NaNoWriMo has begun!
NaNoWriMo, as most of us know, is a nonprofit dedicated to encouraging writers. NaNo, the month of months, has a challenge; write a 50k novel in the month of November.
Of course, most novels are longer than 50k. Traditionally published, there’s a huge range of word counts.
Middle Grade tends to be 40-70k words, depending on the grade level, whether it’s contemporary or speculative, etc.
Young Adult tends to be 70-100k words.
Adult? Oh, man, where to start?
Litfic and upmarket range from 50-80k words.
Mystery/Thriller/suspense usually sit in the 70-90k range.
Romance goes from 50k ‘beach reads’ to 110k historical or fantasy romances.
Speaking of, science fiction/fantasy ranges from 80k-120k, depending on a lot of things, including the stakes of the story.
And that doesn’t count horror, the huge range of nonfiction, etc.
Therefore, most people will find that 50k is not long enough to finish their novel. So NaNo’s changed. You can be a Rebel and work on something you’ve already started, a collection of short stories, etc. You can write original fiction OR nonfiction OR fanfiction. You can even set an editing challenge now, because books don’t stop at the first draft (or shouldn’t, please ignore my enormous pile of rough drafts, I’ll edit them as soon as I finish drafting this next novel...)
What is your story and who is it for?
Ideally we as writers should think of our audience, our premise, our setting, and our characters before we start writing, because that will help inform… well, everything. For MG and YA, a book NEEDS a POV character that is in the reader’s age range (ideally a year older — we all want to seem more mature than we are). For romance, we need romantic leads (at least two, depending on the type of romance) who have Inner Wounds that they think will keep them apart. For mystery/thriller, we need a body. Fine, we don’t need a body, but we need a crime in progress. We need something gone wrong, or about to go wrong in the first chapter.
Genre: where does your book get shelved? Each genre will include its own conventions. For instance, litfic and upmarket have very high expectations on prose and symbolism, while romance expects a Happy Ever After. Fantasy expects a world distinct from our own, and horror needs terrible things to happen to people.
Subgenre: So you want to write a romance. Is it historical or regency, or contemporary, or romantic suspense? There are going to be slightly different conventions for each.
Premise: If you have one sentence, what is your book about? Gideon the Ninth is known by marketing as lesbian necromancers in space. However, it could as easily be described as science fantasy locked room challenge for the children of the powerful. How about Jane Eyre meets Jurassic Park? Sometimes it’s that simple, sometimes you need something closer to a logline.
Setting: Yes, this comes after premise. or with premise. What setting will work best for your premise? Do you need a desert, because it’s about survival and teamwork, or would that be more effective if placed on an isolated space station? Some of this will be defined by your earlier steps, but in a contemporary thriller, there’s an enormous difference between a body in a small town and one on the steps of the Supreme Court building. Neither is better or worse, but your setting is in a way a character of its own.
Main Characters: Who is the protagonist? Who do they rely on? Who are their friends, their family? What are their virtues and flaws? Now do the same for the antagonist. Most antagonists are protagonists in their own minds, after all. Just why have they decided to stand athwart the protagonist?
Plot: Not everyone has this going in, and that’s fine. If you’re a planner, you’ll want an outline. If you’re a pantser, you’ll need a general sense of what the stakes are going to be. But your book should have an inner arc (character arc) and an external arc. Characters need to change as much as they need to change the world around them.
Audience: Who will buy your book? Are you focusing on middle aged people working professional careers, or are you looking toward a working class parent with multiple jobs? How about a 5th grader worried about middle school and whether they’ll make friends because of a recent move? Yes, you want to write more broadly, but knowing your primary audience will help immensely in terms of language, sentence structure, characterization, and what themes you want to bring to the fore. Alternatively, knowing the themes and characterization will determine your audience.
We’re into drafting: did you have a plan going in? Characters? A vague hope? A full outline? All options work depending on the type of writer you are!
More importantly: do you have your writing time set? Have you told your partner/accountability buddy, and do you have a plan to do self-care as well? Good! Go for a walk and drink a fruit smoothie, then come back in.
This week:
What’s your NaNo goal? What’s your genre/audience? Since it’s into Nov, what’s your current word count?
I’ll add it to the diary as a table so we can cheer each other on (and so later Nov diaries can steal and update as the month continues).
Name |
genre/goal |
word count |
notes |
blueshift |
unk/50k |
0 |
|
bonetti |
PNR/50k |
10,057 |
pantsing! |
clio |
revise Fog |
N/A |
Fog is a short story |
DConrad |
multiple/75k |
8000 |
|
Elenacarlena |
unk/20k |
0 |
will start after the election |
Mettlefatigue |
1 short story |
2 |
|
NoBlinkers |
adult fantasy/50k |
1,722 |
continuing an existing draft |
reppa |
unk/just write! |
2000 |
|
rexymeteorite |
sci fi/2036/80k+ |
20,800 |
Continuing existing draft |
strawbale |
The Travelers |
UNK |
|
And for easier copy-paste…
Blueshift — 50k goal
Bonetti — 50k gaol — at 10,057 as of 4 Nov
Clio — revise Fog — started
DConrad — 75k goal — at 8,000 as of 5 Nov
ElenaCarlena — 20k goal — will start after the election
MettleFatigue — 1 short story — 2 words as of 4 Nov
NoBlinkers — 50k — at 1,722 as of 4 Nov
Reppa — just write! — at 2,000 as of 5 Nov
RexyMeteorite — 80-100k goal — at 20,800 as of 4 Nov
Strawbale — The Travellers — unk as of 4 Nov
Starting a story
This is probably a bit late for those who are doing traditional NaNo, but if it’s not the start of your story, then the start of the next chapter, or the turning point.
These are the most fraught moments in a book. MOST readers will decide to buy or not based on the first page or two. As writers, we have to show our voice, the setting, characterize the MC and at least a few of the secondary characters, and give a feel for the premise, all in the space of 200-300 words.
That’s not much.
Your MC needs to pop. Their strengths and weaknesses need to be apparent, as well as their motive — their goal. What does your MC want? The obstacles can appear later, but your characters have to bring the reader in.
If you’re doing a multi-POV book, the same applies for each POV.
So for this week, we have an easy challenge. Or a hard one.
This week: give us the first page of your novel. Make sure it includes clues to the setting, introduces the MC (and POV character, if the two aren’t the same) as well as their goal, and uses at least three senses.
For nonfiction: give us the first page of your book. Make sure it introduces the setting, has a clear feel for the audience it is written for, and the main premise of the book.
Alternatively: use the same challenge for introducing a new POV or new subset of information.
Oh, and do all of this in 200-300 words.
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