That special time of year is back, NaNoWriMo prepping. If you go to NaNoWriMo.org, you'll find lots and lots of information on how to prep for writing your 50,000 words. I tend to press further, and yes, I'm still somewhat of a newbie to NaNoWriMo, but I want to be better each year, and I want to finish an entire novel in the process (80,000+ words) not to disparage those other blog posts, I'm going to tell you the details you need to really prepare your novel for the long-haul of NaNoWriMo.
Prepping isn't easy, it takes almost as long as writing the novel, but what is good about preparation, it becomes much, much easier to keep your thoughts together, as you're writing the novel. Of course, like all things, it's a guideline, rather than a direct route, but with all things, you'll soon discover that prepping the novel is easier done, than said. I'm going to give you my steps, and help you write a novel in a few days, not four weeks. So you'll be counting your win before the turkey even needs to be carved....if your American, of course...although I think more countries celebrate a form of Thanksgiving nowadays.
So the first thing to do is stick to your guns. Before you even come up with an idea, you have to make the pledge that for the next few days and/or weeks, what you intend to write is what you write. Meaning if you start to plan out your novel in Spetember, by November 1st when you sit down to do it, you're not going to have the idea grow stale. That's why I don't normally plan until the last two weeks of October, so I don't have the feeling of regretting my idea, of wanting to scrap it. Granted, I'm always thinking/doing, every day I'm always plotting. So what you want to do is come up with an idea that doesn't seem so short-game. You want a long-game idea, you want something that can srivive past thirty pages.
For example, you can work out that a man coming home from war can be a short story, a novella, or a full-length novel, it all depends on ten circumstances. Let's say he's coming back to start a new life, well, that's a novel, let's say he's coming back for a specific event, like the death of a loved one. The latter is more a short story. There's a great deal of ways to take the same starting concept, and detriment the length, by the variables, or even lack thereof, that will core wore with coming to the end of the story. It also can determine genre, and reading level. A story about a soldier returning from war can be adult-oriented, a teen novel, or even a child's story, depending on how it is sound. If you want to emulate the horors's of war, or talk about PTSD, then you have an adult novel that will deal with adult situations and macabre horros. If you focus more on just the soldier's life, it can be as innocent as a G-Rated film, or soemthing more PG-13. However, that alone won't be enough to write a full-length novel.
Novels take a lot of time, and even if you're a quick typist like myself, you're still going to need to invest plenty of time into the process. Prepping is the critical way of getting your novel from start-to-finish in record time. I don't always do it, usually if I'm writing a sequel, I don't always bother with the details. However, this is how I come up with a story:
First, I come up with an idea, nothing special, just the plain idea of what I intend to write,usually thinking of people, events, and internal/external conflict. Then I come up with a realistic cast of characters, and their personalities. I tend to think of this section as bulding a cast that can best emote my story. I give them description, I give them purpose, and thus I give them life. Once the chracter's are crated, or at least given something if a description, it's time to map out the plot.
If I'm feeling extremely motivated,mill map out every single chapter, all the way up to the conclusion, this is of course, a guideline, because I'm not going to follow everything down to textbook detail, but it gives me structure. Again, even when creatively mapping something out, there's still a need to have creativity, hence my likelihood not to always follow what I've written. It's really more about what feels right,versus what is standardized on the outline.
There's no right-or-wrong way to make an outline. In-fact, there's really no right-or-wrong way to prep, so long as you get the words done by day 30. So, I don't try to preach precisely how to go about prepping, but there are some qualms I have: 1) Don't spend all your time mapping out every single detail- there's plenty of time to get everything written down when you actually go to start the novel. This seems the most obvious step, but to me, it bares repeating,because when people get too involved in the outline, mapping out diagrams and brainstorms, You tend to forget thwt there's work for the book itself. When writing fiction, there's usually less of a need to map out in grand detail, as nonfiction is where the real work is put in, and where most of work done months before it's actually compiled into a functioning novel.
2) Always be certain to refer back to your notes later on. This is crucial to keeping everything in line. You're not going to be focused on Day 20 of NaNoWriMo something that was written two months before. So keep those nits organized and always in-arm's-reach.
3) Never feel unaccomplished. Even thinking about writing is a fulcrum that will elevate you towards finishing that said book. Thinking, doing, and essentially "writing" is about doing what you need to do in-order to get the main objective done. Think of if like a RPG video game: therre are a bunch if side quests, and at times they lead you down different paths, but many help you with tools to not only complete the main quest, but to do so st a caliber that is greater than if you just try and grind through the main quest unilaterally.
4) finally, just have fun with it, you're writing in hopes of gaining a new perspective/novel that may become an actual break I to the business, but remember that this is also for fun, and you are trying to push your writing limits beyond what you have the year/month/etc. before.
If you know how to write, and you see it as something that matters most in your life, you will succeed, time is that grey area that will be the litmus test on just when that success blooms those lovely, sweet fruits of labor. Whatever happens, if this is your breakout novel, or a other novel to chock up as experience, have some fun with it, and keeping writing on through the writhing pain of 50,000+ words!
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