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writers of the world: please stop using epithets in your writing, trust me “the blonde army doctor”, “the curly haired detective”, “the blue-eyed man” etc. do not sound as good in writing as they may sound in your head
instead, use the characters’ names, they’re there for a reason and it’ll make your writing much more crisp, tight, to the point, and still entertaining
Names, along with common words like “said” and “asked”, become invisible. The more invisible your words, the deeper your reader will fall into your writing, to the point where the reader will forget that there are words at all and just become part of the story.
When your words aren’t invisible, there’s the unfortunate potential that people will turn them into a drinking game instead of reading the story.
Just about the only time that epithets work instead of using a name is when the POV character doesn’t know the other character, and so the physical description is pretty much all the POV character has to go on. You don’t think of people you know as “the tall man” or “the blonde woman”. Your POV character shouldn’t, either.
Yo I actually wanted to make this post a while back and I think a lot of this stems from when you have two characters who use the same pronouns interacting (which happens in fanfic). There’s this fear that the reader will confuse who the characters are referring to, so that’s why epithets are used. Instead of using epithets, use syntax, which is word order, and carry your subject through multiple sentences and actions. So, Imma teach you how to do this under the cut. (It’s a bit of a grammar lesson tbh)
I’ve done NaNo four times and won three. This isn’t winning advice, this is equal parts survival and getting the most out of November.
Figure out your pace.
This year, NaNo starts on a weekend: Nov 1 is a Saturday. If you have a Mon-Fri schedule (like if you’re a student, or you have a Mon-Fri work schedule) this is great, especially if this is your first year, because you have two days totally open to figure out your writing pace.
If you knit, (I don’t!), it’s kind of like knitting a swatch before starting a project: you want to know how closely your finished product will match the dimensions provided in the pattern. Sure, the NaNo gives you a daily goal of 1667 words, but how long will that really take to write? If you sit down on November 1 and write 1667 words while timing yourself, you’ll have a pretty okay idea of how the rest of your month will go, and what kind of time you’ll need to set aside every day.
Keep in mind that some parts of your project will be really difficult to write and those 1667 words will be like pulling teeth, and other parts will be like butter and you can slam through it in a glorious haze, touched by the hand of God and all His angels. Your pace will vary a lot, but it can’t hurt to get a general idea.
If you don’t have weekends free (or you’re an excessive prepper like me) feel free to do this before November starts - you just won’t be able to count those words toward your NaNo count… unless you’re a dirty, dirty cheater.
Schedule set times for writing.
This is where having a good idea of your pace comes in handy! If you can write 1667 words in 20 minutes… well, first, know that I hate you desperately. But let’s pretend a) you can write 1667 words in 20 minutes and b) I don’t hate you quite enough that I would give you bad advice. In this hypothetical fantasy world, I’d recommend scheduling a chunk of time roughly twice that of your estimated writing pace every day to work on your project.
I know a lot of folks work steadily on their project throughout the day, in little bits and pieces, and that’s fine too! If that works, that’s awesome. But if it’s your first year I highly recommend making firm set appointments with yourself to bang out those words, at least to start out the month. Believe me, once weeks 2 or 3 roll around you’ll have a way better idea of what works for you personally and can adjust as needed.
Get ahead when you can.
Look, shit happens. We all know it. I guarantee that there will be at least one day in November that you don’t write a single word of story. You may even have one day a week. Every other day, maybe. Who knows! (No one knows. It’s a terrible answer, but there you are.)
This is why it can be really, really beneficial to get ahead while you can; another reason why November starting on a weekend can really weigh in your favor. The goal for the first two days is 3334 words… imagine if you could write 5000? or 6000? or some other ludicrously large number?? You’ll be ready for those off days when they pop up (because they will pop up) if you write more than the minimum when you have the chance.
Do some plotting ahead of time.
Before I go into this too far, let me tell you this: there’s a continuum of writers. (Well, it’s kind of more of a Cartesian thing, but that second axis isn’t relevant here.) One end of the continuum is usually labeled Plotters, the opposite end is usually called Pantsers. If you’re on the Plotter end of the continuum you write best with a sturdy outline (sometimes to the extent of a phase outline) for the entire story. If you’re a Pantser, well… you write by the seat of your pants.
So here’s how I do things: when writing short stories I’d say I’m typically more of a Pantser, because it’s low risk and honestly a lot more fun to see how things go if you just let things run their course. I usually have at least a general idea of what I want to say and what I’m writing about, but frequently things end up all swapped around and inside out. And that’s okay! That’s what Pantsing is for.
