Tips for NaNoWriMo-What You Can Do Before November

Halloween is fast coming upon us. For many people it means carving pumpkins, wearing costumes and passing out candy. But for some writers, it marks the last day before November, better known as National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). If you are one these writers, taking advantage of this time to do some preliminary work on your new novel will save you time while you are in the thick of NaNoWriMo. Below are some tips to get you prepared for November:

• Write out the story goals in detail. What is at stake? Get a sense of the larger picture and the personal picture. What does the character want? What would it mean for the story if she gets it? What would it mean if he doesn’t?

• Create a plot outline.  Some writers are meticulous planners, which helps them stay on track. Other writers are “free-writers” who prefer the spontaneity that comes from not knowing what going to happen next. I would suggest something in-between: a broad outline of the plot, so that you have an idea of where you need to go with the story, but still have room for experimentation and discovery.

• Get to know your characters now.  This will alleviate the time you’ll spend during NaNoWriMo guessing at your character’s responses to important decisions and how they should act when they encounter unexpected challenges in the story. 
  
  
  

• Design the world ahead of time. Or at least, have a good idea of the environment your characters are going to exist in. This will save you from getting bogged down in world building during NaNoWriMo.  Hone in on the details of the world, including weather, geography, people, and objects, letting these details reveal the character who would be observing or experiencing them. And although this world may be very familiar to your readers, describe it in a way that is unfamiliar, strange or foreign. In other words, let the unfamiliarity and unique perspective of the character seeing it for the first time come through.  If the story is set in an exotic, strange or alien place, try to describe it as if it was familiar, demonstrating the ordinariness of the world.
  
  
  

• Do any preliminary research that you think you’ll need to know, or at least have on hand. Research can easily become a black hole and make you lose momentum while in your NaNoWriMo groove.  While you can’t anticipate every piece of research you’ll need, you might be able to do a little research to help you understand how to get your character to a particular plot point or what the motivation is behind a character’s action.

• Start setting aside time to write now. Get into some kind of writing regiment (you can do these exercises to fill that time), so that when November starts, your NaNoWriMo efforts won’t feel like a sudden shift in your daily life.

• Set up a support system with other writers. There are some great resources and blogs about National Novel Writing Month, but start with the official NaNoWriMo site first.  Sign up for free and get help and support in just about any aspect of your NaNoWriMo experience, from planning to staying motivated throughout the month.
  
  
  

In following these tips, you’ll be able to start your new novel with a more grounded picture of the world and a clearer understanding of your characters. And if you are only able to do just some of these exercises, you'll still be better equipped to handle the challenge of writing every day in November. 50,000 words can seem daunting but a little preparation can not only give you a good start, it can help you maintain your writing momentum and keep you on track to meet your NaNoWriMo goals.

Good to be BAD: Why We Love the Villain

Every story needs a troublemaker. Have you ever wondered why the most enduring stories have the worst villains? Ever put down a book because you just didn’t care about the story? Maybe the stakes weren’t high enough. Maybe the bad guy just wasn’t…bad enough.

Several years ago someone gave me this advice: to write a strong plot, start with the antagonist. It sounds backwards, right? But from a storytelling perspective, it makes perfect sense to start with the villain. Here’s why:

The villain is often a twisted version of the hero. Strong villains have a motive that opposes your main character’s goals. If your hero wants to eat ice cream, your villain is blowing up ice cream delivery trucks because of some deep-seated sundae phobia. Both hero and villain have similar interests, but on opposite sides of the issue. They are two sides of the same coin.

The best villains have a tragic backstory. When we learn about these defining events in the villain’s past, we begin to understand why they act that way. Maybe the poor guy hates ice cream sundaes because his psychopathic mother forced him to eat giant sundaes every day until he got sick, while he was locked in the basement staring at decomposing rats. We sympathize. It’s a complicated and yet compelling feeling, to care about the villains even as they do horrific things.

Villains reflect the evil we see in ourselves and others. Let’s face it, there’s a villain in every one of us. Fictional villains just take it to a whole new level of badness, often with cool stage makeup and special effects. Fictional villains offer a safe way to voluntarily process the deep, philosophical horrors that play out in our own communities. Like that dark and terrible day when Blue Bell recalled all the ice cream because of the dread villain Listeria. There is evil in the world, Aurora.

