JOIN OR CREATE
Jump into an existing challenge or set up your own goals and timeline.
WRITING CHALLENGES
WRITING CHALLENGES HELP YOU BUILD MOMENTUM AND STAY ACCOUNTABLE. STAY ON TRACK BY SEEING YOUR PROGRESS IN REAL TIME. GET REWARDED WITH BADGES WHEN YOU HIT YOUR GOALS.
HOW CHALLENGES WORK
AUTO TRACK
Your Word Keeper sessions automatically update your challenge stats in real-time.
SOLO OR GROUP
Stay focused on your own project, or join friends for extra accountability.
WIN BADGES
Earn badges and recognition for completing milestones and staying consistent.
A YEAR OF CHALLENGES
FINISH YOUR NOVEL WITH ONE YEAR OF WRITING CHALLENGES
You can participate in all of our public challenges on your own terms, with any type of writing project. The main goal with any challenge is to write, write a lot, and write consistently.
But if your goal is to finish one novel per year, you can use our five public challenges per year to go from outline through edits all the way to a final draft. We have set them up in a way that is meant to facilitate that, according to the format below.
1
January
OUTLINE
Write a very short outline. Just 3–5 paragraphs per chapter to get a bare bones skeleton of your story.
Goal: 4 000 words
Words per day: 130
2
March
FIRST DRAFT
Expand your outline into a very rough first draft. Focus on simply adding the main event in each chapter. Don’t worry about descriptions or details.
Goal: 20 000 words
Words per day: 645
3
June
EDIT
Edit your first draft. Look over the structure of your story, place your scenes into a beat map, develop thin scenes, fill in gaps, and remove anything that no longer works.
Goal: 10 000 words
Words per day: 333
4
July - August
(REST / BETA READING)
Let your story rest and work on something else for a while. Try to get input from beta readers during this time.
Goal: 0 words
Words per day: 0
5
September
SECOND DRAFT
Write a fuller second draft. Add depth to your characters, descriptions, settings, and conflicts while improving the structure and pacing of each chapter.
Goal: 30 000 words
Words per day: 1 000
6
November
FINAL DRAFT
Turn your second draft into a complete novel. Expand every chapter, resolve any remaining problems, and carry the story all the way to its ending.
Goal: 50 000 words
Words per day: 1 667
Finish all five writing challenges and you will have written 114 000 words in one year. That is either a good size fantasy / scifi novel, or a regular length novel with a lot of room for edits.
Happy Writing!
50,000 WORDS IN NOVEMBER
WRITE 50 000 WORDS IN NOVEMBER
Do you miss NaNoWriMo as much as we do? Join our November challenge to write a short novel in one month. Start a new novel, rewrite an old one, or maybe finish the second half of an epic novel.
- Write every day for 30 days
- 1 667 words / day
- Goal: 50 000 words
WRITE A NOVEL IN ONE YEAR
WRITE A NOVEL IN ONE YEAR
Join our monthly mini challenge to write a novel of 80 000 words in one year. Write a small amount of words every day for 365 days. Consistency wins the race, and even small pebbles can build a mountain if you stack them for long enough.
- Write every day for 1 year
- 220 words / day
- Goal: 80 000 words
CREATE YOUR OWN CHALLENGES
NEED A DIFFERENT GOAL OR TIMELINE? CREATE YOUR OWN...
...personal writing challenge just for you, or...
...closed writing challenge for a group, or...
...public writing challenge that anyone can join.
If you want to challenge yourself without seeing other people’s progress you can create your own, personal writing challenges with the time and word count goal decided by you. A challenge that fits your schedule and the way you like to write.
Here’s how it works:
LOG IN TO WRITER DEPOT. On your dashboard’s menu, click on Challenges, and then on the Create Challenge-button.
SET A WORD COUNT GOAL. Pick when to start, how long it lasts, add a description and rules if there are any, and decide how many words to write.
TRACK YOUR PROGRESS AUTOMATICALLY. Writing sessions in Word Keeper updates your challenge statistics in real time.
GO SOLO OR WITH A GROUP. Stay focused on your own project, or join friends for extra accountability.
CREATE OR JOIN A WRITING GROUP
PARTICIPATE IN WRITING CHALLENGES TOGETHER
As a Writer Depot member you can create and join groups made by yourself or someone else. You can then create and join challenges that are only available by invitation to your group.
As the creator of a group you can link to a chat forum or website. You can also set a daily message, if you want, to share daily inspiration, updates, or announcements within your group.
Group challenges are visible on your group’s page, and you can see your progress as well as the progress of the group as a whole, in those challenges right there on the page.