Finished A Court of Splintered Harmony? Write your own fae story before January 12

By Brenn and Lindsay, the two writers who built Inkling

Maybe you were at a midnight release on October 27. Maybe you read it in one sitting and closed it at 3 a.m. with your heart somewhere in your throat. Either way, A Court of Forgotten Melody does not arrive until January 12, 2027, and that is eleven weeks of waiting. Here is a different way to spend them: drafting the first 40,000 words of your own romantasy, with your own pair, your own courts and your own rules. That is about 625 words a day with Sundays off. Below is the plan, week by week, with a checklist you can copy.

Sarah J. Maas announced two new A Court of Thorns and Roses novels at once: A Court of Splintered Harmony on October 27, 2026, and A Court of Forgotten Melody on January 12, 2027. The publisher's listings, as RUSSH reported, present them as parts of one longer story, which means a lot of readers just turned the last page of book 6 with a story very much still in motion. That is the whole of what we will say about the book. No spoilers here.

What we want to talk about is the wait. Eleven weeks is long enough to reread the series twice. It is also long enough to write something of your own. If you have ever finished a romantasy and thought “I want to make someone feel like this,” this is a good season to try, because the feeling is fresh, the fandom is loud, and there is a natural finish line on the calendar.

What 40,000 words gets you, honestly

Let us be straight about the goal. Romantasy often runs long, so for many books 40,000 words is not the whole story. It is a strong first half: the meeting, the resistance, the world closing in, and the point where your pair can no longer pretend. That is the hardest half to start and the easiest half to abandon, which is exactly why it is worth a plan.

If you would rather finish something, plan a novella instead. Under the Nebula Awards rules, a novella runs from 17,500 words to just under 40,000, and 40,000 is where a novel begins. A tight fae romance with one pair, one court and one danger can live entirely inside that number. Decide which you are writing in week one: the first half of a long book, or the whole of a short one. Both plans below work for either.

The math

October 29, 2026 to January 11, 2027 is 75 days. Take every Sunday off and you have 64 writing days. Forty thousand divided by 64 is 625 words a day. (Write every day and it is about 534.) Six hundred and twenty-five words is roughly two and a half double-spaced pages, or 30 to 45 minutes for most people once the scene is in your head. It is not nothing, and it is very doable.

A flat 625 a day ignores real life, though. December is full of travel, family and parties, and the US Thanksgiving week lands in the middle of the plan. So the weeks below are shaped: lighter at the start while you set up, heavier through November while momentum is high, a low floor over the holidays, and a steady finish. The weekly targets add up to exactly 40,000. If you join a November challenge like the November novel challenge, weeks two through five are where it fits.

The goal on your desk shows a flat daily number to start, and the number you need each day updates from what you have actually written. So the words you bank in November make December's number smaller, and a missed day just spreads across the days that are left.

The 11-week plan

Each week runs Thursday to Wednesday, because October 29 is a Thursday. Six writing days a week, Sundays off, and the final week is four days long.

Week 1 (Oct 29 to Nov 4): the premise, three tropes and the pair. Target 2,000 words.

Start with a premise you can say in one breath, and build it from three tropes. The romance writer Raquel Vasquez Gilliland, writing in Writer's Digest, suggests listing every romance and fantasy trope you love and mixing them, with three as the sweet spot for a premise. Pick one romance trope, one fantasy trope, and one wild card. Then make sure one of them answers the question every romance runs on: what keeps these two apart? Our guide to romantasy tropes covers the favorites, the traps, and how to combine them.

Then build the pair. For each of them: what they want, the wound underneath it, the lie they believe about themselves, and the reason the other person is the worst possible choice. Sketch the ending you are aiming at (together, and how), even if it changes. Write the first scene on Monday or Tuesday, even badly. The 2,000 words this week are mostly that opening.

Week 2 (Nov 5 to Nov 11): the world and the court, only as deep as chapter one needs. Target 3,500 words.

