 4)
  • Start with the End.
  • Imagine up to 10 Different endings.
  • What’s Different?
  • Every new crucial element added or removed from an outcome changes the ending.
    • It can be the acquisition/loss of a Key item/character.
    • It can be a change in the Way of obtaining/losing this Object.
    • You can also change the Role/Function of the Object.
  • Pick your Favorite Ending & Create a Matching Introduction.
  • Now you have the 10th & 1st chapters you need to plan chapters 3, 6 & 9.
  • Chapters 3, 6 & 9 are Crisis chapters.
  • Display critical changes in these chapters.
  • Critical Wins: New Ally, new Estate, new Status.
  • Critical Losses: Death/Destruction, Betrayal, Madness.

Chapter’s Structure.

  1. Atmosphere – Colors, Climate, Light.
  2. People, introduce characters (if any).
    1. Indicate Character’s evolution
    2. Display Relationships’ evolutions
  3. Setting.
    1. Where are they?
    2. Why are they here?
  4. Issue.
    1. Who/What caused the Issue?
    2. Why/When did they caused it?
  5. Outcome
    1. How is the Issue Solved?
    2. What is Won?
    3. What is Lost?
Completion Phase (day 1 – 30)
  • Start Writing from the 1st day if you can.
  • The sooner you let the story unfold, the more ideas you’ll find.
  • The sooner you begin to write the sooner you’ll notice the issues.
  • In the early stages you’ll probably have multiple endings, branched scenario, and still be indecise.
  • The sooner you begin, the sooner you can choose.
  • Each Chapter will take you up to 3 days to write.
  • If you write for 30′-40’/day you can write up to 5 pages.
  • Each chapter will be 10-15 pages long, for a 100-150 pages book.
  • If you write for 60′-90’/day you can write up to 10 pages.
  • Each chapter will be 20-30 pages long, for a 200-300 pages book.
  • Timeline.
  • Chapters 1 to 3 will take you up to 9 days.
  • Try to write Chapter 1 in 1 day if you can.
    • The faster you finish the 1st chapter, the more motivated you’ll be to write the rest of the book.
  • Take 3 days for Chapter 3.
    • It is your 1st Crisis chapter
    • You may be blocked on the 3rd day when you’ll have to finish it
    • Finish it nonetheless
    • Chapter 3 is the 1st Barrier to the Completion of your Book
  • Chapters 4 to 6 will take you up to 9 days.
  • Take up to 4 days for Chapter 6.
    • It is most likely the peak tension of your book
  • Chapters 7 to 9 will be written much faster than the rest of the book since you have reached peak writing velocity.
  • You may still take 3 days to write Chapter 9.
    • It is a critical Chapter and the transition to your epilogue.

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