Yes you can. You can either do a 5000 word essay or an artifact. The artifact can be anything (literally, from what I gather). So I decided to write a book (an 'artifact') (I have no idea why it's called an artifact, weird). The artifact needs to be accompanied by a 1000 word essay explaining your ideas/choices you made. There isn't any word limit on the book/artifact itself. I hope I am making sense so far. I don't know how much you know about the EPQ so sorry if you already know all this.
A lot of the marks go to research so it would be sensible to pick a story that requires research. For example my book is about a girl with schizophrenia, so I had to do a lot of research into that. It would be pointless to write, say, a general teen fiction romance thing because that probably wouldn't need any research.
So the school year starts September and you have until around Febraury time (at least this is the case at my sixth form, I don't know if that's a nationwide thing or not) so that means six months in which to research, write and edit the whole thing. That doesn't sound too bad but alongside your other studies it will be tough. There's nothing to say you can't start early and I'd already planned and started writing in the summer. I would definately advise starting early otherwise you will be really pushed for time. Planning is also key as you will have to write pretty much everyday so you could probably come up with an idea and start planning it and be ready to write by summer. It will get hard to keep track and keep writing if you don't plan. I'm not usually into planning but on this occasion it has been a big help.
Hope I was able to help. Feel free to message me if you have any questions! :)
