Well, tomorrow marks the start of the 2018 NaNoWriMo challenge. For anyone unfamiliar with NaNoWriMo (short for National Novel Writing Month), it's an annual online competition where participants are given the entire month of November to write a novel from beginning to end. The goal is to either finish the book or write 50,000 words, whichever you do first.
It's an exciting challenge for writers of all experience levels, but it can also seem daunting to people who haven't tried it before. I felt the same way about it for years, since I tend to be a slow writer, but when I did it for the first time last year, I actually managed to finish my novel The Last Good Man before the end of November. That hardly makes me an expert, but since more and more people are taking an interest in NaNoWriMo every year, I figured I ought to offer the advice I have to any first-timers out there.
1. Use The Website
Maybe it goes without saying, but it helps your writing pace tremendously if you register on the official NaNoWriMo website and log your progress every day. Check your word count for the day on whatever word processing program you use, enter it into the site, and NaNoWriMo will give you a full breakdown of your daily average. It also compares your overall word count to what it should be by that point in the month, then it uses that information to calculate the date when you'll reach 50,000 words.
If that isn't motivation enough, you can also find other writers on the NaNoWriMo site and add them to your "Writing Buddies" list to compare each other's progress. Lastly, the site offers prizes, usually subscriptions for writing or formatting software, to the first few people who upload a 50,000-word manuscript. It might be better for first-timers to just focus on meeting their own writing goals for the month instead of competing, but if winning a prize helps you to keep going, then by all means go for it. Besides, the prize might help you on your next NaNoWriMo.
Here's a link to the website for anyone interested: https://nanowrimo.org
2. Outline Your Book
The only rule of NaNoWriMo is that you're not allowed to start writing the actual novel until November 1st. You're allowed to outline it as much as you want before that, though. Mapping out your story ahead of time is usually the best approach to writing a book under any circumstances, but it's especially handy when you only have thirty days to write one. That way, you can avoid writing yourself into a corner, getting hung up on plot holes, or stalling out because you don't know where you want the story to go.
Granted, outlines aren't always perfect. You might discover while writing your book that something in your outline doesn't make sense, or that you forgot a crucial detail in the planning stage that needs to be addressed in the story. Maybe you'll even think up a new plot point that's better than what you had in your outline and it will end up altering the rest of the plot. My best advice for things like that is to go with your gut feeling and maybe make notes for possible changes at the end of each chapter. The book might need work after NaNoWriMo, but having an outline will at least give it the foundation it needs.
3. Write, Don't Edit
What matters for NaNoWriMo is the pace of your writing, not the quality. No first draft of anything is flawless, so it's best not to stew over your word choices or punctuation when you're writing on such a strict time budget. Picture what's supposed to happen in the scene that you're working on, write down what you see in your mind, and then move on. This might sound alarming to more methodical writers, but eventually you will get comfortable with it. Personally, I found it more than a little therapeutic to to stop thinking about how the book might sound to readers and just focus on writing it.
This might just be a matter of preference, but based on my own experience, I recommend writing your first NaNoWriMo book from the First Person point of view. I typically write in Third Person, which tends to come out too wordy and poetic since the story is basically being told by some all-knowing, James Earl Jones-like narrator in the sky. It's from the point of view of someone above the characters, whereas stories in the First Person are from the point of view one of the characters themselves. This allows you to take a much less formal approach to the writing style, since you're writing it the way a normal person would tell the story, and I think that helps the writing to go faster. Your book will still need editing afterwards, but since you're writing it in a more naturalistic way, you might not think about that nearly as much in the meantime.
4. Keep It Simple
There's a part of every writer that dreams of becoming the next J.K. Rowling, but even the first Harry Potter book was pretty basic compared to its sequels. Writing 50,000 words in thirty days is challenging enough for first-timers, so it's probably not a good idea to tackle the most complicated story you can think of for your first NaNoWriMo. A simple, to-the-point story makes for quicker writing, and quicker writing makes for a more motivated, enthusiastic writer.
That's not to say that every NaNoWriMo book you ever write has to be simplistic. I just think it's good to get comfortable with a faster work pace first and then move your way up to telling more complex stories. Think of it like weight training; if you try to lift an eighty-pound barbell on your first gym visit, you'll probably hurt yourself, but if you start by lifting smaller weights, you'll eventually build yourself up to the point where you'll be able to handle a heavy load.
5. Make It Fun
Listen to your favorite music while writing your NaNoWriMo book. Let yourself go to the movies as a reward when you reach a big milestone on your word count. Drink a shot of something (responsibly) to celebrate every time you finish a chapter. NaNoWriMo is supposed to be a fun challenge, so do whatever keeps you in a positive mindset while you're writing.
If I have one piece of wisdom to give about writing, it's that if you like a story enough, it will write itself for you. In other words, if you write your book with enthusiasm, you'll be more immersed in it and more likely to keep coming up with fresh and creative ideas for it as you go along. An author's energy can really show in their writing, and that energy can rub off on readers and make reading your books all the more enjoyable to them in turn. And that's the goal of NaNoWriMo: to make writing a source of entertainment rather than stress. If you can accomplish that, then half the battle will already be won.
