NaNoWriMo, Not For Me

REVISED REPOST but still important...

We are now on day 2 of the NaNoWriMo and there are a lot of authors out there just banging out words. According to the NaNoWriMo group, it is about word count and that is the only thing important. They argue that you can always go back and edit later. Personally, this is the worst thing I could ever recommend to any author, especially if you are trying to write a book. As the NaNoWriMo people describe, your goal is to have a 50,000 word "NOVEL" finished in a month. Unfortunately, what most end up with is 50,000+ words of complete drivel.

For many, this is a chance to feel motivated to finally get to writing that story they always wanted to write. From January 1 through October 31, authors, for some reason, found every excuse not to write. They procrastinated. They whined. They complained. Ahh, but November 1 rolls around and NOW they are going to write that amazing novel they talked about during the Rose Parade so many months ago. That's fine. Be motivated! Writers need to be motivated. But when it comes to NaNoWriMo, there are other issues. 

I heard one author who has been doing NanoWriMo for 10 years. She openly stated that she has still not gone back and editing any of the "Novels" she finished. But she has a lot of words written.

So what was the point? 

Among writing communities, there are also competitions where authors "SPRINT" during a set time block. Again, the idea is to write fast and worry about the editing later. And again, I would argue that this might not be the best approach.

Yes, we have to increase your writing speed. If all you can accomplish in a single day of writing is 5-6 pages of writing (and I am talking in a day) then you are probably not doing much. But if you are just going through the motions and writing fast WITHOUT thinking, this is not going to help you.
  
You need a plan of action. No, I am not saying you have everything scripted out in a full detailed outline, but you need to have a goal in mind for that day's writing. What is the goal of the chapter? What do the readers need to learn about the characters and the plot for that day. Take 10-15 minutes and figure this out.

I would say, yes. Speed writing and sprints is great for brainstorming. It is a chance for authors to purge their brains of a lot of ideas and let the good ideas surface to the top. In terms of quality work, this is not the best approach.

I don't know about you, but I live a busy life. If I blow three hours of writing and then have to go back and probably rewrite the whole thing, that first block of time was a waste. So the question is, why do people do this? Are there any good benefits.

There is another issue that many of these writers, I do believe, seem to be missing. If you do decide to be a professional writer and not a hobby writer, you will have deadlines. Your editor needs that manuscript by a certain time. Art departments are needing those Art Fact Sheets to complete their work. You cannot simply create excuses as to why you aren't meeting those deadlines. I hate to say it, but if you are someone who really only has this one month in you, every year, to be motivated to write, this might not be the career for you. 

NaNoWriMo - Good or Bad

It's that time of year when a lot of writers dive on board to do NaNoWriMo. For those of you not familiar with this program, the goal is to write a novel in one month. You set word count goals and just write like crazy!

While this is a motivating factor for a lot of writers, I have heard and seen, time and time again, that the goal of just getting words on the page becomes counter productive to writing quality work. Sure, the NaNoWriMo people will proclaim the number of people who published a novel from this, but when you really dig into it, you see that the focus on word count is missing the point.

So, if you ask me, is NaNoWriMo a good program, I personally would say no, or at least in the present way it is done.

Here is the biggest problem with the program. It is all about word count. They openly say that it doesn't matter of the writing is good or bad, so long as you get the words on the page. They go on to say, you can edit later. And this is the problem! The odds are that many of the days, you will write material that will likely be dumped. Consider that time wasted.

Sure, you might want to argue that it "got you thinking" or "writing even bad material is practice" but the reality of the business of publishing is that we have deadlines and wasting an entire day of writing garbage is not going to get you anywhere.

I do think setting deadlines for yourself during this month is great! But, if you are going to do this, make sure the material you write is quality work.

Just my point of view!

How Is That NaNoWriMo Going? Don't forget to edit

We are now 9 days into the NaNoWriMo so it is time to remind authors, it is not just about cranking out word count, it is also about creating a GOOD story. I have two questions for you, "Have you been editing? and Have you been thinking about your story?"

The problem with blitz writing like this is that authors are simply barfing words on the page and not thinking about what those words are saying. The other issue is that the authors are not taking the time to go back through and edit that writing as they go.

