I got a great question from a long-time StoryADay community member today: “Will One-Story September help me write my novel?”
Here’s what I answered:
On balance, I don’t think it’d give you enough support or direction for a novel project. Really, this challenge is designed to poke writers to keep working on a story throughout the month and to give some thought to what each part of the story is doing for the reader. It’s not designed to be a content-heavy course. Having said that, you could use One-Story September to help you flesh out the central spine of the novel’s story, or alternatively, to let you play in your novel’s world with less pressure. A short story set in the world of your novel could help you develop backstory, character development and voice, and let you fall in love with the world of your novel (as well as potentially giving you the bones of a chapter, or a standalone story that supports your novel when it comes time to market it). I’ve done this for several projects and enjoy it, but it all comes down to what you want to do. I’d hate to see you throw away money on the wrong thing, which could, in turn dent your confidence. I see two options: join this challenge and write a short story set in your novel’s universe that could stand alone or grow into something bigger; or put the money aside and begin saving for a more substantial “How To Write A Novel” course or cohort. All of which is to say, the One-Story Challenge might not be right for you—right now—and that’s absolutely fine.
But if you’re intrigued by the idea of crafting a complete story this month, come and play with us!
I’m already starting to think about next year’s StoryADay May and, here in this age of AI, I was struck with the awful thought: why bother?
AI means you can generate 31 short story writing prompts in 90 seconds (5 minutes if you’re willing to wait for more polished prompts with a theme and multiple repetition. How do I know this? I asked it.)
It takes me roughly 3 months of (admittedly part-time) work to research guest authors, reach out to them, assemble their responses, curate and cue them up, create pretty images, summaries, and queue everything up.
But the point is that you get a human-created journey through a month of story writing. You get a peek inside the head of other writers. And you get to have the experience, along with other writers in the community.
It’s not for everyone. But I’ll keep doing it for you.
And also for me.
Because the work is not just about the prompts. It’s never just about the output, the end product.
Writing Changes Us
The struggle, the striving, the research, the craft, the failure, the resilience, the patience, the growth…It’s personal development at its finest.
How To Bother, in an age of AI
I’ve been preaching this for a decade and a half (and now I have the experience of leading a group for 8 years to back up my hypothesis).
The most important foundation you can give your writing is to:
Define success
If you don’t know what success means for you, how are you ever going to know if you’ve attained it.
Not someone else’s vision of success.
Yours.
And that means asking some questions about why you’re doing this.
Are you doing it to be published?
Are you trying to support yourself from your fiction writing?
Are you building a daily practice for self-development?
Are you trying to improve a particular craft skill?
Are you keeping a promise you made to yourself as a child?
Are you setting an example for a younger person in your life who needs to see what ‘self-respect’ looks like?
This is Step One.
Without it, you will never be—or feel—successful, no matter what external measures of success you hit.
If you skip this step-–or if you think this remains static forever—it’s almost impossible to be productive, motivated, or fulfilled by writing. If you’re simply on a treadmill, turning out words, you’ll be consumed by the idea that it’s never enough—that you’re not enough.
Do This Now
If you haven’t taken the time to examine your definition of success lately—and perhaps to notice how it has changed since you were 14, 25, 35, 45—put down your pen, push away the keyboard, and spend the next week just noodling on these questions:
What does success look like for you, in the next few years?
In order to get there, what milestones would you have to hit, if any?
What would you have to do regularly, to feel successful when you look back at your month?
What does that look like, for today?
If you do this exercise right, you’ll notice that it becomes easier to show up for your writing and enjoy yourself.
Without taking this step, your internal ‘motivation process’ can look like this:
“Today I have to work on finishing the novel so that I can get it out into the world and quit my job and prove to [that friend/family member] that I haven’t been wasting my time all these years.” [Sighs. Drags self to coalface….]
Not only is that demotivating since your inner critic is bound to kick in and try to keep you safe by pointing out how hard it is to do what you’ve outlined. It’s also doomed to fail, as a path to success today, because it’s impossible to figure out what first step to take today.
And so it’s impossible to know when you’ve finished your work for the day. Without a clear definition of what success looks like to you, you’re likely to do nothing, or to keep working until you’re so exhausted you have to stop. Neither of which makes you feel successful, or advance you towards external success.
So you pick up your phone and doomscroll and go to bed promising to do twice as much tomorrow, still without a clear idea of what that looks like.
No More Doomscrolling
If you have done the work to figure out what ‘success’ looks like for you—for now—your internal motivational conversation goes more like one of this:
“I know I want to finish this novel, because I want to prove to myself that I can write something I’m proud of. I need to finish the scene where the protagonist confronts the bad guy, but I’m having trouble doing it. Maybe I need to back up and do some character exercises (from that course/book I bought and never finished) to figure out the characters’ real motivations. OK, that won’t add to the manuscript’s word count today, but I’ll learn more about the characters, which might free me up to write the actual scene tomorrow. So today’s task is: find that character exercise I remember liking in that course I took, and go through it slowly. When I’ve done that I’ll summarise my thoughts, for next time, then my reward will be to take a walk outside.”
Imagine yourself at the end of a day when you’ve ground through 2,000 words or four scenes, because “that’s what successful writers do”, and then collapsed on the couch with a whisky, ‘to recover’.
No imagine yourself at the end of a day when you took a small concrete step that aligns with your goals and your current energy, and that you can put a checkmark next to as ‘accomplished today’. You bound out of your chair with energy left over to hang with the kids or the spouse, knowing that you’ll be back in a day or two to tackle the next task.