This is the week romantasy writers get lost. Courts, bloodlines, magic systems, seasons, a history going back three thousand years: it is all fun, it all feels like writing, and none of it adds a word to the draft. Build only what your first few chapters touch. Who rules where your heroine wakes up? What is the one rule of magic or bargain that the plot depends on? What does the place smell like? Write those down and stop. Everything else goes in brackets in the draft and gets invented when a scene needs it.

When you do want to go deeper, our guide on how to design fae courts helps you build your own, with their own politics and their own price for mortals, rather than borrowing anyone else's. A rough map helps too, mainly so travel times stay consistent. Keep it rough; how to map a fae realm shows how far is far enough.

Weeks 3 to 5 (Nov 12 to Dec 2): the November stretch. Target 5,000, 5,000 and 4,500.

This is the heaviest stretch, at roughly 750 to 850 words a writing day, and it is where the book gets its shape. Aim for these beats by December 2, give or take:

• The pair is stuck together. A bargain, a mission, a marriage, a shared enemy. Whatever the forced proximity is, it should be in place by week three.
• Resistance with a crack in it. They do not trust each other, and then one of them does something the other cannot explain away.
• The fantasy plot raises the stakes. The danger gets closer, and it makes the romance more costly, not less.
• A first real turn in the relationship by the end of week five. A confession, a first kiss, a choice to protect the other at a price.

Week five includes US Thanksgiving, which is why its target is a little lower. If you are joining Novel November or running the month with friends, these are your challenge weeks. By December 2 you should be at about 20,000 words, halfway.

Weeks 6 and 7 (Dec 3 to Dec 16): keep the braid tight. Target 4,500 each.

Two steady weeks at about 750 a day. The job here is to keep the romance and the fantasy plot moving together, so that every big moment in one is a big moment in the other. Reedsy's guide to writing romantasy makes the same point: plot the two arcs side by side, and line up their turning points. If you notice three chapters of court politics with no longing in them, or three chapters of longing with no danger, the next scene fixes it. If you are writing the slow burn, our guide to writing a slow-burn romance has a pacing map. Aim for about 29,000 words by December 16.

Weeks 8 and 9 (Dec 17 to Dec 30): the holiday floor. Target 3,000, then 2,000.

This is the lower floor: about 500 a day, then about 330 a day over Christmas week. A floor is the minimum that keeps the story warm, not a target to feel guilty about. Some days that is one short scene. Some days it is a page of dialogue you will fix later. If you are traveling, write on your phone. If a whole day vanishes, it vanishes. The point of the heavier November is that you can afford this.

Use some of this time to look back. Read the last few chapters, not to edit them but to note what the second half owes the reader: promises made, secrets planted, the thing your heroine has not said yet.

Weeks 10 and 11 (Dec 31 to Jan 11): the finish. Target 3,000, then 3,000.

Back to about 500 a day, and then 750 a day for the final four days. If you are writing the first half of a long book, aim to finish on the midpoint: the moment the story changes what it is about. In a romance that is often the point where the pair stops pretending, and in the fantasy plot it is often a reveal that makes the danger personal. Stopping there means your next session starts with a bang. If you are writing a novella, these two weeks are the dark moment, the choice, and the ending you promised your reader. Either way, you close the file on Monday, January 11, with 40,000 words that did not exist in October.

The 11-week checklist

Copy this into your notes and tick it off as you go. Running totals are in brackets.

MY 11-WEEK ROMANTASY DRAFT
Oct 29, 2026 to Jan 11, 2027 | 40,000 words | Sundays off

Book type (pick one):
[ ] first half of a long romantasy (stop on the midpoint)
[ ] a complete novella (end on the happy ending)

WEEK 1  Oct 29 to Nov 4   target 2,000   (2,000)
[ ] premise in one sentence
[ ] three tropes: romance / fantasy / wild card
[ ] what keeps them apart, in one line
[ ] each lead: want, wound, the lie they believe
[ ] why they are the worst choice for each other
[ ] the ending I am aiming at
[ ] the opening scene, drafted

