The 5 Day Novel: 'The How To Guide for Writing Faster & Optimizing Your Workflow'

By: Scott King

Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer

Struggling to finish your novels? Learn how to tweak your workflow process and write one in only five days! After taking way too long to write a fantasy epic, author and educator Scott King refined his writing process so that he could crank out a novel in five days! Through easy-to-follow tips and helpful examples, Scott takes a theme and shapes an entire story around it. Let him walk you through the prewriting process, slogging through a first draft, and doing the rewrites.

In this book, you'll learn:

• How to get in the right mindset
• How to cut distractions & manage your time
• The ingredients necessary to form a story
• How to stay focused and keep writing
• How to plan your rewrites
• The things to look for when line editing

If you like honesty, no bull, a bunch of humor, and tons of examples in your writing guides, then you'll love Scott King's behind-the-scenes look at how to write a novel in five days.

©2016 Scott King (P)2016 Scott King

Solid, useful inspiration for writers

I was very interested to listen to Scott King’s The Five Day Novel because I was preparing myself for another year of National Novel Writing Month (where you write a 50K first draft in the 30 days of November). I thought this might help my preparation and inspire. It most certainly did that!

If you’ve been writing a while, even as a hobbyist, you’ve already noticed that most craft books say the same things. King doesn’t say anything truly radical or groundbreaking here, but that’s not what he’s trying to do. He’s writing about practical things that you can do to develop your craft.

A few words of caution: I didn’t realize at first that he really did mean to write a complete novel in 5 days. I thought this was about a 5-day first draft. King goes through ALL the steps. He warns the reader that it is difficult, insane even, to try this, and he indicates that while he is proud of himself, he probably won’t use this short of a time frame ever again.

As a writer myself, I already know how to make a first draft and write it quickly. The part that I gained from this book is that King presents a complete picture of the whole novel process from the creation of the story, to writing and revising it, and finally publishing it. So far I have not personally succeeded with revisions and making something ready for public consumption, but after going through this book and understanding the process more, I now think it’s something I could do. I am sure I will read those parts of the book again as inspiration when I am revising my many first drafts.

I listened to this as an audiobook, and I have no complaints about the performance from Eric Michael Summerer. Because this was a nonfiction title, the narrator had to present the material but get out of the way of it, and Summerer did that. His voice is pleasant enough, though, that I think I would also enjoy listening to him narrate fiction.

Full disclosure: I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher.

interesting

I have a confession, I am addicted to how people write books and write them fast. This one was well done, I enjoyed the narrator and I enjoyed the story of the author walking through the five-day process.

there was nothing earth-shattering new but I found it encouraging and logical. I'm a try writing the 5-day novel but not for 5 days, my goal maybe for 30 days.

I do recommend this book to help motivate and take a look at how you write something. Honestly, I'm actually looking forward to how he outlines and the writing craft that he says he's going to write books on.

Excellent

I really appreciated the action steps at the end of each day. It was well written and concise.

Encouraging, useful & succinct

Although may not agree with your 'Ameriguns' message, this book is one I know shall refer to again many times. Thank you

Incredible 5 day journey

I learned so much from listening to Scott’s experience in writing his book. Although I don’t plan on setting a 5 day goal for writing my own book, there was so much that can be learned from such an experience. Although it was not the intent of the book, this book has truly inspired me to re-evaluate some of my own goals, including my writing goals. How many words can I write in a day? Am I taking time each day to write? Am I adequately making plans for tackling my writing?

I absolutely loved this book, and would recommend it to anyone doing any sort of writing. Of course it was interesting just to read of his challenge and how he tackled it. I am looking forward to reading the book that was written in 5 days!

This book was provided at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review.