But when I’m writing something longer than, say, 15k words, I’m a hardcore Plotter… usually to the extent of having a strict outline with every. single. story. beat. written down clearly with all kinds of details, sometimes even down to bits of dialogue I want to insert later once I actually get around to writing that specific scene.
If you’ve done NaNo before and you know for sure that you write best when you’re cruising the Pantser end of the spectrum, more power to you! We’re all in this together. But if it’s your first year and you’ve never tried to write this many words in a short time if can be extremely beneficial to write down a few plot points, if only to help you keep going when you’ve written yourself into a corner.
Warn the people around you.
Maybeyou still live at home with your parents. Maybe you have a roommate, or multiple roommates. Maybe you have a live-in partner or spouse. Maybe you live alone but you work closely with coworkers or fellow students. It’s possible that your new hobby will affect your relationships or how you deal with life in general, and you have a responsibility to give the people around you a heads up. Even if it’s just a: “hey, during November I’ll be busy at [INSERT TIME] so I won’t be around to hang out.”
If you turn into a grump, apologize. If you go all needy and whiny and ask for people to bring you coffee and tea all the time, apologize. If you start to smell bad and don’t get enough sleep, apologize. If you even vaguely suspect that these things may happen, apologize - preferably in advance.
Your NaNoWriMo motto should always be: Hope For The Best, Prepare For The Worst.
Some editing is okay sometimes.
There’s a lot of NaNo advice out there that’ll tell you that editing during November is Public Enemy Number One. And maybe for you it is! The trick with editing (and it really is a trick; I’m not that good at it to be honest) is to not get stuck editing the hell out of everything. But sometimes you’ve written yourself into a corner, you know deep in your water that if you just charge forward you’ll get even more stuck later, and there’s this one tiny chunk about 3,000 words back that if you could just go back and change it this whole section will fall into place like a well-oiled machine…
Just do it. If you’re ahead on words, all the better. Bite the bullet and rewrite that chunk so that your project isn’t a disjointed mess that makes your brain itch so bad you can’t fall asleep at night. Sometimes a little editing is what it takes to get you back in gear if you’re stuck.
If you’ve done NaNo before and know that editing is your Achilles Heel, DON’T FOLLOW MY ADVICE! Do what’s right for you.
If it’s your first year and one day in the middle of week 1 you go back to edit a chunk and when you look up it’s three hours later and you’re up past bedtime, I’d recommend swearing off editing for the rest of the month. Every writer is different. Some people can dive in, pull out a piece of scene, switch a few things around, and be done in 20 minutes. Other people dive in and then never come back out again.
Try to keep in mind what NaNoWriMo is really good for.
NaNo will teach you a lot. It’ll teach you how to write. It’ll teach you how not to write. Most importantly, it will teach you how you write. Give yourself permission to fuck around. Make mistakes. Write gaping plot holes. Write predictable prose. Use too many adjectives if you feel like it. Whatever! Just write something, and keep writing, and when you think you’re done remember that you probably aren’t.
IT’S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN. :D
Most of this advice is still the same, (though this year Nov 1 is not on a Saturday), so yeah. I figured I’d drop this here if anybody wanted it.
would you share a little bit about your planning process when you write? do you outline, make notes of scenes you think you'll write, keep it all in your head and adjust as you go along...? I love reading your writing liveblogs & it's very inspirational to me
Oh! Whoa! Hi! Yeah, um… gosh. I don’t think a lot about my planning process, so hopefully this makes literally any sense whatsoever. Also it got super long so I’m sticking it behind a cut, YOU’RE WELCOME EVERYONE
It’s officially #NaNoPrep season! Inspired by the creativity and motivational prompts in Ready, Set, Novel!—written by our own Chris Baty, Lindsay Grant, and Tavia Stewart-Streit—we’re bringing some of our favorite writing exercises to you. Today, we’re asking “What if?”:
Asking what-if is a time-honored writer’s tradition. Famous what-ifs include: “What if a girl volunteered to enter an arena where kids fought to the death?” and “What if the story of Cain and Abel took place in Central California?”
Having a list of emergency what-ifs can be a lifesaver in November. Here are a few different what-if lists you might construct:
The What-If-You-Were-Here List
Make a list of places that interest you. It can be places you want to travel to, the dark side of the moon, fictional locales… anything.
When you’re stuck, sometimes tossing a new setting into the mix (or even just the discussion of a new setting—Santa Fe and Jack Kelly, anyone?) can shake loose some inspiration.
