It’s September (the beginning of the Prep-focused months before NaNoWriMo), which means if you haven’t started thinking about your National Novel Writing Month project for November, it’s high time to do so! (If you’re wondering what NaNoWriMo is, it’s a challenge to write 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days, in this case during the month of November. It’s fun, it’s crazy, and it’s a great way to learn how to tell your inner editor to shut up so you can get a first draft written.) This is a long blog post – I wanted to get it all posted right at the beginning of September – but at least skim the headlines and then scroll down to the bottom where there’s a simple task to get you started thinking about novel prep.
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I have a plan for the next eight weeks of preparation, but I wanted to start out with an overview and discussion of the order I will be posting articles. This is what makes the most sense to me this year, but if you’re looking for some of these topics in a different order than I’m posting them, you might try checking out the Prewriting and Planning Tips I posted last year. I would also be remiss if I didn’t remind everyone to Be Kind to Yourself During NaNoWriMo!
Let me stress first, there is no right way to write your book! Sure, writing classes in school always told you to do it their way, but that varies from teacher to teacher, high school to college, and so on. That’s not going to be what works for everyone, so there are a bunch of building blocks that I’m going to try and explore, and let you assemble them how you will.
September – General Topics
My goal for September is to start with big picture topics for those without a set plan yet, as well as writers with an idea for which they may not have figured out all the details. I’ve also learned how much fun it can be to push your comfort zone with my romance ghostwriting the last few months, so I would challenge any Wrimos (noun, pl. writers participating in NaNoWriMo) to consider trying a new genre, a new point of view, or to break a few boundaries.
- Genre Explorations: a look at different genres and resources to explore them
- Point of View and Narration: ways to narrate and styles often favored by certain genres
- Ideas and Conceptualization: brainstorming exercises, resources, and idea fuel
- Plot Formulae: traditional and modern takes on the shape of plot
These are more general fare for any writing, rather than specific to your NaNoWriMo project, but in exploring them you may be able to find a project if you don’t have one, or better define the project you have in mind. Maybe there are some ideas in here you can build on to create something you wouldn’t normally have thought to write!
October – Narrowing Focus
Once I’ve covered more general topics, October is going to be about focusing on your idea, which you hopefully have by now in some shape or form.
- Countdown to NaNoWriMo! (including MICE Quotient and Misc Resources): breaking down how different genres focus on elements in different order, based on Orson Scott Card’s description:
What are the different kinds of stories? Forget about publishing genres for a moment; there isn’t one kind of characterization for academic-literary stories, another kind for science fiction, and still others for westerns, mysteries, thrillers, or historicals. Instead let’s look at four basic factors present in every story, with varying degrees of emphasis. Balancing these factors determines what sort of characterization a story must have, should have, or can have.
The four factors are milieu, idea, character, and event.
Orson Scott Card, Characters and Viewpoint
- Characters: without them, the world or plot isn’t as cool, so let’s get them started!
- Setting and Worldbuilding: this is a lot to stuff into a single week’s post, but I’m going to try.
- Plot: different approaches to writing an outline, recommended minimum (for pantsers, too!)
Hopefully these weeks will have enough resources and idea-fodder that you could conceivably use them to plan your entire novel! I’ve gotten it down to a point where I can write a full outline, detailed by chapter or at least by natural segment, in a week. So it’s entirely possible to do it in a month.
Recommended Starting Point: Organization
As a self-professed pantser (one who writes ‘by the seat of their pants’) instead of an organized planner, I know all too well some of you are groaning right now. ‘NaNoWriMo isn’t about being organized!’ some are complaining. But allow me to let you in on a little secret; even if you don’t start out with a plan, you’re going to want to keep track of things as you write. I also recommend having at least a general outline by the end of week one (November 7th). Why? Because sooner or later you may find yourself in the horrible plot hole. This is a rabbit hole like no other!
If you’ve never heard the term Story Bible, you may want to read this blog by J.M. Butler about creating one to keep track of your characters, setting, and plot details. You don’t necessarily need to start one yet, especially if you haven’t chosen a project, or even if you just haven’t reached that level of detail. But acquaint yourself with the concept, because it will serve you well as we go along. I’m not going to tell you how to organize yours, or what form it should take, or even if you might want to have it in a physical form or digital (I have done both over the years, depending on the project). I will tell you how I organize mine, but the point of the story bible is to have information organized how and where you will need it. That’s going to differ for a lot of people.
I would also recommend you get yourself some kind of daily planner or schedule, whether it’s calendar software on your computer or the internet or an old-fashioned, pen-and-paper planner, to set aside time both for your writing in November and your prep work before then. I used to be all digital, but I’ve recently fallen hard for the Self Journal by BestSelf, which is designed to be a 13-week system for setting step-by-step goals and achieving them, being more focused, and reflecting on things to be more mindful of what works, what doesn’t, and so on. This has really helped me – my first goal was getting this website set up, and here it is – and while you may not need quite such a large-scale planner, I’ve found the act of writing it down changes how much or how well I think about things. (They’ve converted me, and I was irritated at the cost of the thing at first. Very worth it.) So I might recommend trying a daily planner or even just a simple notebook where you have room to write your schedule on one side and notes on the other.
NaNoWriMo Community
This year National Novel Writing Month has made the decision to go digital due to the coronavirus pandemic. This is both great news and sad news at the same time, as I always look forward to seeing familiar faces and meeting new people at regional events each year. Now I’m not going to get that, though I already have spoken with my Municipal Liaisons (MLs for short, the people who are in charge of organizing regional events) and they have plans in the works. I look forward to seeing how it turns out! If you don’t know what region you might fall into, check out this helpful post about how to find your regional forum! (Please note: this and other forum links won’t load if you’re not signed in.) These groups are going to be people local to you, and even though in-person events have been banned, other locals might have tips for best cafes to write at if you need to get out of your house and suchlike – please be safe if you do go out!
That said, it’s going to be especially important to connect with the NaNoWriMo community online this year. I would start with the NaNo forums and poke around some. There are places to chat about everything and nothing, and I’ll highlight the Find Your Crew forum, too. Some of these are topical, others are just friends writing together. Whatever you might want to find for a peer group to discuss your novel with, you can find it there.
Some other ideas include real-time involvement via Twitter: the #WritingCommunity, the #NaNoWriMo hashtag, and the @NaNoWriMo official Twitter account. If you can find a writing group of people all doing NaNo at similar times, maybe Zoom or Discord would help keep you involved with other people digitally. There is some kind of NaNo writing sprints twitter account, but there are several and I’m not sure which is the official one, or even if the official one is the most active. If you try any of them and like them, let me know!
Your Task, Should You Choose to Accept It…
This week’s task is to build inspiration! Maybe you need a writing playlist, or it’s time to build an inspiration board on Pinterest. Please be aware that I do not recommend opening Pinterest during NaNoWriMo, or at any time you have to be productive. You’d be shooting yourself in the foot. But, for gathering a whole range of inspirational images, sites, and whatever might get you in the mood for your story, it’s a great site.
You should also try something suggested in Chris Baty’s No Plot? No Problem! and spend a few minutes writing down a list of things that you like in a novel. What do you read? Why do you read it? It’s logical that if you like certain things in the style, the themes, the characters, or the genre, you’re more likely to enjoy writing them. Fill a page in your notebook or word processor, and if you don’t have a notebook, now’s the time to get one! It’ll be handy to journal as you go through September and October to help organize your thoughts, and then once November comes around, it’ll be handy to journal on how you’re doing, issues that may have come up while writing, and brainstorming on how to fix them. I can’t recommend journaling the whole way through more highly.
Once you’ve filled a page with things you like, flip to the next page and fill it up with things you hate. What makes you put down a book? Movies and TV shows may have some ideas for you here, too. I don’t recommend basing a book on how to make a good movie, because pacing and style are totally different. But it’s pretty easy to tell when a movie has a crappy plot, or the characters are one-dimensional and boring. Those traits can absolutely find a home on your list of things you hate in stories.
Got that? Two lists. The Great List of Everything Awesome and the Horrible List of Everything to Avoid. Bonus points for the notebook (or writing software of your choice), a daily planner like I mentioned above, and any inspirational material that either gets you psyched up for writing, or gets you into the setting or characters you’re going to be writing about.
Next up: Genres!
Author’s Note: I’m not planning to go into too much detail on writing software during my NaNoPrepMo articles. This tends to be a rather personal preference, and I’ve used several over the years. There’s also nothing wrong with Word or Google Docs, there’s just some added benefits to writing software like character and place descriptions you can interlink for reference while you write. (This is much like the Story Bible I mentioned, but right at your fingertips while you’re writing.) I have used Storyist for Mac/iOS and now Scrivener, but there are other offers posted on the NaNoWriMo site which would be a good place to start exploring if you’re new to the software side of writing.
I currently have a Scrivener template I’ve been adding to over the last couple years. I haven’t had a chance to finish version 3 with all these new resources (which I would like to do by the end of the month but may not be able to), but version 2 is available for both Scrivener 2 and 3 on my creative blog.
If you have any questions about Storyist or Scrivener, or really anything I’ve put here, feel free to ask! I try to answer all the comments below, emails sent from my contact page, and anything posted on social media; I’m @MEfromson on both Twitter and Facebook.
Marie Efromson 