WEEK 2  Nov 5 to Nov 11   target 3,500   (5,500)
[ ] who rules where the story opens
[ ] the one magic rule or bargain the plot depends on
[ ] the places chapters 1 to 3 visit (sight, sound, smell)
[ ] a rough map, only if travel matters
[ ] everything else goes in [brackets]

WEEK 3  Nov 12 to Nov 18  target 5,000   (10,500)
[ ] the pair is stuck together

WEEK 4  Nov 19 to Nov 25  target 5,000   (15,500)
[ ] a crack in the resistance

WEEK 5  Nov 26 to Dec 2   target 4,500   (20,000)
[ ] the danger raises the cost of the romance
[ ] a first real turn in the relationship
[ ] halfway

WEEK 6  Dec 3 to Dec 9    target 4,500   (24,500)
WEEK 7  Dec 10 to Dec 16  target 4,500   (29,000)
[ ] every big romance moment is also a big plot moment

WEEK 8  Dec 17 to Dec 23  target 3,000   (32,000)
WEEK 9  Dec 24 to Dec 30  target 2,000   (34,000)
[ ] holiday floor: one short scene counts
[ ] list what the second half owes the reader

WEEK 10 Dec 31 to Jan 6   target 3,000   (37,000)
WEEK 11 Jan 7 to Jan 11   target 3,000   (40,000)
[ ] long book: end on the midpoint
[ ] novella: dark moment, choice, happy ending
[ ] back up the draft
[ ] Jan 12: read book 7, guilt free

Build your own, do not copy

It is natural for a first fae story to sound like the one you just finished. That is fine in a first draft, and you will hear your own voice more clearly as the weeks go on. But give yourself the gift of originality from the start: your own courts, your own magic, your own kind of fae with their own rules, and a pair whose wounds belong to them. Readers of the genre have read a lot of fae. What they cannot get anywhere else is yours. If you want to try ideas inside the world you love first, fan fiction is a legitimate way to practice, and our post on organizing a long fanfic helps when it grows. When you are ready to make the leap, read how to turn fan fiction into an original novel.

For the craft underneath all of this (romance-led or world-led, heat level, dual POV, the happy ending), start with our hub guide, how to write romantasy. If two narrators are taking turns in your book, writing a dual POV romance covers the rotation.

If you fall behind

You will, at least once. The fix is not to make up the whole gap tomorrow. Spread it over the week. Missing 625 words and adding about 100 to each of the next six days is barely noticeable. Missing a whole week is about 3,750 words, which the holiday floor weeks and the final stretch can absorb. If you reach January 11 at 30,000 words, you still wrote 30,000 words of your own book in eleven weeks. Keep going on the 12th, after you have read.

Where Inkling fits, honestly

Inkling is a writing app with the planning tools beside the page. Here is what it does for an eleven-week draft, and what it does not:

• The goal does the math. The button below sets a 40,000-word goal from October 29 to January 11 with Sundays off. Your desk gives you a daily target and counts your words as you write, so you never add anything up by hand.
• The writing desk keeps chapters in order. Number them, move them, name them. A private Notes pad beside every chapter holds your brackets and reminders, and never goes into your manuscript or exports.
• The Storyboard holds the scene list. Give the novel its own board and lay out Scene cards in rows (one for the romance, one for the danger, if you like), linked with arrows. There are no POV tags or custom fields, so the rows are yours to arrange by hand.
• The Character builder holds the pair. Want, wound, the lie they believe, fears and trait chips, and they sit in the Cast panel beside the page while you write.
• The map maker can carve your realm into courts with soft colour and dashed borders, and a key that lists them all.

What Inkling does not have: a trope picker, a heat-level tracker, a fae name generator, or any way to post fan fiction. The Muse offers what-ifs and relationship ideas from built-in lists, including slow-burn and dark fairy tale lenses, and it never reads your story. During the 14-day trial you can start 3 stories, which is plenty for one 11-week draft.

Inkling is an independent writing app. A Court of Thorns and Roses and its sequels are works by Sarah J. Maas, published by Bloomsbury. Inkling is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Sarah J. Maas or Bloomsbury.