So, it’s that time again—NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, which is November since the first letters are the same as in novel; cute innit?).
I’ve done many NaNoWriMos in the past, but am passing on the official game this year due to issues with the org itself (from a scandal last year to the “sure, having an AI write a novel for you totally counts as you writing it, and if anyone disagrees we’ll call them classist and ableist!” controversy from, I don’t know, a couple of months ago?)
Yeah, no interest in touching that mess with a 7000 ft pole.
Instead, this year I’m doing Not-NaNo. It’s basically the same thing—50k words in the month of November. The bulk of this writing I *hope* will be from one specific project, but life is so busy with other writing demands that I’m counting other stuff too.
Ok, enough prelude. Let’s get to the point: How do you write a novel in 30 days?
I use a cheat sheet called an “outline” so there’s never a “what do I write?” hold up: I always know what scene is coming next, and what scene it is leading to. This is because I daydream extensively about my novels, then write the outline with the optimal plotting from daydreams, then edit the outline to better fit a dramatic “shape” in terms of rising and falling tension, reveals, pacing, and all that jazz. So, by the time I sit down to write the book, I know the story pretty well.
If you’re doing NaNo or Not-NaNo this year, you probably don’t have time for that pre-work though. You may have started, but don’t have your outline all the way done yet. Or maybe you’re just not an outliner in general. Let’s jump to practical advice for you.
1. Don’t erase anything.
Erasing means your editing. Editing, while essential to having a good book at the end, is *not* the same thing as writing. You have your whole life to cut the lame out of your book. Get the whole story out first. No cutting till the end!
Changing a sentence as you write it? That’s okay. But going back afterwards and making retroactive changes? If you start doing that, then you’ll end November with an overly polished scene and very little more. Revising becomes an excuse not to write.
2. Skip scenes liberally.
Say you’re on one scene. You know what you want to happen next in the story, but aren’t sure how to get from Point A to Point B. You could sit there staring at a computer screen while not touching your keyboard, OR you could write in a little stub to connect the scene you’re on to the scene you want to be writing. All it takes is one little sentence glossing things over.
Heck, you can even skip over entire scenes if you’re just not feeling it and want to get to another scene where you think you’ll have more fun.
Just write a quickie summary of what needs to happen in the scene that’s between you and the one you want to write. Bam. Forward progress maintained. And then, if you’re ever hit with a true writer’s block, spinning your wheels with no ideas for any scene, you can just hit up one of your stubs and have instant guidance on what to write.
Yeah, you’ll eventually have to go back and make that summary into an actual scene (or, at least, make that summary into a more entertaining summary, in the voice of your character, or something other than the informational stub that you need right now to link Point A to Point B). But that’s a problem for Editor-You, not Writer-You.
And the goal of any first draft is to get to the End of the Story, not to write a beautiful artful perfect draft.
3. Go a step farther: Write scenes out of order.
I mean, I rarely ever do this, but if there’s one scene that you really want to write, why aren’t you writing it? There are no rules. You do you, boo! If you write the scene you want to write when the fancy strikes, it’s easier to write it.
4. Use “NaNo” (or NaNoWriMo, or Not-Nano, or whatever) as an excuse to say no to people.
For whatever reason, people take “No” more seriously if you attach artificial rules to it. So when people are asking you to do things for them and you really would rather write, just say:
“Sorry, I can’t right now. I have NaNoWriMo (or whatever) this month, so my hands are tied.”
Bam. You get to say no, and it’s not your fault.
This excuse also goes farther than just other people—you can use it on yourself when you’re trying to avoid writing.
There is a caveat here, though: Sometimes, life *will* get in the way. You don’t want to end up in the situation where you’ve fallen too far behind to reasonably catch up in time to hit your 50k (or whatever) word count goal.
What’s funny here is that you can end up at a deficit that feels unsurmountable, only to have one or two 10k word days get you ahead of the curve again. But if you get stuck feeling you’ve already failed? Well, that’s a recipe for giving up. If you end up in a situation like that?
Just move the goalposts. Reset your goal, either lowering your word count goal or extending your deadline. By maintaining hope and *keeping on with it* you may even find yourself catching up again, and restoring your original goals. So long as you’re still writing, you’re still making progress, and you are ending each day with more than you started.
5. Don’t let routine get in your way.
Some years, I’ve leaned hard into the 1667 words a day to hit the goal right on schedule. Others, I’d do a couple hundred most days and then have writing marathons once or twice a week, coast with a few days off while I take care of other life obligations, then restart the cycle.
While setting rules (eg., “I always write early in the morning”—a rule that worked for me one year, and only one year, and is a disaster most of the time for night owls) can help you say no to things that get in the way of writing, it also can end up being too rigid to work with real life. And when you’re doing a speedy writing marathon, you can neither wait for inspiration to strike nor wait for the right time to write.
Some of the ways I force flexibility in my writing life in November (and also more generally, but much less frantically when not doing NaNo or Not-NaNo!):
Always carry a notebook and pen (or have a good notes app on your phone). When you’re stuck doing boring non-writing real life obligations, daydream about your characters and scenes for them. Jot down bullet point notes. That way, when you finally get to your computer, you’re ready to tear through words much faster.
Write scraps in between other fun times. This year, I’m literally writing scene snippets while I’m in lobbies waiting for rounds of my favorite computer games to start. That way, I get to have my cake and eat it too: my video game time isn’t sacrificed for writing, and by concentrating my writing into such short, frantic bursts (gotta finish that sentence before you load into intense online combat!) I end up producing a whole lot without it *feeling* like a lot of work.
The more time you give to writing, regardless of the form the time takes, the more writing you can do. Sure, a hyper-focused marathon might be the most efficient, but if you limit yourself to *only* writing in multi-hour dedicated blocks of time then you’ll likely find yourself unable to roll with the punches of real life.
(On the other hand, if your life is set up in a way that you can set aside and protect those extended chunks of writing time? That’s a gift, friend, and you should hold onto that for dear life.)
Bonus: Lean into conflict and tension at every point!
So, you’re stumped. You don’t know where the story is going next. You don’t know where the characters are going next. Next scene? Yeah, sure, but right now you’re still trying to figure out how to end this scene.
The answer is conflict.
You have two pools of conflict to draw on at any given moment, in any given scene.
First is your overarching plot. Think of your plot as “Main character wants xxx but yyy is stopping them.” Toss in some of that hot “yyy” action into the scene to get it moving by asking yourself, “In this scene, how is yyy preventing Main Character from achieving their goals, or how is Main Character actively countering yyy?”
Secondly, what is the specific conflict in the moment? Give your character an unexpected complication. Toss obstacles in their path. And don’t let them quickly and easily solve their sudden unexpected problems. Don’t make it easy on them! Make that lazy protagonist *work* for it!
I see it a lot in writers who love their characters oh-so-much in particular. And I get it—it’s way easier to spend time with the character if you love them. But you can’t wrap them in cotton gauze and protect them from the rest of the (fictional) world!
Well, I mean, I suppose you can, if you’re dedicated to having a really boring book.
But yeah, if you’re ever stumped, just think, “What is the worst possible thing that could happen right now?” and then make it happen!
Will this end up the best strategy for the overall plot and structure of your book? Ha! But will it help you keep things moving, keep the wheels turning, get to the end of your story AND meet your word count goal? Yup.
And if things go too far? Eh, it’s a first draft. You’re not married to anything in it. You can always get rid of some of the torment.
But not until that first draft is complete!