Villains provide creative freedom. As writers, we spend hours developing the character qualities of our protagonists. For those of us who write series fiction, we need to stay within the confines of our main characters because they are the anchors that hold the whole thing together. But introduce a new villain to the mix, or give your existing villain a new toy, and all bets are off. Ice cream trucks explode. Banana splits ooze with poison syrup. Anything can happen.

And finally, the main reason we love a good villain:

Villains are unapologetically selfish. Hell-bent on getting their own way, villains are determined, driven, and will stop at nothing. Killing? No biggie. Blowing things up? Sure. Allowing gallons and gallons of delicious Blue Bell ice cream to go to waste? Whatever it takes. We might not agree with their methods, but if we’re honest with ourselves, we admire a villain’s commitment. Go hard or go home.

Next time you sit down to write, turn the monster loose. Make your villain more evil and powerful, so your hero can get stronger. Up the stakes. Give us drama, make us cringe, incite tears. Back your hero into a corner, give the villain the upper hand, and then see what happens. Can your hero overcome the strongest of villains? 

Now that’s a good story.

The Rhythm of a Good Book

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I just so happen to be a voracious reader. I'll read almost anything (well, mostly fictional unless study- or work related, but still).

My most recent conquest of the book kind is The Martian by Andy Weir.

It was one of those books one is almost compelled to pick up - not because of the author's world-wide  fame, or the books stellar reviews (no pun intended in this case, honest) - quite frankly it's not a book you've heard of as yet. One picks up books one knows nothing about under the influence of too much travel fatigue, a steadily growing level of annoyance and plain old boredom whilst waiting for a very, very late flight connection.

It has a bright cover, you see. Rather hard to miss amongst pastel-coloured book jackets covered in curli-cu-cute writing. So pick it up I did... and in the two hours I was at the airport, plus one hour on the plane, and then until 3am once I was home, I read this book.

I simply could not put it down. It's been a while since a book captured my interest like this, and oh, how I love that feeling!

Then a couple of days later I stumbled across a post on one of my favourite geeky websites (www.io9.com) that said The Martian is going to be a movie! OUT THIS YEAR!!! (yay!)

And then I went and read the comments to the post. There were many, of all shapes, sizes and flavours, but the one that really stuck with me (and which I shared with my fellow relentless writers earlier) is this one guy who said the book was boring because it was a simple string of problem-solution-problem-solution-problem-solution. Quite apart from the fact that I disagree, this made me think. 

Isn't that the basic structure of most books? Putting the hero through a series of trials, one feeding off the other, to bringe it all to a great climax? And then I realised the problem. This particular reader had missed the overall rising tension that permeated the story (probably because he missed the fact that the mere reading of logbook entries written by a protagonist does not prove that he or she in fact survived the whole ordeal). 

The tension rises and rises, problems keep cropping up, solutions have to be clobbered together, and then, finally there's the BIG PROBLEM, the one that beats them all, the one whose solution (in the case of The Martian, at least) is a matter of life or death. It is certainly a matter of grave importance to the protagonist in most cases, perhaps for a whole group of people, or, for a real bummer, a question that decides whether the world will end or not. 

The climax is the moment the whole book works towards, either resolving a physical crisis or perhaps a crisis of conscience. The climax, that breathless all-deciding moment, is usually followed by an 'ah' moment of relief (if the resolution is favourable) or despair (if it isn't). Rarely do books get away with stopping right after the climax. Most readers REQUIRE a resolution of some kind, though it does not need to be a very long one (depends on your story). If you don't resolve the overall story problems, it's highly likely that the reader will feel cheated in some way. I know I do when I come across that sort of story (rabbit-out-of-hat solutions are also in some disfavour these days).

And you know what? I can't think of a single story that does not have this sort of basic rhythm. One problem followed by a solution followed by another problem that may or may not build on the first one (or perhaps the solution of the first). Actions have consequences, after all, in real life and in books. The overall issue weaves in and out of these 'temporary' problems, but it's always there, pushing the protagonist onwards, forwards, towards the climax and the eventual resolution of the story.

This, then, is the very basic rhythm of a good book. 

If you ask me, that is. Do you agree? Do you see stories as a succession of tension and relief, building up to the big bang that has us sitting at the edge of our seat, turning pages with nary a blink of an eye in between? Or are you of the opinion that one can't find such a basic structure in stories? Can you think of a (good!) story that does not follow this sort of rhythm?