First Steps for Novel Planning & NaNoWriMo Strategies
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This article is all about novel planning. Specifically, how to take the first steps with novel planning when you have a story idea and are now ready to put pen to paper or fingers to keys. Whether you finally have the time to undergo a long novel project or are gearing up to participate in NaNoWriMo, aka National Novel Writing Month, these tips can help you navigate the pre-writing stages.
To delve deeper into what NaNoWriMo is, it is an annual challenge in November to complete a full length novel over the course of the month. It’s a super ambitious challenge, and I wish the best to anyone embarking on it. That said, these tips are going to be relevant to any writer who is working on a novel at any time of the year.
I'm going to go through the key dos and don'ts for when you take the first steps to plan your novel. These tips are intended to prevent major issues in your manuscript so that you don’t have to undergo major revisions when moving to the second draft.
Don’t: Write to a Word Count
Word count is something I constantly discuss with my clients, and I often see other writers hung up on the length of their manuscript.
The truth is there is no right answer when it comes to length. While there is an ideal range I recommend staying in, it can be counterproductive to set a word count at the planning stage. I do not recommend planning your novel to a specific word count.
This is because every story needs to take up the exact amount of space it needs. When you’re in the early stages of getting your story down, word count can prevent you from giving your story breathing room.
Having a specific word count in mind might result in you adding unnecessary scenes that slow the pace of the story because you want to reach a higher number. On the flip side, it can result in you speeding through plot developments too quickly, sacrificing otherwise engaging and interesting character development to keep within a word count.
As you embark on the first steps for novel planning, I recommend pouring the story onto the page, letting it take up as many pages as it needs to. Then, during the editing process, you can hone the ideal length for your story. For example, when revising your draft, you might find that you actually wrote two novels in one. While this might sound absurd, it happens more often than you think, and in this instance you have the happy result of having written two novels at once.
Once you have a finished draft to work with, that’s when you can start working on word count. My recommended range is between 60,000 words and 90,000 words for adult fiction, as that is what is typically picked up by literary agents and publishing houses. But again, at the planning stage, I don't recommend thinking about your word count.
Do: Be Mindful of Perspective
Once you know the story that you want to tell, and you have an idea of what your story is going to be about, the next step is to determine how you are going to tell it. This means selecting a point of view, whether that is first person, close third person, or omniscient third person.
If you are writing close third person or first person, you also need to determine how many characters to follow in your story. Is there going to be just one protagonist’s point of view, or are you going to switch between multiple characters and storylines?
This is something I recommend thinking about at the planning stages of your novel. That is because one of the biggest structural edits I give to clients is to either add or remove points of view, especially if you have a story that balances multiple characters' storylines. Nailing whose story you are telling from the very beginning of your novel writing process is going to save you a lot of revision down the line.
The main question to ask yourself is: which characters is the reader meant to get invested in? Whose journey is the most important for the reader to experience? Once you can answer that question, you can determine which points of view to write.
As you plan your character’s storyline, you also need to ensure you don't insert outlier sections where you depart from those points of view. To readers, these scenes tend to stick out awkwardly during the reading process. You also want to avoid introducing a new point of view deep into your story, because then the narrative is not going to feel cohesive. The reader is already invested in the main perspectives they have been following, so this newcomer will have to work harder to engage the reader.
Don’t: Write for Genre
My next tip for taking the first steps for novel planning is don't write for genre. Genre is eventually going to be important for your book, whether you choose to self publish or to query literary agents. However, I recommend not getting hung up on it at the planning stage.
I recommend just diving in and letting the story become whatever it wants to become. The genre will organically float to the surface. Of course, if you are very clear on your story's genre and it is part of your inception process for the story, then absolutely think about genre. I'm directing this more toward people who know the story they want to tell, but are having trouble determining where it might fall on the genre spectrum.
If you avoid assigning genre at the planning stages of your story, it also allows you to avoid unintentionally incorporating any tropes or stereotypes of the genre in your story. Detaching yourself from genre will allow you to naturally write the most original and creative story possible.
Something that's interesting to note, too, is that hybrid genres are becoming more and more popular. These are stories that don't neatly fit into one genre category or another. For example, the bestselling Outlander series is a hybrid of historical fiction, romance, and fantasy.
To sum up, save genre classification for once your manuscript draft is done, because I don’t want you to get unnecessarily hung up on something you can sort out later down the line.
Do: Stay Open to Change
As with anything in life, your novel plans can go awry. No matter how well you plot everything out, things are going to get derailed, but that often results in something much more exciting and beautiful. So let your creative process ebb and flow as you embark on your novel writing journey.
For example, if you are participating in NaNoWriMo but you miss a day or end up having to forgo the challenge overall, don’t beat yourself up. That break can be just what you needed to incite inspiration for your novel.
Alternatively, if you find yourself halfway through the novel draft and see the story take a turn that you did not expect, lean into it and see where it takes you. Remember, when you write the first draft of your novel, you're just trying to get everything on paper. You can always edit and revise down the line to make the story as effective and strong as it can be.
So let your story take whatever path it wants to take and be open minded.
Don’t: Force Others’ Techniques
These days, there are endless writing resources, books, and workshops for craft advice. You can get online strategies, workbooks, routines, and exercises to help you plot your story and organize how it flows.
While these resources can be useful, I recommend taking a step back and planning your novel in whatever way works best for your creative process. That is to say, if you find yourself struggling to adhere to what your favorite author recommends, then don’t waste time on that particular approach.
When taking the first steps for novel planning, it's all about leaning into whatever works for your particular process, whatever that looks like. Some people write detailed outlines for their books before they even write a word of the story, for example, because it helps to keep them on track. Others just sit down and start writing, letting the story take whatever form it takes. Some people create character profiles for every single character in their book. Others just have their characters floating around in their heads and don't need to write out the details.
All of these approaches are valid. Do not feel like you have to adopt a specific strategy or a specific technique just because it worked for other people. Writing is a subjective and creative journey, and you should allow it to be that.
I hope these tips help you tackle your next novel with more confidence and inspiration, whether you are undergoing a rigorous writing challenge like NaNoWriMo or leisurely embarking on your novel writing journey.
Thanks so much for reading and happy writing!