Doesn’t that feel like a successful writing life, regardless of external rewards or judgment?
So should you bother writing, in an age of AI, even if the external rewards you once hoped for aren’t guaranteed?
Today is a particularly important day…you’ve spent the past month focusing on your writing and your life as a writer.
I couldn’t be more proud of you!
I encourage you to download the post-challenge worksheet attached to this page and either print it out or simply use the question and answer them in your journal.
What worked?
What was a sure-fire way to sink your writing day?
What surprised you?
WRITE IT ALL DOWN
While you’re in the throes of the challenge it’s easy to think you’ll never forget all the lessons you’re learning.
You will.
So save the lessons, put them somewhere safe, then take the rest of the day off. Maybe tomorrow too. You deserve it.
Share your favorite lesson in the comments, below!
Celebrate Your Success
And don’t forget to download your Certificate of Completion. Print it out, fill in your name, and post a picture of yourself on social media with the hashtag #StoryADayMay
Keep Going
Feeling fired up and don’t want to lose momentum? Here are some ways you can keep going, with StoryADay:
If you know what you want to write and don’t need Just Another Course (™), the Superstars group might be for you. This dedicated group of writers drops in daily, as their schedules allow, for co-working sessions, and gets together a couple of times a month at hangouts, to simply be writers, together. We also have critique sessions three times a year and an extensive library of workshops and masterclasses to help you build your craft.
If you aren’t sure what to write next and want to keep building your practice and skills, the I, WRITER Course might be for you. A six-part course, it’ll take you through my I, WRITER Framework to help you build a regular writing practice AND you’ll write 6 or more stories, while taking pre-recorded workshops on your own schedule, to build your craft. Workshops include the ever-popular Copycat Writing Workshop, along with workshops on Flash Fiction, Character Development, Story Structure and more.
If you’ve enjoyed having me pop into your inbox weekly, and want to keep writing stories in a more sustainable way than during the challenge, my StoryAWeek newsletter might be for you. 52 weeks of lessons and prompts, each designed to nudge you to write a story, and keep showing up for you writing, week after week.
You made it! You’re hear at the end of the month, still showing up, still writing. Whether you wrote one story or thirty-one, congratulations. This is a pretty good day.
Today I want you to write a story about someone’s best day ever. You are, of course, free to use that title ironically (and write about the opposite).
Get the StoryADay Challenge Handbook for 2026 – custom warm-up and brainstorming exercises for every prompt, delivered as a private podcast with transcripts. SUBSCRIBE NOW
Julie Duffy
Julie Duffy is a writer and the host of StoryADay. She coaches other writers and creatives on how to keep the momentum going. She also hosts a year-round writing community. If you need a place to keep you on track going forward, join us in the StoryADay Superstars:
Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? How much did you write this month? What’s your ‘epic win’? Post here!
Remember: Please don’t post your story in the comments here (and I talk more about why not, here). Best practice: Leave us a comment about how it went, or share your favorite line from your story.
Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday
At this point, it’s almost impossible you haven’t encountered a piece of software that tried to convince you to use it’s new AI features.
Today you’re going to write a story that delves into the relationship between humans and technological pals…and this stuff is going to seem a lot less sci-fi than it used to!
Bonus points if you write this story in a non-narrative format. That means,
Writing out a chat conversation, or making a list of things that your character needs to complete their project (and telling a story in the process).
Or perhaps your character is trying to write a ‘rescue me’ note in a code that the AI won’t break.
Or perhaps you’re writing the after-action report for your corporate overlords about how things went so spectacularly wrong.
If you don’t want to write about the tech we have today, you could have a medieval knight working with a clockwork squire; or steampunk Sherlock Holmes android invented by Dr Watson…run wild!
Get the StoryADay Challenge Handbook for 2026 – custom warm-up and brainstorming exercises for every prompt, delivered as a private podcast with transcripts. SUBSCRIBE NOW
Julie Duffy
Julie Duffy is a writer and the host of StoryADay. She lived in an era when humans still thought they were in charge of everything, and she thanks her Robot Overlords for allowing the relic of that time to continue to exist online.
Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!
Remember: Please don’t post your story in the comments here (and I talk more about why not, here). Best practice: Leave us a comment about how it went, or share your favorite line from your story.
Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday
if you’re the kind of writer who mostly writers dialogue, or has been accused of writing stories that seem like they’re set on a blank white stage, this prompt is one that’s going to challenge you.
Write a story where the setting features almost as much as a character.
This might mean the setting has a strong emotional mood (as in a gothic novel or a 1950’s beach movie
This might mean you actually give the haunted house a personality, or take your characters to a land where the trees talk and the grass gets annoyed when you walk on it
This might mean you spend the day making your characters interact with their surroundings – being challenged by the leaky space toilet, or struggling to understand why the broccoli won’t grow in this corner of the garden.
Give us sensation. Give us mood. Give us big scenic attitude.
Get the StoryADay Challenge Handbook for 2026 – custom warm-up and brainstorming exercises for every prompt, delivered as a private podcast with transcripts. SUBSCRIBE NOW
Julie Duffy
Julie Duffy is a writer and the host of StoryADay. She has lived in three countries on two continents and, despite decades in the area, cannot master a Pennsylvania accent. She has never successfully grown broccoli.
Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!
Remember: Please don’t post your story in the comments here (and I talk more about why not, here). Best practice: Leave us a comment about how it went, or share your favorite line from your story.
Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday
