Tips for NaNoWriMo, Part 4

October 24, 2015July 30, 2020 / Kristi / 11 Comments

This is a continuation of the list I posted last week. Today’s tips are more specific to the words and reaching the word count. This will (probably) be the last post I make about how to prepare for NaNoWriMo, or how to make it through the month. It will not be my last post this year about NaNo, though. Oh no…not even close.

So without further ado, the rest of my suggestions for how to survive (and thrive in) NaNoWriMo:

1. Do not edit.
I used to think this was an understood “rule” of NaNo, but last year, I found out how wrong I was. Not only do some people not follow this guideline, some don’t even know about it.

This works on multiple levels. If your plot starts to go awry and you don’t want to follow it (which is sometimes the thing to do), don’t delete anything. Figure out where you want to pick it up again and start there. The rest of the text that you don’t want to use, use strikethrough on it, make the text white, or just copy and paste it to the bottom of the document to get it out of the way.

But it’s not just big changes like this that fall under this tip. If you’re typing and you realize the last two sentences aren’t what you really wanted to say, or you simply started the sentence wrong, you can just ignore it and keep going. Fix it in editing, right? That may be the smarter way to go, but it drives me crazy to finish a sentence that I know I don’t like, or leave something in I know is going to be deleted. But I don’t get rid of them. I just flag them so that I can find them later. For this kind of thing, some people may use strikethrough again. I prefer to put a bracket on the end of it. To use strikethrough, I’d have to highlight what I want to flag and click the strikethrough button. In other words, I’d have to take my hands off the keyboard. It breaks the flow. To type a bracket, I just hit the key with my right pinky and keep going. It looks like this:

“The militia members warned Lex and Leahna to be careful, and to contact them if she showed up, or if they had any way of knowing what she] where they could possibly find her.

This might not work for everyone, because it doesn’t provide a flag for the beginning of what needs changed. So when it’s time to edit later, it does probably take me a bit more work than if I had just used strikethrough on the whole thing. But it saves time during NaNo, and that’s the key here. Oh, and since I do 95% of my writing with Write or Die, strikethrough isn’t an option during the writing anyway, so I’d have to remember to flag it after I’d copied and pasted the text into my word processor. Not really helpful overall.

One more thing for this first tip (which will be the longest one, I promise). Don’t fix typos like misspelled words, accidental capitals (or lack thereof) or whatever other things we usually quickly backspace and delete. Fixing those doesn’t lose you words, but it does lose you time. The time it takes to go back and fix, but also the lost flow of writing. It can be very difficult to train yourself not to fix these things, and I often will still do it out of habit, but as much as I can, I just ignore it and keep going.

I still love this error. MS Word yelled at me a lot near the end of NaNo. Not when I tried to use spell-check, even (because why would I do that during NaNo?), but just randomly on its own. It was too overwhelmed to even show all of the red squiggly underlines that my mistakes produced.

2. Don’t go back and read.
The temptation may be high to go back and read through some of what you’ve written on previous days, but fight it. If you can’t remember something you established earlier and you need to know it in today’s writing, do your best to bluff your way through it for now. If you can’t remember the name you gave a town or person who hasn’t shown up since then, put in a placeholder name for now (see next tip). If you just want to remember what you’ve written…don’t. If you start reading back, not only will you use up time you could be writing, you may find things you want to fix, and that’s just a bad path to start down before December.

3. Use placeholder words.
Don’t take time thinking of details, if they don’t come to you quickly. For example, names for unplanned characters, towns, organizations, whatever. Previous years, I often gave characters names like Bill or Steve, though they didn’t fit in the fantasy-esque world, just so I could keep going. Or for a town, I’ll write “TOWN NAME” to keep moving (yes, every time that town name comes up). The same idea applies to time elements. If you can’t remember for sure how long ago two characters met when they’re reminiscing later, don’t go back and look it up. Not yet. Instead do something like, “Do you remember when we first saw each other SO MANY MONTHS ago?” Or for distance, if you’re not sure how far away or far apart you want something to be–“The party was SO MANY MILES out of town, so…” The caps is so it’ll stick out when you’re editing and you’ll be sure to fix it later.

Anything like this that comes up, if you don’t have a plan or can’t come up with something you’re sure about on the fly, stick a placeholder in, make it clear you need to fix it still, and move on.

4. Take notes of things to fix later.
As I’ve already said at least once, though it’s not wise to delete or fix as you go, if you’re hoping to go back and fix your draft up some day, it might be a good idea to keep a list somewhere of things to fix later. I don’t mean things like typos or even the above things. I mean bigger things.

Last year there were several times that I would be days away from a certain scene, and it would hit me that I forgot to include something crucial. Or I forgot a character that actually needed to be in the scene. Now, if I’d gone back when I realized it, yeah, I probably would’ve added more words to the scene. I may have upped my word count. But since it would most likely involve some rewriting of what was there, and some thinking of how to make what I’d forgotten fit in, it wasn’t worth doing. I kept a list in a notebook of things I wanted to remember to address later.

The same can go for plot holes you find along the way, discrepancies in timeline, or if a character changes in your mind so much by the time you’re 15 days into NaNo that the way they acted at the beginning is just all wrong now (not referring to a character who changes within the context of the story).

5. Stop in the middle of a scene
Sitting down to start writing often takes a lot of willpower. There are a lot of things out there that beckon us, because they’re easier on the brain or because we’re tired or whatever other reason. Once you sit down, the best thing you can do is just start writing. But if you ended your last writing session at the end of a scene, it can be difficult to figure out where to start this one.

That’s why any time you can, end your writing session in the middle of a scene, even the middle of a paragraph. Some people say middle of a sentence or word, but I can’t do that. It would drive me nuts.

So, say you’re approaching your planned word count goal for the day, whether that be 500, 1667, 2000, or even 5000 words, don’t let yourself get to anything that feels like a stopping point. Stop short, and you can dive back in so much more easily the next time.

