How to Write a Book FAST + Interview with author Miriam Drori

If you’re like me, you often wish that writing a book was much faster. While I’m fairly patient in most areas of my life, writing is one of those things that easily frustrates me. Oftentimes, I’ll spend a month or two working on a book, then I’ll get bored and move on to the next project.

I have finally found a method that works very well for me, and hopefully it will work for you, too. I have tried so many different writing techniques to encourage myself to write more quickly. I’ve tried setting daily goals for myself, I’ve tried writing as much (or as little) as I wanted until the book was done… but neither of these methods really worked.

Online college has drastically improved my organization skills, and contributed to my new writing method.

First, I made my book’s synopsis. It didn’t have to be detailed; it was just a list of basic plot points from the beginning of the book to the end. I like to use a plot chart from Stephanie Morrill’s website (click HERE to print it out). According to this chart, the plot structure of a book is as follows:

I then printed out a calendar for the current month as well as the next month. I looked at my synopsis, and estimated how many days each portion of the book would take. For example, I decided that the inciting accident would take me a very short amount of time, so I wrote down ‘1 day’ beside the section. The next section was quite a bit longer, so I wrote ‘3 days.’

After I did this for every plot point, I went to the calendar and began to make deadlines for each one. The reason that this works is because it gives you a lot of freedom to write as much or as little as you want each day, but it still forces you to get a good amount done by specific points of time. Once you do this for each deadline, you will know the exact date you’ll get the first draft done (as long as you follow through).

At this point you should have the basic structure of the book, and you can always add fillers later.  Remember, you can’t edit a blank page!

For this issue’s author feature, I’d like to introduce Miriam Drori, a fellow Darkstroke author!

Now, for the interview…

That’s an interesting question. There are several characters who fight against the protagonists, but I suppose the main “who” antagonist is the murderer, and obviously I’m not saying who that is. The “what” antagonist for Asaf, who is the suspect in the murder case, is his inability to speak up for himself.

Inspiration came from various places. It came from wondering if a character I’d created before was suspected of murder. It came from the setting of my adopted town. It came from watching my husband at work. I could probably go on.

The power of belief in another person, secrets, assumptions, friendship and social anxiety.

This is the first time I’ve written a crime novel. When I sent it to be read by someone who has written several, I was ready for her to tell me the best thing I could do with it was to throw it on a virtual scrap heap. Fortunately, she praised it and I was over the moon.

I don’t wait to be inspired. Writing is a job with schedules and deadlines like any other. If I’m stuck for something to write, I find inspiration in my notes, on the internet, in books or outside. Or else I leave a problematic scene until later and move on to the next.

In 2004, when I became passionate about raising awareness of social anxiety. Not all my books include social anxiety, but my passion sparked my decision to write and remains with me, always.

I try to get inside the head of each one as I write them. In my novel, Cultivating a Fuji, reviewers have noted that each character has a back story. That was important for me, because they don’t always behave well to the protagonist, and I wanted to explain their motivations. In my latest novel, Style and the Solitary, I even felt empathetic towards the murderer, and I hope readers will, too.

All my stories are written for your enjoyment. If you also learn something from them, or if they make you reflect, that would be an added benefit.