NaNoWriMo Part ll

When I decided to enter National Novel Writing Month last November, I faced two challenges that meant I would have to change how I write.


The first was obvious. The idea of writing a novel of at least 50,000 words in 30 days scared me to death. Granted, 50,000 words is not a long novel. For most fiction, editors and publishers are looking for 75,000 t0 95,000 words in most categories, although some books top well over 100,000. But unless I was writing a children's or young adult novel, where 50,000 words is the upper range, I needed to think about a novel longer than 50,000 words.


That's a lot given my usual output. Let's do the numbers. That's an average of 1,667 words to write EVERY DAY for 30 days. Generally when I'm writing, I do about 1,800 words a day but don't do that everyday. The general goal is about 5,000 words a week. I could then plan to complete a first draft of a 75,000-word novel in three months. But at that rate, I wouldn't hit NaNoWriMo-targeted quantity for 10 weeks, not the roughly four weeks required. To reach the NaNoWriMo target I would need more discipline than I have exhibited to date.


But more important than mere discipline, I would need to change how I execute a novel. In this case, it meant I would have to outline the book ahead of time. I would have time to write but wouldn't have enough time to think about what to write.


As you know, there is a large debate being raged in the writing community regarding outlining. Some writers agree with one of my heroes, John Grisham. I saw in Writers Digest over the winter where he said outlining was "crucial." I think most writing academics would agree with that (though it is not hard to understand why). That argument says an un-outlined novel is likely to be unfocused, and it's more likely to go unfinished.


Others say outlining is constraining and takes away a novel's spontaneity, which helps make the novel fun to write as well as to read.


My opinion is that writing a novel is difficult no matter how you cut it. In the end, the writer must do what feels most natural. That's not really for someone else to judge.


I generally don't do outlines. I have an idea of how the novel will begin and end before I start writing. But I like the novel to develop on its own. I want to come to it in much the same way a reader would for the first time. I want to be surprised by the developments and with the introduction of new characters. Plus, I have a hard time visualizing an entire work ahead of time.


I will outline a few scenes ahead sometimes when I think I have some really good ideas I don't want to forget but generally I wing it.


But I knew that wouldn't work at NaNoWriMo. There was too much writing to do very quickly. If I was going to make my goal, I would have to outline.


So, several days ahead of time, I wrote out a 10-page outline of the novel. And at about 12:30 in the morning on Nov. 1, I started writing. And I surprised myself. The first sentence in my outline translated into more than 850 words of text. And that first day, I wrote 3,500 words.


Over the next several days, I continued to produce twice as much as would be required. Other NaNo writers I met were surprised at, and quite supportive of, the output.


But outlining in some ways was also constraining. But Day 4, I needed to deviate slightly from the outline. That caused more deviations until by Day 7, I had to stop and write another totally different outline based on where I was at the time.


(Also, halfway through, I realized the person I thought was the killer wasn't the true bad guy. Fortunately, it didn't require any changes.)


So I pressed on and at 7:23 p.m. on Nov. 15, two weeks after I started, I reached 50,084 words.
I did it without having to give up my life. I still worked, had dinner with the family every night, got to go out to dinner on the weekend and still had to walk the dog.


I had planned for a novel of about 70,000 words but I was tired after two weeks and ultimately finished it off on Nov. 19, at 54,000 words. I knew I could go back and flesh it out later. But at the time, I needed the rest.


There was another more profound challenge I faced and it was harder than just outlining. But I will touch on that later.


For now, you should do what feels natural to you. If you do, you are more likely to finish your draft. You can re-write and edit later. But first you must finish.


Thanks for reading and don't give up on writing.