6. Don’t be afraid to go off-script.
This is where planners can take a cue from pantsers. No matter how detailed or sketchy your outline is, if the writing takes you in a new direction, it’s okay to follow it. If you really don’t care for that new direction, it doesn’t feel right, it’s too different from what you want, by all means, go back to the outline. But if the new direction intrigues you–whether it be a plot twist you’d never anticipated, a character throwing a wrench in your plans, or a plethora of other things–follow it. If you can get back to the outline, great. If not, don’t be afraid to throw it out. Or fix it to follow the new direction.

The outline is just a guideline. Don’t let it feel like a noose.

7. Don’t use contractions (or do).
Not using contractions during the entire month is just one of the dirty tricks that some Wrimos use. I will give you both sides of this tip, because it has its pros and cons. On the pro side, it can pad your word count; it’s not a whole lot, but it can be enough to be worth it when you’re struggling to make the daily goal. On the con side, it makes editing a chore.

I did this trick in 2013, and one of the first things I did when I started into revision was to do a find & replace on every contraction pairing I could think of–I am, I have, she is, he is, we are, they are, do not, have not…and on and on. It took a long time, and I still didn’t get them all. The rest I found and fixed manually in my first revision read-through. Not to mention the ones that had been changed by the replace function that shouldn’t have, like, “You may not be excited, but I’m.”

Anyway, hopefully you get the picture. Again, if you’re writing for fun and know for sure you’re not going to want to fix up the draft you end up with, the downside isn’t much of one. If you have any desire to go further with it, just keep this in mind.

This goes the same for any other dirty tricks out there–they may pad your word count for now, but be sure to consider if they’ll be difficult to clear out of your draft later.

I can’t believe NaNo starts in one week. I feel like I’ve been waiting months–maybe because I started posting about it in September! I’ve spent these last few months reading others’ posts about NaNo to bolster my own enthusiasm. And I’ve been doing my best to share as much advice for NaNoWriMo as I can think of.

Here’s one more I just thought of: Two years ago, I had a really detailed outline, but didn’t know how to open the novel. I sat for long enough thinking about it after midnight came that I finally started with the narrator giving sort of a pep talk to the other characters. It was ridiculous, really, and was only about a paragraph. It was enough to get my creative juices flowing, and I was ready to dive into the actual story!

In the end, the best advice I can give is that when November 1st comes, you just start writing. Whether you’re a planner, a pantser, or somewhere in between, make sure you know how the story will begin so that when you sit down for your first writing session you don’t freeze up.

Are you as excited for NaNo to start as I am? Are you prepared? Do you have any more tips or tricks to add that I’ve forgotten?

My 2015 NaNoNovel

October 23, 2015July 5, 2019 / Kristi / 2 Comments

“Too Many Irons in the Fire”

During the Midwest’s biggest annual historical reenactment, a local blade smith named Shawn Mallory disappears. Twenty-five-year-old Darcy Preston watches her dad worry over his missing friend. Darcy looks for clues about where Shawn may have gone, but the crowd and her own obligations to the event slow her down.

The more Darcy watches and talks to the many other blacksmiths attending the event, the more she begins to suspect that Shawn’s disappearance may have been orchestrated. By the end of the week, as the busiest day of the rendezvous approaches, Darcy is convinced that her own father is in danger.

Can she convince her dad of her suspicions in time to save him?

I’ve never made a cover for a NaNoNovel before. Rather than make it official with words and such, I went simply with an image. It’s better than I’ve ever had before.

Tips for NaNoWriMo, Part 3

October 17, 2015October 19, 2015 / Kristi / 4 Comments

We’re halfway through October and I still have so many tips I want to share for how to survive (and thrive in) NaNoWriMo. So far, I’ve given tips about how to get ready for NaNo–not just planning the story, but planning your space and getting your writing tools ready. There is certainly still plenty of time for those things.

But now I am going to start sharing my tips and tricks for how to make it through the event itself. I’ve split these into two posts of 7 tips each, so here are the first 7:

1. Break up the words.
50,000 words sounds like a lot (and it is). If you plan to write every day, it’s 1667 words per day. Because life can’t stop for NaNo, as much as we may want it to, there will be things that keep us from writing some days. If you know about these things in advance, you can count those days out of the total 30. Then you could divide 50,000 by the days you have left.

So then you have 1667 (or however many you come up with) words to write per day. Even that can seem like a lot, especially if your day is really busy. That’s when you divide the words even further. 500 words isn’t so much, right? That might take you 20-30 minutes to write. So three times throughout the day, take 20-30 minutes (or less if you’re in a groove) to write 500 words. The extra 167 words may be made up during those times, if you write a bit over 500, or you could just make sure to get them in before you go to bed.

If you have a whole chunk of time, maybe an hour or two, to write, you may not need to break the words down further. But if you’re finding yourself overwhelmed by the daily word count, this might just be a useful tip for you.

2. Write in sprints.
A continuation of the previous tip, this one can be useful whether you’re writing in smaller session throughout the day, or all at once. I’ve found that I run up against a mental block when I sit down at 9 pm and think, “Okay, time to write my words for today.” Rather than just diving in and going for 1667, I will write in sprints.

All that means is that I set a time (usually 20 minutes) and write until the time is up. No stopping to check Facebook/email/whatever, no alt-tabbing to look something up, no stopping for a snack, or getting up at all. Then I take a short break, get a drink, visit the bathroom, stretch, glance at Facebook or the NaNo forums, or whatever, before starting another sprint. Single sprints can fit into work breaks, doctor visit waits, or other smallish amounts of downtime. Just set your time limit accordingly.

I strongly recommend checking out https://twitter.com/NaNoWordSprints. Throughout November (not necessarily 24/7) volunteers tweet word sprints that anyone can take part in. They announce the start time and the time limit, and sometimes a theme or prompt you can use if you need inspiration. Between sprints, people are often invited to tweet their word count for the recent sprint and maybe a sentence you liked.

Word wars are also a super effective tool for NaNo. Two or more participants agree on a start time and time limit, then write as many words for their novel as they can. Afterwards they compare word counts to see who won. I’ve seen first-hand how doing word wars throughout November can breed high word counts and/or early wins. If you can get to a write-in for your region, that’s the best way to do word wars. You can also do them online with writing buddies, or find people to war against on the forums.

I use the website writeordie.com (technically I still use the old version of the web app) for my sprints and word wars. I posted about that site yesterday, so I won’t say more about it here.

3. Reward yourself.
A helpful trick for NaNo is to set smaller milestones throughout a week, a day, or even one writing session, and find ways to reward yourself when you’ve reached them. For example, you could decide that if from Monday through Friday of one week, you wrote 10,000 words, you’d take Saturday off and relax (watching a movie, go outside) during your normal writing time. Or it could be as simple as having a pile of candy just out of reach and only letting yourself have one or two after each 20-minute writing sprint.

I will sometimes decide that once I’ve written 1667 words for the day, I’ll stop and watch 30 minutes of TV. Then I’ll see how much more I can get done before bedtime. Figure out what works for you and let that motivate you to get the words out.

4. Stay hydrated.
This one might seem unnecessary, but I know sometimes I can forget to make sure to drink plenty of water on a normal day when I have lots to do. During NaNo, especially when I have a day in which I have more time than usual to write, I can get so caught up in the sprints or wars that I forget to stop and refuel.

Snacks, coffee, and other caffeinated drinks are fuel for Wrimos, but just make sure you’re drinking plenty of water too.

5. Back up your work.
I don’t always remember this one myself, and I’ve had some scares. If you write with pencil & paper, it’s not as crucial, but we all know how fickle computers can be. Make sure you’re keeping a copy of your novel in more than one place. Some people back it up to the cloud (with Google drive, for example), while others may keep a copy on a thumb drive. Some keep several copies in every way they can think of. The key is to make sure you don’t have just the one copy.

6. Limit your time on the forums (and other online activities).
Have you been to the NaNo forums? The whole place is just this giant black hole of time sink on par with TV Tropes or Pinterest. There are boards for the genre you’re writing, for your age group, for almost any type of advice you may need…and so much more. And they are crazy busy during November.

It is really easy to go check out the forums at the beginning of your writing time and then realize half an hour has gone by. That’s why it’s important to put some sort of limit on how long you browse the forums. And really, this same thing can be said for any online time sink you may be inclined toward.

If you’re like me, your writing time may also be the first time all (or most of) the day that you’ve even had a chance to be at a computer. You may have email to check, Facebook to peruse, blog posts to read… But you have to set a limit, even if you use a timer to do so, or you’ll lose a lot of your writing time. It can also help if you can find other times during the day, time that you have at the computer (or with a mobile device) that isn’t really long enough to write. Do some of your normal online activities then, and save the rest for when your daily word count is done. Or December.

7. Don’t expect too much.
I’ve heard from people recently who were disappointed after their first NaNo, because they’d expected to end the month with a manuscript all ready to send off to publishers. That is not going to happen. Don’t go into this thinking you’re going to speed-write a novel, and it’s going to be great. I won’t rule out that possibility, but I’m sure it is super rare.

This may not be the first time you’ve heard this, but the focus during NaNo is on quantity, not quality. That right there is why many people think NaNo is pointless. If they’re expecting to end the month with 50,000 words of crap, why bother? Well, for one thing, it may not be pure crap. You may have a lot of unneeded filler, mistakes, and scenes that just didn’t work out. But you also may have the beginnings of a great novel. Perhaps it needs a complete rewrite, or maybe just a good round of revisions. But you’d have nothing if you hadn’t pushed yourself to write 50k words in a month.

Since there are still 2 weeks before November start, I’ll finish this post with another reminder to be writing every day, even now. It’s not necessary to success, but it sure can’t hurt, especially if you’re new to NaNo or haven’t been able to finish one yet. Starting cold with 1667 words on day 1 can be a real shock and even mental stumbling block. Whatever time of day you expect to be using for NaNo, start using that time now for pre-writing for your novel or (especially if you’re a pantser) simple freewriting about anything.

Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year? How are you preparing? Do you have any tips or tricks for getting through the month?

Tools for NaNoWriMo: Write or Die

October 15, 2015February 11, 2021 / Kristi / 5 Comments

Update: In the time since I made this post, Write or Die has moved on to a 3rd version. The original version that I described in this post doesn’t exist anymore. It still works generally the same way, with even a few more options, but I personally don’t use it anymore, because I don’t like it as much. Now I just write on my Neo (great for avoiding distractions) and set a timer on my phone.

I came across Write or Die for the first time a few years ago. I believe my region’s ML posted it in a list of other tools for writers. I was hooked as soon as I tried it out.

The idea behind Write or Die is that an immediate consequence for not writing is more effective than a far-off reward for writing. The biggest benefit for me is that using Write or Die helps me avoid distractions while I’m writing.

There is a downloadable software that you can buy, or you can use the web app. I’ve only ever used the web app, not because I don’t think it’d be worth buying, but because my family’s budget hasn’t afforded me the ability to buy the software yet. For that matter, I prefer the older web version to Write or Die 2. The older version is what I’ll be using to explain the tool further.

The above is what you see when you go to the link for the web app (now obsolete). There are four choices to make: word goal, time goal, consequences, and grace period. The first two are self-explanatory. You choose how long you want to write–sprint for 10-20 minutes, go for hours, etc. I usually set my word count goal higher than my average for the time I’m choosing, so I don’t quit early. (Edit: I recently discovered that if you leave the word goal at 0, the program won’t let you quit until you reach the time limit. So if you’re wanting to time your sprint, and just get as many words as you get, that’s the way to go.)

Once you start typing, if you stop to think about what to write next, you will start to incur the consequences. There are four modes for consequences: gentle, where a box pops up to remind you to keep writing if you stop for a while; normal, where some sort of obnoxious noise plays if you stop writing for a while; and kamikaze, where your words begin to be deleted if you stop writing for a while. (I’ll let you figure out the electric shock setting for yourself.)