The What-If-I-Gave-Myself-No-Limits List
Make a writer’s bucket list. Include everything you’ve always thought it would be fun, and/or challenging to write that you just haven’t gotten around to yet.
Maybe you’ve always wanted to write a Jane Bond. Maybe there’s a fanfic rarepair you’ve yet to write. Maybe you want to fictionalize that family history that’s been begging for some literary attention.
The What-If-There-Were-a-Catastrophe List
List your ten favorite novels, movies, or TV episodes. Then for each story on that list, write down the absolute worst thing that happened in it. Betrayal? An unexpected and unrequited love? An inconsequential, meaningless death?
When you’re bored, subject your characters to this catastrophe. Adapt it, of course, if need be to your novel, but remember this is to help you jog your brain loose! Sometimes it doesn’t have to make complete sense.
Are you tackling a writing project that isn’t a brand-spanking new novel during Camp NaNoWriMo? Good news! We’re compiling lists of everything we know about nonfiction, editing, and scripts. We revisit editing while it’s fresh in our minds from the “Now What?” Months below:
saltwind chases us down blue-gray streets – salted mist eddying between shops, working its way into cracked mortar, and salt shining our hair and filming over lips and eyelashes of
excited children crowding under a blue-gray awning clutching white paper sacks packed with candies in perfect wax wrappers. and we join them to take cover from the brackish rain now shaking down from blue-gray clouds – though nothing is working to shield us from the bitter saltswirl air.
we and children watch through the shopfront window caked with fingerprints, encrusted with flaking pink paint advertising real saltwater taffy hand pulled made here.
behind the glass a pale man in a pale apron, a sheen of sweat smeared over his forehead and puffy bluegray smudges around his eyes belying a late night or a long day or one running into another, stands stretching taffy hand over hand in heavy elastic loops. but we see his fingernails rimmed round with dirt and we see his cracked knuckles crusted with rusted red salt-blood. and we slip away, our unspoken accord preferring the chill sting of salt rain to the humid crush of crowded children and the sick spectacle of hand-pulled saltwater taffy.
later my breath hitches when I spot a child unwrapping a candy from a white paper sack– wax parting to reveal a warm goldbrown sheen and oblong shape releases my sigh of relief and I watch her pink lips purse in satisfaction around the sweet savor of salted caramel.
looking at myself in the mirror while I brush my teeth I see all the ways my body is marked
I see how it’s marked as a woman, round breasts round hips round face round lips visible to everyone every time I step out of my house and am entered in a beauty pageant I never wanted any part of —
but over those marks I see other marks, other signs, disfigurements divulging my secrets staring back at every stranger who stares at me, and it’s these marks that feel ugly: my body’s marked mentally ill.
I see my toes pointed and curled together like they’re seeking refuge with each other from the world and am marked with social phobia and I relive the terror and shame. and I feel sad for failed friendships and all the agonizing aloneness.
I see the healed pink scratch on my thigh and am marked hypochondria and I relive the painful nights I spend positive I have poisoned blood, defective heart, stomach ulcer aneurysm embolism impending death. and I feel sad for the wasted hours and wasted energy and for my loved ones who wake up to my “I love you” texts sent as goodbyes in case I die in my sleep in the middle of the night.
I see my caved-in stomach and am marked OCD and anxiety and I relive the hunger and the disgust. and I feel sad for the plump squishy happy girl who starved away.
I see my red-blotchy picked-over crackled stinging lips and know I am always flying a bright bloody banner that says dermatillomania and I relive the digging aching pain. and I feel sad. and ashamed. and ugly.
and marked.
maybe, as I suspect, I am the only one who sees these marks & many others but on my bad days when I look in my mirror they’re all I see, neon signs flashing “crazy. bizarre. broken.”
I saw blue sky and golden yellow light enveloping everything it touched; I saw the value of the pitted sidewalk and was surprised that I had never felt so dearly the importance of the bike racks and the trash cans, overflowing; I saw the hearts of the boys and girls and human beings walking past and I had a heart for them and couldn’t believe I had never seen them before, each one so immense, overflowing. I reached out to feel the leaves and petals of the bushes while I walked and every touch was like clasping hands with an old friend, and how had I never known before that these bushes and I were, of course, old friends? The saffron blossoms vaulted over me and I walked and I could barely see for seeing, my eyes overflowing, overwhelmed, and I understood the cloistered men and women of the saffron cloth who gave up everything in pursuit of seeing, of feeling this, and before long the gray veil slipped back over my eyes and I was left with just the memory of seeing.
