Whipsmart presents · a free guide

Draft your
novelin 30 days

A day-by-day novel writing plan, from blank page to finished first draft. Pick the story structure you love most, and every morning you’ll know exactly which beat to write next.

30 days of story beats, mapped to three classic structures
Questions for every beat, so you’re never staring at a blank page
A pep talk at the end of each week (for when it gets hard)

Cover of Draft Your Novel in 30 Days, a free guide from Whipsmart

free33 pages

Millions of people say they’ll write a novel one day. Then days turn to months turn to years.

let’s make it day one.

This guide breaks the month into a story beat per day, so you don’t sit down and wonder what to write next.

Thirty days, one beat at a time

Days 1–7
the setup
Who is your protagonist before everything changes? Around day 3, something happens they can’t ignore. They’ll resist for a few days, but by day 7 they’re all in, baby!
A quarter of the way through your book23% drafted
Days 8–14
a whole new world
The fun part, where your story delivers on its premise. Did you pitch a heist? It’s heist time. Your protagonist learns how the new world works, usually by messing up.
Basically halfway there47% drafted
Days 15–21
the messy middle
The midpoint hits and the stakes go up. Plans fall apart, people turn on each other, and there’s no going back to how things were.
There’s no turning back, baby!70% drafted
Days 22–25
rock bottom
We’re so sorry to your protagonist but… yikes. Things get real bad out there. It’s only four days, though. We’ll all get through it together.
Wow, we made it out83% drafted
Days 26–30
the finale
Your protagonist finally faces what they’ve been avoiding since day 3, and your last scene looks back at your first to show how much has changed.
A finished first draft!!!!!!100% drafted

Choose the story structure you love

All three come as a day-by-day novel outline with questions to answer for every beat.

Save the Cat

Blake Snyder’s fifteen story beats, built for screenplays and focused on pacing and timing. A great fit for fast, plot-driven stories.

Day 3 · Catalyst

What event changes everything? What is the “before” that can never be recovered?

The hero’s journey

The pattern Joseph Campbell found in myths across cultures, later adapted for screenwriting by Christopher Vogler. A great fit for quests, coming-of-age stories, and big transformations.

Day 6 · Meeting the mentor

Who or what prepares your hero? What gift, wisdom, or tool do they receive?

Five-act structure

Hello, Shakespeare! Gustav Freytag formalized this very old, very popular form in the 1800s. A great fit for dramas that build to one big turning point.

Day 15 · The turning point

What decisive moment changes the story’s direction?

Let’s set the ground rules

Don’t revise.

Not yet, anyway. Eventually, yes, revise your heart out. But this month, reread only your most recent paragraph and keep it moving.

Bracket what you don’t know.

“[this is when she needs to react]” is perfectly acceptable in a first draft. You’ll figure it out.

Let it be humiliatingly bad.

Nobody but you has to read this mess. You can’t edit what you haven’t written.

“This is your reminder that we write novels for the love of the art form. Storytelling is older than writing itself—the earliest people passed stories around a fire.”

From the week four pep talk