After a few seconds of inactivity, the screen will begin to turn red in increasing shades. The amount of time you can pause in your writing before your chosen consequence kicks in is determined by the grace period you choose.

There is a pause button in the top, right corner. If you push it, a dialog box pops up and gives you as much time as you need to stop writing with no consequences (though sometimes when you unpause, the consequence is going off, so you just need to type something quickly to make it stop). You get one pause per session, so use it wisely. I save them for when my time is interrupted by a family member, or when I spill my water on my lap. I try very hard not to pause it just to think of the next thing I want to write.

When your time is up or your word count is reached, make sure you copy and paste your words to a file in a word processing program. Write or Die does not save your work. There will be a reminder before you leave the page, so it’s not something you should be extremely worried about, unless you tend to have bad luck with this sort of thing.

I love Write or Die when I’m writing on my own, or especially for word wars. The time set by fellow Wrimos can be set in the app, and I can see my time going down and words going up. I use this during almost all of NaNo, only writing without it when I have to write in a notebook for some reason, when I’m warming up for word wars, or when I am just so into what I’m writing, nothing could possibly distract me anyway.

The newer version has its merits, but I like the old version, I’m used to it, and it suits what I need it for well enough to not need to mess with the new one. If you have any interest in using Write or Die for your writing, during NaNo or any time of the year, you can play around with the features, and both versions, and figure out what works best for you, or if it works for you at all.

Why I Write

October 14, 2015January 1, 2026 / Kristi / 1 Comment

You know how writers sometimes try to come up with an answer to the question, “Why do you write?” I’m not sure if that’s a question that’s actually posed very often by an external source, or if writers simply decide to answer it themselves. Most writers can answer that question, and the answers may sound similar. Because there’s a story inside us that wants to come out, because it’s fun, because we want to experience a world that we otherwise couldn’t.

I haven’t really thought much about this question myself. No one posed the question to me, but during the last month, a particularly stressful time, I’ve had a realization about what my writing means to me.

First and foremost, I would say I write because I want to share my ideas with others. In my head, they’re no good to anyone but me. I get really excited about some things–a character with a great story, a plot twist that I just have to build a plot around, a sweet moment in time that just maybe I can contain and show to people. The best way to share these things with others is to write them down.

When I first started writing more seriously, the reason was to make up stories about characters my friends and I played in an online game. I used some of what happened to us in the game, made up my own stuff, and just had fun with it.

Now I can add a different answer, one that I never would’ve expected to apply to me. I write because it’s a stress relief. I’ll try to be brief in my explanation.

My dad is a blacksmith who demonstrates his craft at historical reenactments like this one:

At those shows, he also sells items he makes year-round. Camping equipment, fireplace tools, things like that. I work for my dad, mostly doing the books for his small business. I also go with him to some of these reenactments to sell the product.

Going to reenactments, for us, means being gone from Thursday or Friday (depending on if the show has a kids’ day on Friday or not) until Sunday night, sleeping in a truck camper, waking at 7, and being at the mercy of the weather.

In the fall, we have our heaviest concentration of events. This year, we had shows on 5 weekends in a row. This culminated in our two biggest shows of the year, back-to-back. For these two shows, it’s all hands on deck, because the crowds are huge and one person cannot accommodate the rush of people wanting to buy from us.

The show season is really busy for us, both on the weekends of said shows, and during the week when we’re recovering from one and gearing for the next. I work a lot more (normally I work 1 day every week or two), both on the weekends and during the week, and it’s just a generally stressful time.

During all of this, I’m still homeschooling my kids, and I have to bring them when I work during the week and take care of them while trying to focus on my work. I’m not home as much, so the state of the house suffers (I’m not much of a house cleaner anyway, so it gets really bad during this time), my ability to make supper every night is diminished, and school often suffers too. I don’t get a lot of breaks or “me time” while all of this is going on.

This year, I’ve developed a stronger daily habit for writing work than I ever used to have. However, it’s difficult to stick to it when in a busy time like this, and I definitely slacked on the weekends. Even when I had an hour alone before bed, I was usually too tired to focus on writing. Besides, most of my writing work needs a laptop, or at least space to spread stuff out around me. Neither of those are easy to get in the truck camper (we’re not plugged in, just parked out in a field).

However, during the week, I still usually made sure to do some work in the evening. And during the shows’ open hours, when there was a moment of quiet, I would usually be thinking through questions I had about the story I’m revising, or about the one I’m plotting for this year’s NaNo. It gave me something to focus on that was important to me, amidst the craziness. It was nice.

During some of this busy season, a misunderstanding between my husband and me led me to believe that he didn’t want me to spend nearly as much time working on my writing any more. I took something he said the wrong way and nearly fell to pieces thinking that spending my evenings (usually after kids were in bed) shut away and writing/revising/plotting was a problem for him. Before he could explain what he’d actually meant, I was in tears and blurted out something to the effect of, “What will I do to relieve the stress from all of these shows?”

Those words were as much of a revelation to me as they were to him. Neither of us had ever really realized how much my writing meant to me, beyond just trying to share my stories. I can’t say this has changed my thoughts about my writing, or even my approach. However, I am now even more inclined to make sure I get to some sort of writing work every day that I can.

I also think that perhaps, even without having realized it yet, the therapeutic aspect to writing may have been why I’ve been so much more excited about NaNo this year than usual. Or maybe it’s just because I’m obsessed.

What about you? Why do you write?

Tools for NaNoWriMo: Coffitivity

October 12, 2015October 11, 2015 / Kristi / Leave a comment

When I was in high school, I remember realizing that to be able to concentrate on my homework, I needed complete silence. Though I tried to convince my mom (and myself) that I could study in front of the TV, she never bought it, and really, neither did I.

Fast forward to now, and things have changed a little. What I’d like to do is listen to music while I’m writing, plotting, or revising, but that’s usually a bad idea. The only time it really works is when I’m doing something that doesn’t require as much focus, like transferring edits I made on my hard copy into the computer (which, frankly, barely counts as writing work anyway, but it has to be done now and then).

The lyrics are the main reason music is a problem for me. I start singing along, even in my head, and I lose what I’m doing. Music without lyrics would work–I know people who like to write to sound tracks from epic movies about adventure and magic. I don’t listen to that kind of music normally, so it would really just take too long trying to track down a playlist that I like or fits the mood of my story.

So I stay away from music most of the time, but I don’t like absolute silence either.

That’s why I use Coffitivity. I just found out about this website sometime earlier this year, but I use it almost every time I sit down to do any kind of writing work. It’s basically just the sound of a coffee house or diner. On a loop. There are three options (or more, if you want to pay), though I honestly don’t see how any one is better than the others.

This doesn’t work as well for people who write with the internet turned off to avoid distractions, but for the rest of us, it could be a crucial part of our writing environment. If you’re not sure if you need silence, noise, music, or something else, try it out now, during NaNoPrep season while you plan your novel.

Tools for NaNoWriMo: Aeon Timeline

October 6, 2015May 11, 2019 / Kristi / 1 Comment

Years ago, when I was writing fanfiction, I struggled to create a timeline for my large group of stories that stretched across many years and contained a lot of the same characters. I started on paper, and eventually tried to make something with Excel. I did end up with a format that I have since used for other writing, but it was still a pain to use and especially to make edits.

It gets really messy when the events of the story pick up.

A few years ago, at the end of NaNoWriMo, I noticed amongst the winner goodies a discount for a program called Aeon Timeline. I downloaded the free trial and spent a few days putting several stories worth of information into it. I discovered very quickly that it was exactly what I needed.

There are many settings you can play with, including having the timeline stretch out over thousands of years, or one single day. If you choose the latter, the timeline will show much more detail than with the former. I’ve read that a user can create their own calendar system in the program too, which would be useful for fantasy writers, though I haven’t used the feature myself.

You can have individual sections for different stories, different story arcs, or whatever else you may need. You can also toggle those individual arcs on or off to your liking.

“Arcs” are shown along the left.

And one of my favorite things about the program is that you can add in all of your characters and attach them to the entries. If you set up a birth date, it will even tell you how old the character is at the time of that entry. The feature is called “Entities,” because it pertains to more than just characters too. I used it to remind myself of when a particular device (listed in the picture below as “com-disc”) was introduced into my story world, because I was having a hard time remembering when it was available to be used by characters.

The lines go up to entries. The dots indicate that the character was a participant in that event (the one that’s not colored in indicates “observer” rather than “participant”).

Not every story needs a timeline. Sometimes events only happen over the course of a few days. The story I’m planning for NaNo this year will cover 9 days. I still plan to make a timeline for it as I plan this month. Even if in the end it turns out to be unnecessary, I know I’d rather have it anyway.

Though I’ve been mocked (all in fun, I assure you) for how meticulous I am with my timeline, it is crucial for keeping track of things for my group of stories that include “Pithea,” “Pursuit of Power,” “Outcast,” and other plans that will take place before, after, and during the others. There is so much to keep straight–character’s ages, how long ago a certain event happened, how long a certain event lasted, etc. So whether your writing is as complicated as mine or not, if you’ve ever felt the need for a timeline for your stories, Aeon Timeline is worth checking out.

How about you? Have you ever used Aeon Timeline before? Do you have a program you use for keeping track of a timeline?

Outlining for NaNoWriMo

October 3, 2015October 1, 2015 / Kristi / 9 Comments

If you’re just coming across this now, at the beginning of October, there’s still plenty of time to plan a story from scratch. Here is a list of posts I’ve made about NaNo, which includes starting with story seeds and beginning to develop a plot. I’m not finished with that series of posts, as I wanted to give people time to work on the various steps. Personally, I’m still in the “take a nugget of a plot and see what you can flesh out of it” stage myself. However, I think this is a good time to talk about outlining, in case anyone is ready for that step.

The Great Debate

This isn’t a new topic. Even I have discussed the debate between panters and planners more than once before. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about others’ NaNo prep on WordPress in the last month, and have come to a few conclusions about pantsing and planning: Most pantsers actually do some planning, but not enough to consider themselves planners. Most planners leave room to pants along the way, but still find that they need to have a certain amount of stuff planned in advance.

So basically, there are extreme panters–all they know at the beginning of NaNo is a basic idea like, “It’s set on Mars and involves werewolves.” Or more of a plot point like, “Everywhere she goes, Sarah hears voices. She thinks she’s schizophrenic until the things the voices say start coming true.” With no more than that basic idea, they start writing on November 1st and just let the words flow out of them.

There are extreme planners–they have a 10,000-word outline, detailed character sheets for everyone down to the MC’s hairdresser, and a notebook full of notes about the world they’ve built.

Most of us fall somewhere in between these extremes–plan a little and wing most of it, or plan a lot but still let the story change itself. And I’ve noticed that many panters think that having an outline before starting to write the story means you’re locked into what is in that outline.

The Case for Outlining

Let me just say right now that most planners do give themselves room to follow the story or characters in unexpected directions. Sometimes, I write 2/3 of an outline, then start writing, knowing that I’ll veer off the outline before I get to the end anyway. Or I’ll change the outline to suit the new direction, or throw it out completely. Not too long ago I took a little offense at a blogger who implied that pantsing was creative, and writing from an outline wasn’t. Don’t take my tone to be too severe here, but I’d just like to state that writing fiction is creating, no matter what way you go about it. Simply because I do more of my creating before I start the actual writing by no means makes it less creative.

And let me just put this out there–the more you plan before you write, the more intricate your story can be. You can weave subplots together, work in foreshadowing more easily, and find plot holes before you’ve written them into the story. Outlining doesn’t make your story perfect, but I do believe it adds more potential for depth.

One more reason that I find planning to be important is that if I don’t write down ideas as I have them, and get them into place in the story, I will simply forget them. Even for this post, when I was falling asleep last night, I had an idea for a random plot point for the example up above. I really liked it, even if it was just an illustration. By this evening, I’d forgotten it completely.

