NaNoWriMo Writing Tips

The first part of the plan is to pick a genre of writing. To be most effective, you'll want to pick one you are very familiar with. That way you won't have any problems along the way with writing blocks due to lack of knowledge.

If you have read many westerns and enjoy them, pick that genre. If you've never read a science fiction story, this isn't the time to try and get familiar with it by writing a science fiction novel. You want your writing to flow because you need to write an average of one thousand six hundred and sixty seven words every day and if you are like me, you don't have a lot of spare time.

Now that you have chosen your genre, you'll need interesting actors for your story. What is a novel without interesting characters to read about? Nothing but a bad novel if it is a novel at all.

Start by thinking if you want a main character or group of characters. Do you want the novel to be about one main character or an ensemble cast? This character will be your protagonist.

Every protagonist needs an antagonist. This is the person who creates conflict. Sometimes the antagonist isn't a person but an animal or even the environment.

Now that you've come up with the protagonist and antagonist, it is time to flesh them out. Give them names and characteristics. What do they look like? How do they react to stress? Is your protagonist like a friend you know or perhaps is an amalgam of several friends? Maybe he is like your father or she is like your mother. Maybe your main character is like you. What is their background? What do they do for a living? Make them real in your mind.

Now that you've detailed your main characters, you'll need to think about supporting characters. First of all, are there any? How do they interact with your antagonist and protagonist? Flesh them out a bit.

Wow, you've already done a lot of prep work. Have you written it all down? Do it so that it sticks in your mind and you can reference it later as you are writing. The final question for the day: do the characters fit the genre? Make sure they do.

You have the genre and characters picked out. Now they need a place to live, work, play and act. Your location needs to fit your genre. While you can stick your cowboys onto the moons of Mars, you'll probably have an easier time writing if they are riding the plains in the west. Of course this is a way to blend genres but you are looking to write a lot in a little time so now isn't the time to experiment unless you enjoy a challenge or have been winning NaNoWriMo for several years in a row.

Don't forget to make your setting interesting enough to you so that you'll be excited to write about it. This will reflect back in your writing and your readers will thank you and continue to read your novel!

Every good (and bad) novel has an overarching theme that the writer wants to convey to the reader. Common book themes are loss of innocence, man versus nature, fall and redemption, coming of age, appearance versus reality, journey to enlightenment.

What is the theme of your novel? What do you want to convey?

You still have more choices to make but they are more about the style of your novel. You need to think about your narrator. Is it the main character? The antagonist? You might even have multiple narrators but note that that makes the writing more complicated to keep together.

What is the point of view you will take with regard to narration?

Now we are starting to get to the nitty-gritty. You are going to start to tell your story. Break out the pencil and paper notepad or computer notepad if you aren't a Luddite. Write a brief paragraph of what the plot of your novel is. Keep it short and succinct. You could write something like the following paragraph.

"Cowboy Johnson rides through a shining arch and is transported to Phobos, the largest moon of Mars. His best friend Trigger is not transported with him. Trigger is his horse. Johnson pines for his horse and searches Phobos for him but only finds strange and nasty creatures controlled by the evil Black Raja of Phobos. He defeats the Black Raja with the help of Dawn, a Martian woman. The Black Raja tells him his horse was transported to Deimos, the other moon of Mars. Johnson and Dawn go to Deimos and find Trigger and decide to stay as Deimos is a beautiful place with plenty of red grass and future adventure."

Great job. Things are really starting to come together. Now take your synopsis and break it out into logical groups. These will be your chapters or groups of chapters. If you think about it, each sentence in the synopsis might end up as one or a few chapters in your novel. From each logical group write a paragraph of what happens in that chapter or groups of chapters. You'll begin to see which are logically one chapter and which are a set of chapters. Break out the sets into separate chapters each with their own paragraph.

Now you have a synopsis of the novel as well as synopses of each chapter you are going to write!

Today you are going to take each section you've written a paragraph on and drill down even deeper. Remember, you aren't actually writing anything for your reader yet. This is all preparation for your November sprint. These details are getting your writing juices flowing and putting you into the story. You'll know your story inside and out before you even start on November 1st 12:00 am. This gives you confidence and will hopefully eliminate any potential blocks.

Now is the time to make sure your characters, setting, theme and plot are all heading in the same direction. Read over all your details and the character bios and the setting description and make sure you feel good about how they mesh. Where things seem out of sorts, adjust and rewrite that section.

Your juices are really flowing now. Remember those chapter details you slaved over? Drill into your details for more details. You are breaking them down even further so that when you are writing those chapters, the words will just flow like water because you already know your story!

Last day! By now you should have a well developed plot with lots of details. Take a fresh piece of paper and brainstorm. Just write whatever comes into your head about your characters, setting, plot, everything! Create a nice long list and then put it aside for a little while. Pick it up a little before 12:00 midnight and see if any of it sticks and then add the snippet to the proper section.

Get ready because 12:00 midnight is just around the bend and soon you'll be off on a new adventure (if you've never written a novel before or never participated in NaNoWriMo).

Good Luck!

Here are a few basic tips you might think about along your journey. If you write 1,667 words a day you will end up with 50,010 words at the end of the month. Winner!

1. Write every day, even if it is just a little bit.
   
2. Use weekends to write extra, catch up, blast ahead.
   
3. If you are stuck, write further ahead in your plot. You don't have to write in order.
   
4. Don't edit. If you write something you don't like, tag it for editing in December and leave it alone.
   
5. Write in blocks. 555 words in the morning, 555 words at lunch 555 words after dinner. You get the idea. Breaking it up makes it more manageable.