Write to The End

You have an idea for a novel. This book gets it to The End.

Most people who start a novel never finish one. Not because they cannot write, but because nobody showed them how a novel is put together, how to plan one without killing it, or how to keep going when the middle turns to fog. Write to The End is a workbook that does those three things, in order, and assumes you know nothing at the start.

How it works

You read a short explanation. You watch two invented writers do it on two very different novels. Then you do it yourself on the page that follows.

• Denise plans everything. A retired bookkeeper in Ohio writing a cozy mystery, 500 words a morning, with every chapter outlined before she starts.
• Sam finds out by writing. A bus driver in Leeds writing a fantasy on his breaks, with a map full of question marks.

You see both their novels go from a one-line idea to a finished draft, including their premise tries, their maps, their outlines, their writing plans with real calendar dates, their logs, the weeks they lost and how they came back. Every page you fill in comes with their version already filled in beside it.

What is inside (78 pages)

• Part 1, How a novel works. What a novel actually is, how long each kind usually runs (with the figures publishers expect), the engine that keeps readers turning pages, the nine-landmark novel map, scenes and the five working parts of one, show versus summarise, point of view and tense, chapters and dialogue, and an honest page of what a first draft really looks like. Pride and Prejudice and The Hound of the Baskervilles are placed on the same map, chapter by chapter, with the percentages counted from the texts.
• Part 2, Plan your novel. Seven steps: premise (with a test), main character (wants, fears, one wrong belief), the opposition and cast, a world that does work, the ending roughly, your novel map, and then either a chapter outline or a lighter three-scenes-ahead plan for people who hate outlining. Scene cards, a one-page plan, and five planning traps with a ready-to-write checklist.
• Part 3, A writing plan you can keep. The arithmetic of a novel (a table of weeks for every speed), a twenty-minute speed test, finding time in your real week, a plan with a finish date and a buffer, the writing session step by step, the fix-it-later list, a 100-square progress map, a session log and a ten-minute Sunday check-in.
• Part 4, When it goes wrong. Eight kinds of stuck, each with its page: not knowing what happens next, the sagging middle (six moves that fix it), hating what you have written, the shiny new idea, a missed week or month, plot holes, wanting to rewrite chapter one, and length. Plus a one-page rescue card to pin up.
• Part 5, The End. Writing the ending, what to do and not do once you have typed The End, both writers' plans set against what really happened, and a page to fill in on the day you finish.
• A plain-English word list and the sources at the back.

What you will have by the last page

• A premise in one sentence that passes a six-question test
• A map of your novel, nine landmarks from first page to last
• A plan the size of you: a chapter outline, or a headlights plan if you would rather find the story as you write
• A writing plan with real numbers: words a session, sessions a week, a start date, a finish date and a buffer
• A complete first draft, rough and yours

What you download

• Write to The End (78 pages, PDF, US Letter, in colour, with bookmarks and a contents page). All the working pages are printed in the book, so you can write straight into a printed copy or copy the questions into a notebook.
• Working Pages, US Letter (33 pages, PDF): every page you write on, pulled out to print as often as you need, with extra copies of the sheets that run out (scene cards, scene log, fix-it list, session log) and the rescue card.
• Working Pages, A4 (33 pages, PDF): the same sheets scaled to fit A4 paper.

Good to know

• For anyone writing a first novel, in any genre, and for anyone who has started one before and stalled. Works for planners and for people who find the story by writing it.
• It is not a book about getting published, polishing sentences or editing. Those come after a first draft, and the last part tells you what to do next.
• The two writers, their novels and every extract from their drafts are invented for this book. Their dates use the real 2027 calendar and their sums are checked.
• The PDFs are not fillable forms: print them, or write your answers in a notebook or a document.
• This is a digital download. No printed book is shipped.