Types of Outlines

1.) Perhaps the first thing that comes to most people’s minds when they hear the word “outline” is the formal outline. You know the kind–with the roman numerals and indentation and such. They provide some scene organization and truly, if this works for you, great! Though they always made writing research projects easier, I still disliked making these in school. And a few years ago, I tried to make one for my NaNo project anyway. About 1/4 of the way through the outline, I decided it was more difficult than it was worth and switched to my normal way of outlining.

2.) My outlines usually look like this. Actually, they’re normally handwritten, but this one I typed was easier to share. I simply write plot point after plot point, events as I want them to happen. Sometimes a single line in the outline is so broad that it takes several pages to write that plot point. Sometimes the story flows quickly through several pages of outline. The important thing is that I’m getting down, in order, what I want the story to look like. And sometimes the details don’t require much extra thought during the writing (which, by the way, can be really helpful during NaNo…less slowing down to think of what else should happen means I get the words out faster). But sometimes the outline only tells me that “MC grows up after the important thing happens at the beginning of the story,” and I end up spending several thousand words making up things that happened to him while he was growing up.

3.) I recently learned about worksheets and templates for outlining. I knew of them for characters, so it makes sense that they’d exist for outlining too. If you think you’d benefit from having a template, you may try doing a web search for one that works for you. From what I can tell, there are those that give you lines to fill in an introduction, several plot points with supporting material, a climax, and a conclusion. Or there are some that show the image of a story (sort of like a mountain) and tell you to fill in the points along the way. If you’re new to fiction writing or even just new to outlining, perhaps the structure would help.

4.) Another way of outlining or plotting I have heard of, but never tried, is making a plot board. Some sort of board on which you place individual cards, post-its, whatever, each one of which is a different plot point or detail. You can color code it (which to my thinking would come in handy to show different subplots), see it all at a glance, and move points around as you need to. Something like this can probably be done on different mediums, and there are probably online that you can find better information on this than I can provide.

I personally plan to try outlining in Scrivener this year. I still have the free trial, though it won’t last all through November. But I’m still testing out different aspects of the program to decide if it’s worth buying. Since you can create a new scene for each outline point and then write directly into the scene space, thus organizing your story as you write, it seems like a nice tool…I’m just not sure how it will work for me in practice.

During October

Wherever you may be in your NaNo prep, I strongly advise that you start gearing up for NaNo now (if you haven’t already been). It’s not that it’s impossible to dive right in on Nov. 1 and win, but there are certainly ways to make it easier. As I’ve mentioned before, making writing part of every day now will make needing to do that in November easier. Even if you only spend 15 minutes per day free writing or working on novel planning, you can start building the habit now.

Are you gearing up for NaNo too? Do you have a different style of outlining?

Tips for NaNoWriMo, Part 2

October 1, 2015January 25, 2016 / Kristi / Leave a comment

Happy October! For those of us who are planning to participate in NaNoWriMo, October should be a very important month. (And I see by the WordPress Reader under the tag of NaNoWriMo that I am not alone in this thinking. Seriously, for the last month, I’ve been obsessively reading every post on WordPress that has been tagged as such, and it really exploded today!) There is a lot to prepare in advance, and I don’t just mean the story. Let’s face it, planning a story is only part of what one should to do prepare for NaNo.

Today, I’m going to share some more tips for what you could do throughout this month to make sure you’re ready to write on November 1st.

A few weeks ago, I shared some ideas for these pre-NaNo months that could help anyone who was planning to participate get ready. All of those tips still work for this month too. Honestly, if you’re new to NaNoWriMo especially, I suggest you learn what works for you now, because you’re not going to want to spend your first few days of writing trying to figure out where the best place is to write, or when you can get to it, or other things like that.

1. Consumables
NaNoWriMo is not the time for sleep. Caffeine can be a crucial ingredient for the month, so make sure you’re stocked up on your favorite poison. I don’t care for coffee, so I usually drink cappuccino (the kind from a powder). I drink iced tea, even in cold months, but it’s normally decaf. Last year someone suggested switching to regular tea for November, so I may try that too. But for my birthday this year, I got a Keurig machine. Strange for someone who doesn’t like coffee, I know, but since I discovered that I rather enjoy flavored coffees, I’ve gone kind of crazy for it. So I have a lot of that stocked up for November.

More than beverages, though, many people find that they want to snack more during NaNoWriMo. I know not everyone is as self-indulgent as I, so if you’re more health conscious, you may want to skip the chocolate. Personally, though, I have plans to go to some stores on November 1 in the afternoon and buy up a bunch of post-Halloween-sale candy. Chips are also a staple for some, or any other snack-type foods you like.

2. Writing Tools
This may seem kind of obvious, but there are plenty of things that you may assume you’d remember, or you’d have available, but won’t be able to find when the time comes. Make sure you have any notebooks you may need, pens or pencils, binders, planners, whatever physical items you use for writing. Put them all in one place and even contained in a transportable bag, box, etc. if your location for writing tends to change (either within the house or to coffee shops, library, or friend’s house). I would advise that even if you are a true computer writer and don’t use pen/paper for any stage of writing that you still carry a notebook and pen or pencil with you during November. It’s a good back up in case anything goes wrong with electronic devices, and this is not a time to risk that.

In the virtual sense, make sure you know what programs or apps you want to use and have them on any computers or devices you may use. If you’ve heard a lot about a program but haven’t tried it yet (like Scrivener or Evernote), download it now and play around with it before November. During NaNoWriMo is no time to be trying to learn a new software. I have some more virtual tools that I use for writing that I’ll share during the rest of this month too.

3. Writing Buddies
I’ve mentioned before that now is the time to be finding your home region on the NaNoWriMo website. More than that, this is a good time to start scheduling your month for local events, if you can make it to those. I won’t say that it’s a necessity to attend, as I would be a hypocrite if I did. I’ve never been to a write-in, just the last few years’ kick-off parties. Write-ins are usually 45 minutes away, and I’m a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom, so it’s hard to get away. This year, though, my local library, which is about 5 minutes away, is going to have weekly write-ins, so I’m working out plans to at least go to the first one and see how it goes.