I fully understand what these authors will say. "I am going to go back and fix those problems after I get the story written. While this sounds like a great idea, the amount of work that author is going to face is not worth the effort. Sure the words are there, but now you are faced with characters in conflicts that don't make sense, plot twists that you created on the 9th and then completely changed directions on the 16th of the month. Transitions that don't make sense. The list goes on and on.

Making global changes in a story is infinitely harder than simply going through and fixing things as you write. Just remember that everything in your story is connected together. You will see a chain reaction with the changes you make. Tweaking something in chapter 8 requires adjusting the story in chapters 1-7 to accommodate that tweak. And the things that happen after that will also experience a domino effect. But also remember that is just one change and not a series of changes. When you adjust one element of a plot it will require the other elements to also adjust.

You are only 9 days in, but I would STRONGLY encourage taking the next couple of days, after you barf those words on the page, to go back and read what you have written. I can promise you, when December 1 rolls around, you will be much happier with the results.

It's NaNoWriMo Time Again

This is a repost from earlier. I still like to remind people as they get ready to crank out that Great American novel in the coming month!

It's that time of year. The month when huge numbers of wannabe authors plan on writing that full novel in November. While the NaNoWriMo campaign is great for getting people interested in writing and maybe kicking a few in the butt to finally do something, there are a few things I should remind you of.

First of all, the idea behind this is just to write and get words on a page. Although this approach is great for speed writing, it is pretty much violating the guidelines in the writing process of planning and thinking about what you put on the page. If you do not take the time to have a rough plan in mind for that day's worth of writing, you will end up with a ton of edits by the end of the month.

Secondly, the writing process does recommend that a writer spends a lot of time editing as the writing progresses. You don't wait until the end to check things over, but check it as you go. Again NaNoWriMo emphasizes to not look back and just keep going. Unfortunately, without editing as you go, there will be worse problems down the line. Your story will head off in the wrong direction and then you will spend countless hours trying to get your characters back on track. You will contradict yourself, You will create scenes that are not necessary.

At the end of each day, take the time to edit the stories. Look over what you wrote. Think about how the material fits with what you did the day before and how it fits with what is going to happen next. If you are off track, plan on that next chapter or block of writing to start where it needs to be and not necessarily where you left off. That screwed up chapter can be put in a stack of "this needs to be reworked."

Finally, the biggest issue with the NANoWriMo is that it emphasizes the amount of words you are writing daily. It is all about word count. The problem here is that authors are not really thinking about the story. Let me give you an outside story that might stress why this is not the best approach.

My wife's grandfather used to be amazing at Blackjack. This guy could sit at a table and make a huge amount of money. But, he also had two rules he operated by. The first was, if he lost three hands in a row, he got up and quit. End of story. The second is the one that applies to the writers. He would say that if he ever thought during play "If I bet this amount or win this hand, I can get back what I lost." he would then get up. The reason is he was thinking about the money and not thinking about the game.

For writers, if all you are thinking about is word count or page count, you are missing the most important piece of the puzzle. The story!

This program has potential, but I will tell you, if you ignore the rules of the writing process, then you are dooming yourself to serious problems down the line!

NaNoWriMo Warnings

It's that time of year. The month when huge numbers of wannabe authors plan on writing that full novel in November. While the NaNoWriMo campaign is great for getting people interested in writing and maybe kicking a few in the butt to finally do something, there are a few things I should remind you of.

First of all, the idea behind this is just to write and get words on a page. Although this approach is great for speed writing, it is pretty much violating the guidelines in the writing process of planning and thinking about what you put on the page. If you do not take the time to have a rough plan in mind for that day's worth of writing, you will end up with a ton of edits by the end of the month.

Secondly, the writing process does recommend that a writer spends a lot of time editing as the writing progresses. You don't wait until the end to check things over, but check it as you go. Again NaNoWriMo emphasizes to not look back and just keep going. Unfortunately, without editing as you go, there will be worse problems down the line. Your story will head off in the wrong direction and then you will spend countless hours trying to get your characters back on track. You will contradict yourself, You will create scenes that are not necessary.

At the end of each day, take the time to edit the stories. Look over what you wrote. Think about how the material fits with what you did the day before and how it fits with what is going to happen next. If you are off track, plan on that next chapter or block of writing to start where it needs to be and not necessarily where you left off. That screwed up chapter can be put in a stack of "this needs to be reworked."

Finally, the biggest issue with the NANoWriMo is that it emphasizes the amount of words you are writing daily. It is all about word count. The problem here is that authors are not really thinking about the story. Let me give you an outside story that might stress why this is not the best approach.

My wife's grandfather used to be amazing at Blackjack. This guy could sit at a table and make a huge amount of money. But, he also had two rules he operated by. The first was, if he lost three hands in a row, he got up and quit. End of story. The second is the one that applies to the writers. He would say that if he ever thought during play "If I bet this amount or win this hand, I can get back what I lost." he would then get up. The reason is he was thinking about the money and not thinking about the game.

For writers, if all you are thinking about is word count or page count, you are missing the most important piece of the puzzle. The story!

This program has potential, but I will tell you, if you ignore the rules of the writing process, then you are dooming yourself to serious problems down the line!

The NaNoWriMo: Great Motivation, but...

Well, it is now the month of the November and it is once again, the time when tons of people participate in the NaNoWriMo to complete that first novel! Every day, they log into their computers and bang out those words to meet their daily, weekly and certainly their monthly totals. But...

The NaNoWriMo is one of many approaches when it comes to writing. The approach is pretty simple. Write like crazy and get those words on the page. You can always go back and edit it later on. This speed approach to writing is one that does have benefits. By taking this approach, you don't bog yourself down with thinking too hard about your story. For a lot of writers out there, their writing speed and production really decreases due to spending too much time "thinking" about their stories. They will often write a small scene and then spend hours and yes, even days, contemplating their next move, or thinking if that really sounded right.

I do think that approach works great for brainstorming or for getting over a small little roadblock in your story. But, it is here that I do believe the NaNoWriMo misses the mark and potentially can create more problems than it is worth. 

As I said, that speed approach works great for those smaller sections of your story. Heck, you can probably do one or two chapters that way. But when you write the entire book with that approach, the editing can really become nightmarish for an author. Too often, the edits that you start doing will extend through the entire story. Moving around that amount of material, or making those global changes can become a huge process. In a lot of cases, changes that you make in one place can even end up contradicting things you did in other chapters, simply because you weren't thinking about the story.

As an agent who does like to assist authors with their editing, I have really found that helping out "as the author writes" can be much more productive because we can catch those mistakes BEFORE the issue gets out of control. 

There are ways to make the NaNoWriMo more productive for an author, but it does take the month of October (or sooner) to get ready for the month of November. Prior to Nov. 1, the author can simply go through and completely (and yes, I do mean completely) outline and plot out the entire story. Know where that story is going to, think about the potential issues, plan out the conflicts and the solutions! When it is time to write, you don't end up with those frustrations of trying to figure out what you are going to do next.

If you don't want to do the entire prep before hand, you can always break it down into smaller batches. Try planning it out in week increments, or, you can even take each evening and prep what is going to go into the next day's worth of work. 

I would also recommend that as you go, after you finish that day's worth of writing, you add in some time to edit that work. Really go over it and work out those plot issues or character flaws. You don't want to get going on the story and start following a flaw in the plot because you were just concerned with the word count. 

Look, don't get me wrong! As the title of this post states, I do believe the NaNoWriMo is a great motivational tool for writers. It does get a few of you off your butts and to force you to stop making all of those excuses for why you didn't write. Keep that energy up. But please understand, the outcome of this month, might not be all that you hope, UNLESS you take the time to think through what you are doing.

Oh, and one final thing. I Tweeted this last week, but please, do not start sending out these projects on Dec. 1 thinking the story is ready to go for an editor or agent. Editing WILL BE REQUIRED!

A NaNo No No

Like many agents and editors, I see both the positive and negative sides of the http://www.nanowrimo.org/ program. Unfortunately, I see more negative elements than I do positive sides of the program.

First of all, I do want to say, I think it is a great inspiration for people to finally get off their butts and write the darn thing they spend all of their time complaining about when they don't do it. Finally, these authors have no excuse and will get motivated to do something. With that said, that is where I have to personally draw the line when it comes to the program.

