Have you ever thought about writing a novel? I know a lot of people have this vague idea that maybe someday they’d like to write a novel. But do you dream of putting words to paper in a story that you want to share with others? If so, I have a confession to make: I have the same dream.
Not only do I dream of someday writing a novel, I dream of publishing novels for people to read. I dream of writing about worlds like and unlike our own where people do amazing things. I dream of writing the same books I want to read and going through the whole process of planning, writing, editing, revising, rewriting, and eventually publishing my novels.
Maybe you’ve thought about writing a novel someday. Maybe you want to write a memoir about your life. Whatever it is, I’m here to tell you it’s doable. Not only is it doable, but next month is an excellent time of year to get going on that someday story.
Why? Because next month is when NaNoWriMo kicks off.
Okay, so you’re probably wondering what NaNoWriMo is. It’s an organization that challenges you to write everyday for 30 days and produce a novel. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month and it’s actually a global organization that helps people get their story writing on by providing a motivational website to log your writing and talk to other like-minded people.
The challenge is to write 50,000 words on a new novel over the course of November, which translates to roughly 1,667 words per day. This will result in a story the size of an average novella, but it’s a great start to a good book. It sounds daunting, but I’ve participated in this event for several years and managed to “win” at least five times.
I’d like to give you a few tips if you’re interested in ever writing a novel, whether it’s during NaNoWriMo or not. Bearing in mind that I’m not a published author, I’m just here to share some things that have helped me go from basic idea to writing the words “The End” on a story.
If you want a good novel, you need to start with a good idea, and that requires time and effort.
Planning a novel, especially if you want to make it effortlessly readable and “unputdownable,” means finding a system that works for you and time to go through and flesh out your ideas. You might have to try different things to see what you like best and what gets you most excited for planning, but I’ll share a few different techniques I and others have used to plan a novel.
The snowflake method is a planning technique that takes you step by step in writing down the different components of your novel. Some people use mind mapping to great success. Mind maps are a very visual way of planning a novel where you write or type out your different story ideas with no real intention of connecting all the dots. You just get the information out in black and white so that you can create connections later. There is a lot of software available to help you do a digital mind map if you’re a visual planner. And then there are softwares like Campfire Pro that help you dig into every aspect of planning a novel from characters to world building to plot points. These kinds of software can be really helpful because they guide you through the process.
After you get your novel planned out, your characters developed, and the plot arranged neatly, you need to figure out where you’re going to write it. Having an office suite program or writing program that works for you is a good way to motivate yourself to write. There are dozens of programs specifically for writing novels out there, but here are just a few: Scrivener, Storyist (for Macs), Novlr, and Dabble.
So you’ve planned your novel, you’ve got a writing program, and now you’re ready to write. The problem now is that you just don’t know how to sit down and get to it! I like NaNoWriMo because it forces me to put paper to pen to meet an arbitrary deadline. You can do something similar by giving yourself a deadline or word count to meet. Sometimes the hardest part is just getting started, and you simply have to sit down and do it. Sometimes the hardest part is actually continuing to write after you get started. The important thing is that you give yourself some motivation, maybe a reward for hitting a goal that you’ll enjoy. Whatever you do, find something that encourages you to keep writing till you hit “The End.”
