Get Ready For NaNoWriMo

When I was a much younger writer, I wondered what to write about. It seemed my mind was empty, my experiences negligible, and my inspiration non-existent.

Now, however, I've got so many ideas I can't write about all of them! If you suffer from inspiration-deficit, you can turn this around and surround yourself with viable ideas too.

Here's an easy way to get the Muse working to your benefit:

Grab your writer's notebook and write down every wacky novel idea you can think of. Write down characters you might like to write about, or situations, or places. You don't need to worry about whether these ideas will ever really be useful or whether they will fit into your writing projects. At this point you're only brainstorming, so use your wildest imagination.

If you have a hard time getting started, don't despair. The more you write down ideas, the more you'll have ideas to write down. This is how the Muse responds to your interest in the brainstorming activity.

Inspiration happens when you least expect it so always be prepared to write things down. Take your notebook with you everywhere. Thoughts are fleeting, so don't trust them to memory.

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One way to figure out what kind of book you should write is to think about what kinds of books you like to read.

Do you like to read fantasies, sci-fi, historicals, romances, or what? Are you mesmerized by children's novels, or westerns, or classics? Create a page in your writer's notebook to list the types of novels you like. You can name some of the novels you most enjoyed reading. Figure out what you liked most about those novels, and write that down.

Next think about the characters in those novels. You could devote a page in your notebook to a list of some of your favorite characters, and don't hesitate to list the reasons you liked them. Conversely, list some of the characters you liked least, and why you hated them.

Have you ever been reading a book and become so frustrated or angry you wanted to throw it across the room? You could start a list of writing pet peeves in your notebook too.

Newspapers are full of great novel writing ideas. Human drama - that's what sells! People say "no news is good news." And in a novel - that's good - because you need characters with huge problems and lots of conflict. I read Reuter's Oddly Enough and occasionally get story ideas from that source.

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When I did my first NaNoWriMo novel, I chose four possible locations and four time periods. I wrote each of these on an index card.

My location choices were "here", "the San Francisco Bay Area", "Lake Tahoe", and "on the coast". I intentionally chose places I was familiar with so I wouldn't have to do a lot of location research.

My time choices were "now", "the ancient past", "100 years ago", and "the future".

I turned the cards over and randomly chose one location card and one time card, and ended up with "here" and "the ancient past". This was the beginning for my novel, The Scribe of Irohila which I wrote during NaNoWriMo 2001 in seventeen days. I recently finished the sixth revision in March 2009, and am finally ready to submit this to a publisher. (I'm a revision perfectionist.)

Be as outlandish as you like when planning your novel. Why get mired down in tradition? You are an artist. You're invited to do your own thing!

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I suggest you think twice before choosing a genre or topic you'll have to do a lot of research on. For example, unless you are already very knowledgeable and well-read on a certain era of history, you may find a historical novel to be more work than you can handle during a month when you're going to be writing very quickly.

I already knew the problem of being a new writer PLUS doing a historical novel. I'd tried to write a middle grade novel and lost my momentum because I didn't know if teachers had chalk during that era!* That stopped my writing as my inner editor obsessed about that one minor detail.

I spared myself from the worries of historical writing during NaNoWriMo. I also decided to stick with locations I'm familiar with. Anything requiring lots of research may cause problems.

* I did eventually finish that novel, but not during NaNoWriMo.

I like to keep it simple. Though I like knowing where a story is going and how it might end up, I don't like detailed outlines.

What I usually do is to make a list of chapters, and write a short paragraph saying what should happen in each chapter. To do this, figure out how many words your eventual novel will be. Many people write novels that will top out at 70,000 to 100,000 words or even more. If you plan a 70,000 word novel, which is a good length for a young adult novel or mystery, you might want around 20 chapters, more or less, so each chapter would have around 3500 words. Think about how much action you could fit into a 3500 word segment of your novel, and what you want that segment to be about.

When I do these chapter outlines, my paragraphs are extremely brief covering only important plot points that must be covered in that part of the novel. This leaves me lots of lee-way to be creative and get to know my characters better as I write out their story.

How could M.C. Escher create amazing optical illusions like this one, without planning ahead? Obviously, for some people, it is exactly the right thing to do.

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Before you start it is helpful to know who you're going to write about. Some people neglect this task and end up writing about several equally important characters, or changing MCs in the middle of the novel. That's messy!

A good novel usually has only one MC. That MC will have a set of challenges or problems at the beginning of the novel, and will resolve them during the time of the novel, usually becoming a changed and better person in the process.

Knowing this person and his or her pre-existing problems and good qualities will help you write your novel. Ideally you'll know this person so intimately by the time you start, that just by putting the MC in a situation, you instinctively know how this person will react.

To get acquainted with your character open your notebook (or word processing program) and start asking questions. You can ask anything from "Who are you?" to "What kind of watch do you wear?" There are numerous character questionnaires on the internet so instead of reinventing the wheel, I'll just provide links to some of them.

Characterization is one of the most important parts of novel planning. The better you know these people, the more likely it is that you'll be able to tell their story accurately and with finesse.

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During NaNoWriMo a novel must be written from scratch - in other words, if you've already started a novel, this competition isn't for finishing it.

However it is not wrong to use an old noveling idea, starting over from the beginning.

For example, if you had a great idea several years ago and wrote two or three chapters, and you desperately want to finish it, why not discard the earlier work and start over? You can consider the earlier work to be 'notes' or 'preparatory text' or 'background material'.

It is true that many novelists discard the first few paragraphs or chapters anyway, as they often are not exciting enough to qualify for the first chapter, the one where you have to reach out and grab the reader, pulling him into the story.

In 2001 I developed a way of keeping my novel going, day after day, until it was finished. Each night as I sat down to write (yes, I'm a night-writer) - I meditated on my novel and came up with three scenes to write that evening.

My goal each night was 2500 words. For what I was writing, a middle-grade novel, three scenes usually worked perfectly to hit the 2500 mark. If you're writing something for adults, your scenes might be a lot longer.

Before NaNoWriMo begins you can give some thought to the story arch, meaning, where will your character begin, and how will the story end, and what huge major problems will your character encounter along the way. Get this information firm in your mind, and use a notebook or index cards to record your scene ideas. This will be a valuable resource later on when you're in the middle of novel writing madness, wondering what to write next. At that point, just refer to your notes to see if inspiration strikes and then allow the Muse to take over.

Make sure there's enough cat food in the house. Prepare meals that can be stored in the freezer so you just have to heat and serve. Buy enough treats to keep everyone happy while you're writing. And don't forget about yourself and your own needs. Do as much as you can to prepare in October so that November will be that much easier.

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Yes! You better believe it! And if you don't believe it yet... you will by November 30. One thing NaNoWriMo teaches is that novel writing isn't all that hard. The most important things are to start writing, keep writing, and refuse to give up. Every year new people join NaNoWriMo and write 50K words worth of novel for the first time. You can be one of them!

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