Scott R. Welvaert

I’ve been away for a few months with deadlines, family stuff and a few sales opportunities that I might write about later, but I’ve had some writing craft things in the hopper for a while and wanted to get them on paper, er pixels. And with National Novel Writing Month (NANOWRIMO) right around the corner, I figured what a great time to knock out two things at once!

I’m part of a novel workshopping group and the topic comes up quite a bit about process and regimen. For everyone, it is different. I just had a convo with another writer colleague and our text exchange got a bit punchy, but I crave convos like that. It’s a thrill to talk about process, hear new ideas, and giving them a whirl to see if they’ll work for me. But for NANOWRIMO, it’s best to ideate and prepare before the onslaught of the draft begins.

But how do you prepare for this? Great question. Here’s a few tactics I use to prepare for drafting, both for NANOWRIMO and beyond:

Pluck an idea from the ether.

For me, the idea of a story or novel comes from an intriguing thought, a fun plot, or a very engaging character. For example, an astronomy lecture on the possibility of an infinite universe, aka the multiverse, in college inspired The Ghost of the Wicked Crow. It fermented a couple of characters, a plot, a variety of multiversal settings, and a hook of hopping genres from book to book. The key here is to find something that interests you that you can explore, tie some characters to it and start building from there.

Speed date your characters.

It sounds corny, but I flesh out full-on character studies like a theater director would for a play. Like speed dating. Learn their names, what they look like, their age, strengths, flaws, likes, dislikes, ticks, and most importantly, their goals. This just lays the framework for fleshing out the characters and keeping them consistent throughout the story. Because it can really throw off your audience if your main character (MC) acts one way for five chapters, only to act differently in chapter six because the plot needed them to act that way. I’m even such a nerd that I “cast” my characters using different actors and actresses to visualize them better.

Take a walk in your world.

You may also want to lock in your setting(s). Where will the characters visit? What does it look like? Is it like the world you live in now? Or is it a fantasy/sci-fi setting? How many settings are there? Describe them. Highlight areas important for your characters. Highlight how things work in this world: traveling, purchasing goods, lore, etc. For example, for The Ghost of the Wicked Crow, I made a fictional town in Minnesota called Alton (which metaphorically was trying to capture the everyday suburban nature of ‘all towns.’) and a fictional Earth that never strayed from the pirate era of the 18th century. Capture these details so it will be easy to incorporate them into your writing. The key here is to set the scene, so it’s easier to imagine the setting and capture it in your writing.

Just the beats, please.

Once you have your idea, your characters and setting, it’s a good time to look at the structure of your story and map out the major beats and bones to your story. To help, look up some of the more common story structures used, like Save the Cat, 27-Chapter, Story Circle, etc. Those standard structures can be a lifesaver to help you chunk out these major beats to your story. What I’ve seen from writers going through our workshop group is most can get an elevator pitch, and intro and an ending, but the “in-between” lacks focus. This is where a beats outline can pay dividends, because the middle of your story will be the hardest to deliver tension to your audience. If you don’t have a rough plan for this, your NANORIMO experience will sag in the middle.

Dammit, read the room.

It’s also important to lock down your audience early if you plan on trying to sell and publish your book. One of the biggest turnoffs in the industry is to write your story to an adult audience but try to sell it to a middle grade audience, or young adult audience. Each audience has different reading levels to write to. But even worse, it affects the way you craft the story both in language and complexity. Find your audience and write to that audience. It’s the quickest way to ensure you’re not confusing readers.

Pitch me baby one more time.

We all know what an elevator pitch is. You have an elevator ride with your prime reader and only 60 seconds to sell them on your book. It’s important to draft out this pitch early, because it’s a canary in a coal mine to show you if your story has legs. If you can’t summarize and convince someone in 60 seconds that your story is worth reading, then you may need to work on the elements above before you get started. So, craft a succinct 500-750 character “elevator pitch,” to not only to test the idea with friends and colleagues but also to help guide you on creating your outline and eventually drafting your manuscript.

Put some meat on dem bones (Extra Credit).

If you want to go into NANOWRIMO with a full kit and make it easier for yourself, take the high-level plot arc from above and add some meat to it. Many of the story structures I mentioned in that section often come with detailed chapter structures with goals and beats in them already. Flesh out your beats more than the high level. Document what exactly needs to happen in that chapter. What do your characters need to do? What do they need to say? Set goals for your writing in each chapter. Outline it out with more gusto, so that when November starts, you have a documented map of what your writing needs to accomplish, rather than that specter of a white, blank page, or screen.

So, that’s my take on how to prepare yourself prior to drafting your novel—either for NANOWRIMO or not. Can you write a novel without doing these things? Sure. But it will be harder and lead to frustration, eventually. It’s like building a house. You can’t just buy some lumber and just start constructing, you need to have a few blueprints laid out to guide you. And let me know what you think about this preparatory process. I want to see other ideas out there too. There’s no true easy button to do this and everyone could use new ideas to try.
So, good luck in November and let me know how it goes!