Now, unlike many agents and editors, who tend to complain the most about the number of bad submissions we will all see in December (which is a hassle), my bigger issue is the lack of true emphasis on the writing process that SUCCESSFUL authors know and use religiously. It is the writing process that tends to yield the best final products and prevents so many headaches for authors that think it is a waste of time. I should also note that the writing process is not something we only use in the academic field. This is something that works in all levels and areas of writing.

First of all, the word process is key. According to the random "Online dictionary":

n. pl. proc·ess·es (prssz, prss-, prs-sz, prs-)


1. A series of actions, changes, or functions bringing about a result: the process of digestion; the process of obtaining a driver's license.

2. A series of operations performed in the making or treatment of a product: a manufacturing process; leather dyed during the tanning process.

3. Progress; passage: the process of time; events now in process.

Now, let us look at the first two definitions in particular. In both cases we are looking at a concept of things happening in a precise order to yield a response. The problem with NaNoWriMo is the encouragement of skipping any element of process. The arguement is to simply write. To throw caution to the wind and pray to God that something will happen in the end that is complete. Not good, just complete.
 
Remember, the writing process has essentially three parts. A Pre-Writing Phase, a Drafting Phase and a Editing/Publishing Phase. If you do the steps in order, when you get to that final phase, your work is really easy. Why? Because you took the time on the front end of the process to think and plan out what it is you are doing.
 
Let's look at each.
 
PRE-WRITING I don't care if you are plotter or a pantster, this early phase is for you to figure out what you want to write about and how you plan to achieve it. This is when you think through all the potential issues and problems that might show up so you don't panic during the writing phase and lose your momentum. This is where you pre-empt any potential issue. This is where you research. This is where you plan.
 
DRAFTING This is, unfortunately the only thing NaNoWriMo does. In this phase you write. Now this is where the problems occur for the majority of the writers in NaNoWriMo. Because they didn't know where they were going to with their story, the final product, if they even get that far, is a jumbled mess of disconnected thoughts, of characters doing things and saying things that might not fit with their GMC's and so forth. Sure, the word count is there but that is about it. All of that fluency and organization that ties those quality stories we love to read is simply not there. If it is, it stems from sheer luck.
 
EDITING It is here that the successful writers understand the value of the writing process. Because they planned things early on. Because they thought through their characters and their actions. Because they understand the conflict in the story, the editorial phase is fairly easy. We're not talking about a serious over-haul of your story here. You knew where you were going to and you took your time to think it through.
 
If, however, you took the NaNoWriMo approach, the amount of time you get to spend on revisions now will be almost doubled. Any writer can tell you that changing full chapters around, or over-hauling a character that goes through the whole book is sheer insanity.
 
Now, I know there have been some writers that have been successful with this program. We cannot simply look to these people. They are anomolies. They are the exceptions to the rule. Heck, maybe some of them took the time during October to do serious planning. Unfortunatlely, for many of you out there, you didn't take the time to do that.
 
For you people, I can only say, I am glad you are motivated, but please - do not complain, whine or moan to the rest of us when you either A) don't finish the NaNoWriMo because of "writer's block"; B) have a complete manuscript that is a complete mess; or C) find out that the final product you send out to editors and agents in December yields more rejections than you imagined. Only remember that I warned you.
 
Scott

NaNoWriMo is the beginning of a VERY LONG process

I guess I have to say congratulations to those of you that participated in NaNoWriMo. Of course, from a prior blog of mine, you know my opinion on this.

At this point, you have a VERY, VERY long process ahead of you. The odds are this story that you created is going to require a serious over-haul. I am betting that you will have characters with changing points of view and personalities, plot holes bigger than the sink holes in Florida, and narratives that sound more like the adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon.

The simple truth is your completed document (I'm not sure if I can call it a manuscript yet) is far from ready to see the public. This is in no way a product that is suitable to go to any editor or agent.

Honestly, I think you can really view this last month as a chance to learn several things. First, that if you need to meet a word count deadline, you can. And secondly, you can now learn how to create a true "free-write" activity.

I know other agents have said this in the last two days, but I am going to say it to. Please, don't go sending this story to me. My bet is you have at least a good year before you can even think about doing anything with this. Personally though, in that year, you could probably start from scratch on a project, plan it out properly, use the writing process effectively and end up with at least 2 quality projects.

It's entirely up to you on this one.

Scott