National Novel Writing Month

Am I the only one who’s done this?

You decide you’d like to write a novel. You have a story idea in your head. Perhaps it’s pretty well-formed; perhaps you have only the vaguest of notions of what will happen after the opening scene, when the hero finds himself drowning in a vat of poison.

You sit down with your writing tool of choice. Perhaps that’s a pen and paper; perhaps it’s a typewriter; perhaps a word processing program or a specialty program catered to novelists such as Scrivener. You type in Chapter 1.

And then you stare at the screen. No words appear; no perfectly-honed sentences spring magically onto paper or screen. You type a few words, then a few sentences. Then you realize that there must be a better verb than the one you used in the second sentence. Wait, that adjective…would “outlanding” be a better choice than “garish”? (Come to think of, what does “garish” actually mean, anyway?)

Some time later, hours later, you check your progress, and realize you’ve written one paragraph that you’ve revised eleven times in various forms, including three in which you deleted the whole thing and started over. Three hours. One paragraph. At this rate, your novel will be done sometime in the year 3013.

Despondent, you throw the whole thing out and wish it was easy for you to write a novel like the people with all of the books on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and in the bookstores. How wonderful must it be to type quickly and generate effortless prose that captivates the masses!

Pssst…I’ve got a secret to tell you.

Their writing starts off looking nothing like what you eventually read. Seriously. They accept that their first draft will get revised, likely many times, and that only after a number of revisions will their work be ready for publication. The trick, then, is to get that first draft written. That means that you must learn to separate writing from editing.

Writing is a creative process; let the words flow and don’t worry about picking the perfect verb or adjective. Just use “said” for dialogue; you can change it to “exclaimed,” “cried,” or “prattled” later. If someone is tall, just use the word tall; dig the thesaurus out during editing. If you aren’t sure how to transition one scene to another, just describe roughly what happens and get to the next scene. “[Hero manages to loosen the ropes and then jumps out of moving car. May want to have him palm a sharp object during earlier interrogation scene to use here.]” Then go on to the big fight scene. Not sure what to call your evil villain? Make him Evil Villain in your draft; if you stop writing for two days trying define the perfect name, you’ve lost valuable time.

There’s no better way to practice this “write don’t edit” approach than through an annual contest called “National Novel Writing Month,” or NaNoWriMo. Starting at midnight on November 1st, participants challenge themselves to write 50,000 words on a new work by the end of November, which translates into 1,667 words or so per day. You enter your updated word count each day, and the site tracks your progress toward 50,000 words and against the 1,667 words per day pace.

One of the best aspects of NaNoWriMo is the sense of community and camaraderie it brings out in writers of all levels of experience. You can get buddies and watch their progress while they watch yours, cheering progress and giving encouragement for those who are struggling. Many cities have groups that get together to write during the process, and they’ll have races to encourage people to get those words down on “paper,” real or virtual. When you’re racing, you don’t have time to think about the perfect adjective or the nickname of a minor character; you must type as fast as you can type.

Before you know it, you’ll have 50,000 words down. I just finished hitting the 50,000 word marker yesterday (November 21), and the sense of accomplishment is worth the effort you’ll put into it.

If you missed out on NaNoWriMo this year and don’t want to wait until November 2013, there is a spin-off called Camp NaNoWriMo which provides a similar set of tools and community support for performing the same feat in months other than November. And there’s no reason you can’t do the same thing on your own, either. Remember: write, don’t edit. Edit when done writing.

And have fun while you’re doing it.