Whether you go to in-person events or not, it can be nice to connect with others in your area, even if only online. Introduce yourself in the forums, see if there is an online chat you can join in on, and just be part of the community. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with the community if you let yourself, which is why I mostly stick to my region’s forums, and don’t venture much into the main forums.

Something else to be thinking about now is how you might best go about doing some word wars once November starts. (Word wars are where you and at least one other person agree on a set amount of time, usually 10-15 minutes, start writing at the same time, and compare your word count at the end.) Last year I was part of my first word wars, and let me tell you, they are very motivating. They were all virtual, taking place over Skype in a group some people from my region created. Almost every day there were word wars going on in the evening, and most of the Wrimos who were there regularly finished NaNo at least a week early, citing word wars as the reason why.

If you know people in person who are also doing NaNo, they’d be the obvious choice for word war competitors. However, you can usually find someone to go head-to-head with in your region, at write-ins esp, or if all else fails, there’s a forum for that: http://nanowrimo.org/forums/word-wars-prompts-sprints

4. Involve Other Senses
So number 1 kind of covered taste, but that’s not really what I mean. I’ve mentioned in a previous post about how the time leading up to November is a great time to discover what kind of writing atmosphere you need (if you don’t already know). Do you require absolute silence? Some kind of white noise? Music? The last one is what I’m referring to right now.

Some people create a playlist for every story. I’ve read about people who will find music that matches the theme of their story, make a playlist from it (even if just on YouTube), and listen to it all month. Then, when November is over and they want to go back later and either finish the novel or revise it, they can listen to that music again, and it will put them right back in the mood. I’ve never done this, I think because music doesn’t work that way in my head. Or maybe it’s because I’m too lazy to spend time tracking down what music would fit my novel (though this year, I may just have the perfect music, given the subject matter).

One year, I did spend the whole month going back and forth between these two playlists: D&E NaNo songs, NaNoMusical songs

Whatever your taste in music is, an alternative to creating an audio scene for your story is creating an olfactory scene. Scent memory is said to be very powerful. Go to the store and smell all the candles or all the scented wax (if you have or are willing to buy the wax melter to go with it). Think of your story, what it’s about, where it’s set, who the main character(s) is/are. Is it a romance? Maybe something flowery or sensual. Is it set in a tropical location? Something with coconut or tropical fruit, perhaps. There are outdoor scents if your story involves a lot of forest or other outdoor scenes. Not every story lends itself easily to a scent, but pick something that smells right and have it burning/melting near you while you write all month. Then later, you may just be able to immerse yourself back into the book by activating that scent again.

5. To Sprint or Not To Sprint
NaNoWriMo begins at midnight on November 1. This year, that falls on Saturday night/Sunday morning. If you’re the kind who stays up late, or can make an exception for one night, you can start writing right at midnight and get some words under your belt before going to bed. It’s purely a mental trick, getting a jump start on the day’s word count, but many people love to do the midnight sprint.

If you read my first Tips post, hopefully you have been getting used to how you like to write–what format you prefer, what items you’ll need, what kind of writing environment you desire. If not, there is still time to do that. The best advice I can give is to start writing every day right now. Whether that writing is pre-writing for your NaNoNovel (brainstorming, outlining, character creation) or just free writing to get in the habit, it’s a great idea to warm up before November starts, and not jump in cold.

Are you considering NaNoWriMo? Give me a shout if you’re participating, and share what you do in October to get ready. Feel free to add me as a buddy on the site, though let me know you came from here somehow.

My NaNoWriMo

September 27, 2015May 11, 2019 / Kristi / 3 Comments

I am going to do something a little different with this post than I normally do. Not that talking about my writing is all that different, but I’ve never done so to this extent. As I prepare for NaNoWriMo and do my best to help others prepare, I have been purposely vague on my own history. I try not to spend too much time talking about my own writing, because that’s not the point of these NaNo prep posts.

I do post daily about the writing work I’ve done for the day, because this blog was originally intended to keep myself accountable. I’ve since expanded it into a place to share writing tips, but I still post at the end of every day in which writing work of some kind happened, to check in. However, they’re usually short posts with not much detail (or a bit of detail with no context).

Today, I am going to share my personal NaNo history. If you don’t really care about my personal NaNo history, I won’t be offended if you simply don’t read on. (I probably won’t even know.)

I first heard about NaNoWriMo on a forum for Ragnarok Online fanfiction. The moderator mentioned it, and I ran to go check it out. I decided immediately to join, even though it was already October. At the time, I had written a good amount of fanfiction for the aforementioned game, and was stalled on the 5th (and last) in a series of novella-length stories. I also had a brand new fic I wanted to work on, but needed to finish the other first. NaNoWriMo gave me a brand new motivation to push past the blocks. I was so excited, I didn’t even want to wait until November. So I started on October 21st and wrote for 30 days. I finished the book I’d been stuck on in short order and spent most of the month writing “Outcast.”

There was no region near me, so I was stuck in the “Indiana: Elsewhere” category, and most of the people were from way north or south of me. There was no real hope for much social interaction, but that didn’t bother me. I’m pretty terrified of people anyway.

I ended the month with 50,288 words, and though “Outcast” wasn’t finished, I did finish it within the next year. It’s still one of my favorite stories ever, and I can’t wait until it gets its turn at being re-set in the world of Pithea.

“Outcast” is a story about sin and redemption, losing everything to gain much more, and the nature of true friendship. More information about the story can be found here.

I skipped 2008. Though I agonized over my decision all month (or at least the first few weeks, until I decided it would be too late to start anyway), I’m pretty sure this was the point when I was starting to transition away from writing fanfiction, but couldn’t really move on from those stories.

In 2009, though, I was raring to go again. I had worked for several months on building a world in which I could set my fanfics–original, but still accommodating the stories I’d already written. With that new world in mind, I wrote “Pursuit of Magic.”

