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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36507
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

### TL;DR

Writing a complex story can be a lengthy project, use a project management technique—such as [Scrum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(software_development))—to give yourself a fighting chance!

### The Specifics

Writing a book (or even a reasonable length story) is a sizeable project, it'll take time and a lot of effort to do. Luckily the modern world has developed several really good strategies to help us manage projects of this size and scale.

**Have you considered treating your writing as a Scrum project?**

Now, stop laughing and hear me out.

What will it take to write a book?

- A basic outline.
- Character development.
- Writing.
- Proofreading.
- Cover design.

All of these are tasks which need to be organised, estimated, and delivered.

What if you maintained a backlog of work which needs done to deliver your book? Many of these have a dependency order (you can't write big chunks of the story until you've planned out the characters) and that can be represented.

At the start of each week/month/timebox you can commit to a certain amount of work. This could be writing a chapter or planning a character. Holidays and breaks are permitted and everyone knows life gets in the way!

Using Scrum gives you a number of advantages:

- You get a little shot of dopamine every time you complete a task.
- You can use tools like burn-up charts to measure your progress towards the finished book.
- Your life is flexible again, you don't have to write 500, 1000, or a chapter every day!

Original score: 7