NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month, and every November, thousands of established, published, and aspiring writers participate in the event. The goal is to see what you can do within a month – can you write 50000 words? If not, how many, and why? During NaNoWriMo, you are the one to set your goals, milestones, and present yourself with the awards on the NaNoWriMo website. The only rule to participate is to start writing your novel on November 1st, and finish it on midnight on November 30th. However, there are two undesirable scenarios for NaNoWriMo. First, you might reach the goal of 50000 words, but you will not be left with publishable material. In fact, chances are the novel will need to be edited more than five times in order to be ready for publishing, or submission to agents and publishing houses. The second possibility is that you will not reach the goal, and be left discouraged about writing in general. Proper preparation is crucial if you wish to avoid the abovementioned scenarios. And below, you will find several tips to help you achieve this.
1. Create a writing schedule
Unless you plan on taking the whole month off and not work, socialize or be involved with your family, chances are, the biggest NaNoWriMo challenge for you would be finding time to write. And as if that’s not stressful enough, if you struggle to find time, when you actually do find the time, you will be so discouraged that you might just stare at the blank page, and fall behind from day 1. Instead, go over November. Decide on your priorities, be it work, friends or family, or even pets, leave some free time for flexibility, and plan your writing schedule around the priorities. In fact, plan each and every day. If you write each day in November, your word count goal would be 1667 words. But if you wish to take days off of writing your novel, you should take that into account and increase your daily word count goal appropriately.
2. Plot, characterization, and structure
Have a title of your novel. It helps, especially if the title represents what your novel is about. Plan ahead, every chapter if you can, and avoid staring at a blank page during NaNoWriMo, wondering what happens next. Events and plot points should be covered, the structure of your story detailed and within reach, and your characterization should be such as to ensure that you’re at least familiar with the most important characters that will appear in your novel. But, keep in mind that you need to keep this flexible. All of us writers know how the writing can change the story, and how a story can change completely from its initial concept. You must allow for flexibility, or minimize the need. If you think through the events and plot points as carefully and cover each and every what if, you will face less need for flexibility, story-wise, during NaNoWriMo.
3. Know your characters
We previously mentioned characters, and to elaborate, we do not mean to only decide what they are, who they are, where they are at the start, and where they will be at the end of the novel. No, we mean plan what they wear, how they look, and how they behave. Discover the way they speak, and know their names, even if that character does not appear until you’ve hit the middle of your novel. Know them beforehand, so that you will need to do little creation during NaNoWriMo, but more actual writing. Do not forget the minor characters. As a rule, if a character appears at least twice in your novel, know their physical appearance, character, and how they speak before you sit down to write.
4. Know your world
You need to know your world just as much as you know your characters. Decide on the main places your characters will haunt, which restaurants, museums, or other places they will visit. Know what those places look like, feel like, and how they look after your characters leave (this is important if your novel features fight scenes with destruction). How the places look before and after is important, especially if they appear more than once in your novel. Additionally, create a timeline with months, especially if the story is set in a place with four seasons. It will make it easier to include weather in your novel, without having to think through it, and it will make it easier on you to include the senses in your writing.
5. Research beforehand
Unless your story is set into a fantasy world and adheres to fantasy rules, in which case, you need to create everything beforehand, you need to research the places, restaurants, cafes, and others, that your characters will visit during the novel. Keep the information at hand, and eliminate the need to stop writing in order to get a detail right. Additionally, once you’ve plotted out your novel, and thought carefully through it, you will already know which details you will need, and that will enable to you to look for the exact information, rather than do general research. On the other hand, during NaNoWriMo, make sure to remember that you don’t need to stop writing in order to go online and research a detail – you can do that later, unless the detail is an important plot point. In which case, we hope you’ve already researched it thoroughly.
Good luck, everyone!
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://writingtipsoasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/photo.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Georgina Roy wants to live in a world filled with magic. As an art student, she’s moonlighting as a writer and is content to fill notebooks and sketchbooks with magical creatures and amazing new worlds. When she is not at school, or scribbling away in a notebook, you can usually find her curled up, reading a good urban fantasy novel, or writing on her laptop, trying to create her own.
[/author_info] [/author]