I’m pretty sure I was still in the Indiana: Elsewhere region, though I think I may have been a little involved in the region of a town not far from me too.

I wrote 22 words over the goal, finishing one day early. This time, I did actually write the end of the story. However, I had a lot of gaps in the last third of the story. A lot of areas that I hadn’t fleshed out and didn’t want to slow down to decide what should happen. Still, I had a final scene that I really loved, so that was something.

In 2010 and 2011, a combination of not having much inspiration in the fiction area and having a young child, while also homeschooling an older one, gave me enough reason to sit NaNo out. I wish now that I’d at least tried those years, as well as 2008. I didn’t really know back then how to generate ideas, so without any readily available, I truly didn’t think I could do NaNo.

Following on the heels of two years off, 2012 was a rough one. The world I had started creating back in 2009 hadn’t worked out, and I’d officially decided that my fanfictions–the characters, plots, and future ideas–needed to be laid to rest. It was difficult, but I did have an idea for a new story. It wasn’t much of an idea, but I went with it. I don’t even remember if I had an outline, but I know the plot I had in mind didn’t extend very far. And during the month, I kept playing with the setting and changing things.

Fort Wayne, a city near me, had gotten its own region in (I think) 2010, so I had a region closer to home to join. I considered going to some events, but in the end, I was still too shy. I did join in on discussions on my region’s forum though.

It was messy, but I ended the month with 51,288 words, crossing the finish line on the 27th. I had barely any semblance of a story, and certainly not a full novel. I haven’t touched that story since then, as I’m quite sure I was forcing the idea anyway. If anything good came of that month’s writing, it was the understanding that I really need to plan more before November.

The best part about 2012 was that on the main NaNo website, there was a link to NaNoToons, a daily webcomic that runs during November (sometimes starting partway through October). And the day before November started, the guy who made the webcomic posted a link to the first episode of a musical he and some others had made about NaNoWriMo. By the end of the month, I was hooked on Debs & Errol and involved in a whole new world of geekiness, and the rest is history.

In 2013, NaNoWriMo took on a new excitement for me. I had hit on a new idea for a story world that would work for my fanfictions. Instead of trying to simply alter the game world they’d been created in to make it original, yet similar, I realized it would be better to build a new world from the ground up. I started with one basic element around which I, along with my husband, have crafted the world that I use now. I spent a lot of the year figuring out how things would work, and how to fix problems in my existing stories to make the basic plots still work in the vastly different world.

From my fanfiction days, I had a core group of 5 stories (the series I mentioned back during the 2007 section). Most of the other plans I had, and many of the characters, stemmed from that series. So it was the first thing that needed to be converted to this new world. Originally, I really thought I’d just be able to go through and edit it to fit and to be one novel instead of 5 shorter stories.

Somewhere along the way, I realized how ridiculous that notion was. Not only was there too much that needed changing, but I had grown so much as a writer in the 6ish years since I’d written them. It was much smarter to rewrite completely. So I picked out what I wanted to keep and started plotting a new story. I boiled five 20k-30k word stories into one story in 4 parts. And then I proceeded to have the best November I’d had so far, writing what has since been titled “Pithea.”

I went to my first local event in 2013–the kickoff party. My husband went with me, and I got to meet some of the other Wrimos from my area. I kept thinking I’d get to a write-in, but it’s hard to get out alone with kids and a husband who works full time. Going to the kickoff was a huge step for me anyway.

I hit 50k words on Nov 14 that year, and ended the month with 90,228 words total. I chalked the amazing numbers up to having a lot planned for the story. I’d been working with these characters for almost 10 years, after all, and the story itself was a rewrite. The story wasn’t finished, but I wrote the rest over the next few months. In February 2014, I finished my first ever novel draft.

“Pithea” is the story of two teenagers who find their places in life while growing up in a world filled with Power and Madness. More information about the story can be found here.

This brings us to last year. I went into November with a well-developed outline. I was writing a story that runs somewhat parallel to “Pithea,” with some characters and even a few scenes that coincide. I planned out 2014’s novel earlier in the year, while revising “Pithea,” so I knew for sure what the characters were up to when they showed up in “Pithea.”

Also, my 2014 novel was a rewrite of my 2009 novel. However, it was set in a different world from the one I’d tried to craft in 2009. Some basic mechanics were different enough that a lot of the plot had to be gutted and rebuilt. So though it’s a rewrite of very broad plot points, it was a vastly different story. Even the final scene from 2009 ended up needing rewritten, thus losing the big moment that I’d loved. By the end of the month, I had a finished draft of “Pursuit of Power.”

There was so much different about last year. I went to the kick-off party again, with my whole family. I joined a Skype group with other people from my region, where we proceeded to have word wars most of the month (my first word wars). I blogged about my progress every day, which was kind of fun–recapping the day’s story progress and how I’d fit the writing time into my day.

I broke my single-day word count record (which was probably in the area of 6000) with 10,516 words on the 15th. I also tried a challenge set forth on the forums to write 3k in 1 hour. I wrote a little over 3000, but I didn’t enjoy the experience. I crossed the 50k mark on November 12. At the end of the month, I weighed in with 107,234 words. 2014 is the first year I ever finished NaNo with a completed manuscript. Unlike its predecessor, “Pursuit of Power” was truly finished, without huge gaps of story that I’d have to fill in later.

“Pursuit of Power” follows Alexander Surett, who is messing with forces he doesn’t understand in an attempt to find the truth behind his father’s death. More information about the story can be found here.

I always say I learn something new every year during NaNoWriMo. Some of it is about what to do, some about what not do to. I’m looking forward to seeing what I’ll learn this year, though I suspect a lot of that is already happening right now, with the series of blog posts I’ve been making about preparing for NaNo, and my own work to that effect.

There’s no reason to think that the virtual strangers who stop by my blog care to read so much about my past experiences with NaNoWriMo. Maybe it will provide some insight, excitement, or simply entertainment for someone though.

What is your history with NaNoWriMo? Do you love it or hate it? Feel free to share your own thoughts on the matter.