It’s that time of the year where close to a quarter of a million of people spend thirty days belting out a novel. This is nothing short of amazing. Not everyone makes it, I myself have failed miserably, but it’s the attempt that matters. Like Everest, it’s the journey together to the top that builds character and inspires other to follow.
How many people have even thought in earnest about writing a novel. Go out to your friends, family, co-workers, classmates and ask them, “How you tried writing a novel before?” After enduring the odd looks and questioning stares, you’ll find that writing fifty thousand words is an endeaver few would even think of attempting, much less work to complete. And so I consider myself one of the fortunate few who would partake in this intrepid task.
Gathering the Gear
Now, obviously, to make it to 50k, a writer needs to gather ideas to write about. Fortunately for us, where a climb up Everest requires months and even years of planning and preparation down to the last detail, NaNoWriMo is something that can be put together in a few days using the cutting edge of outlining software, a couple of hours making detailed notes on paper, or a a handful of seconds while hastily scribbling on a napkin. Naturally the more thought put into an idea on it’s viability as a whole novel. I’ve had ideas that I thought were amazing and didn’t last past chapter four.
My bare essentials for a novel idea is have the beginning, the end, a bit of background, and a course for the main character’s journey. Simple and the seeds for a potentially epic storyline. So if these simple elements are good, then more would be better, right? Well…
Over-packing
The problem with my prep right now is that it is TOO structured. I’ve got three distinct parts for the story, but then I tried to do like eight chapters each, which was too long in the beginning and two short in the middle so I had to change the amount of chapters to 6, 12, 6. But then that looked weird and I found myself having to find “stuff” to happen in those chapters and then I got really frustrated and just stopped.
I lost sight of what I was doing: making a story, not making a textbook. Once I got back to outlining the story and characters and events THEN the chapter breaks came naturally, and it didn’t feel like I was just stacking boxes of chapters. It messed with my sense of order, but it got in the way of my story telling so I tossed it.
If you are the kind of writer who can plan their stories down to the paragraph, I applaude you. It melts my brain doing that. And for those who can spin fifty thousands words from just a couple, I envy you as well. I fall in the middle, and I can imagine most writers do as well. The point of prep is to keep the spark alive until November 1st, without smothering it or neglecting it so it flickers out. This balancing act is arguably as difficult as the actual writing itself. Good thing we are almost there!
I’ll be updating throughout NaNoWriMo with little things here and there. Blaugh! I wish it were here already, I’m ready to go, and I’ll be my fellow writers are as well. Good luck to you all!
A Writer in the Breaking 