Debra/Maidenfine is publishing a column called "30 Days of PreWriting" on her blog.
http://maidenfine.wordpress.com/category/writing/nanowrimo/
With her permission, I'll be reposting her links here.
October 1/ Day 1:
Before we can get into all the great tools, articles, and nitty-gritty prewriting stuff, it always helps to start with something a little more general. Like this article at the KU Writing Center about prewriting and the most common forms it comes in.
For NaNoWriMo, there are a lot of people that skip prewriting except in its most basic forms (like brainstorming). But everyone should do at least a little. And for people who find themselves getting stuck in the middle of a scene, an outline can be incredibly helpful. I find that I often don’t want to write in a completely linear fashion and an outline makes that something that I can do without losing track of my story.
Today’s Link: http://www.writing.ku.edu/~writing/guides/prewriting.shtml
October 2/ Day 2:
Brainstorming
Today’s Link: http://www.jpb.com/creative/brainstorming.php
October 3/ Day 3:
Plotting and Outlining
Today’s Link: http://www.spacejock.com.au/PlottingANovel.html
October 4/ Day 4:
Free Writing
Today’s Link: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/GRAMMAR/composition/brainstorm_freewrite....
October 5/ Day 5:
Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?
The Six Journalists Questions are a great way to get a feel for your novel.
Today’s Link: http://www.writingclasses.com/InformationPages/index.php/PageID/106
October 6/ Day 6:
Now that we’ve covered the basics of prewriting, it’s time to start getting into the nitty-gritty. Today’s link is to an article with information about preparing to NaNoWriMo. Down at the bottom, there are also links to other articles with similar information. Sometimes, I find that just reading about things that I can do to get ready gets my mind going in that direction.
Today’s Link: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/421243/how_to_prepare_for_nanow
October 7/ Day 7:
I love character questionnaires. You can find at least a dozen different kinds on the internet and in books. So it’s always possible to find one that will ask the right question to make your character “speak” to you.
Today’s Link: http://www.roleplayingtips.com/articles/character_questionnaire.php
I'll post more as Maidenfine writes them, or you can follow along directly on her blog: http://maidenfine.wordpress.com/category/writing/nanowrimo/
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Perhaps my entire novel can be written during hours and minutes that my toddler is sleeping. Perhaps not.
51,256 / 50,000
Oct 18, 2009 - 21 02
Here are the must recent pre-writing musings from Maidenfine's blog, read the complete entries there: http://maidenfine.wordpress.com/category/writing/nanowrimo/
October 8/ Day 8
Today’s Link: http://www.fictionfactor.com/characters.html
Today’s link is multiple links in one. A whole section of articles about creating characters. If you plan to write a novel with a small cast of characters, there’s something there for that. If you have a larger cast of characters, there’s something there for that, too. There’s an article in case you still need character names (and I still need a few), an article for creating a great and memorable villain. There’s even a section for creating non-human characters. So if you’re still working out the bugs in you characters, you should be able to find what you need here.
October 9/Day 9
Today’s Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirty-Six_Dramatic_Situations
There comes a point when getting to know your characters isn’t all that useful anymore. Something has to happen to them in order to get the story moving. That’s where plot comes in. There are plenty of plots out there and even taking one that someone else has done doesn’t mean that your novel can’t be fresh. Look at how many times Cinderella has been redone and re-imagined. So don’t be afraid to write a new take on Little Red Riding Hood if that’s what strikes you. But in case that doesn’t, there are Georges Polti’s Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations. I linked to the Wikipedia page, which lists them all out, but if you need more explanation for any of them, there’s a link at the bottom of the page for the full text of his work at Internet Archive.
October 10/Day 10
Today’s Link: http://www.io.com/~sjohn/plots.htm
Now it’s time to go back to the first few days of our prewriting series. I linked to Simon Haynes’ article about plotting using Freemind. At the time, we were talking about clustering. But it becomes important again, now that we’re talking about plotting. Admittedly, not everyone is going to find that method helpful. I do, but not for every novel. At this point, I could call that good and start writing. Or, I can choose to break things down a little more, adding in additional details at each of those steps. For this novel, I happen to have a little bit of an idea of what’s going to happen. So, let’s take one of the plots from today’s link and work it out a little.
October 11/Day 11
Today’s Link: http://www.stellacameron.com/contrib/plot.html
When you get started reading Stella Cameron’s article about creating a plot, you might think maybe we’ve done some of this before. And we have. The same things go into pretty much every plot and every novel, but they don’t have to be done in the same order. So her order is different from ours.
October 12/Day 12
Today’s Link: http://kalindria.googlepages.com/
There are multiple things of use at this link, though the one we’re focusing on today is the “Outline 50k 20 Chap.” Anyone who went to the worldbuilding/prewriting presentation that I did at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library already saw a shorter version of this. I wanted to cut it down to 2 pieces of paper, so I took out a bunch of stuff that wasn’t about the outline or the setting chart. It’s all good stuff though, so be sure to read the whole thing and click on the other links as well. There’s a lot of good stuff.
Up until today, we’ve been working on an outline. And we had a good start going. But not everyone works quite so well in the mindmap program. If your mind works differently, I want to be sure to give you the right option for you. Which is why this outline is great. This outline not only breaks your 50k novel down into 20 chapters, it gives you a little bit of direction regarding what should be in those 20 chapters. And, for those who maybe haven’t done this before, it gives a little bit of guidance to let you know if things are moving too quickly or too slowly, based on word counts.
October 13/ Day 13
Today’s Link: http://pbackwriter.blogspot.com/2005/01/ten-things-to-help-with-novel-pl...
This is another of those links to multiple links. Each of these links goes to a different “system” for plotting. So if the mindmapping isn’t going your way, try out the snowflake process. Or look at the Plot Outline Diagram. The snowflake process is really great, though I do a lot of it subconsciously, so I don’t have the patience to actually do it all out on paper. But if you can focus on it, it’s a really great system for coming up with something that’s complex enough to fully keep your attention for a month while you’re writing it in November.
October 14/ Day 14
Today’s Link: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/288946/how_to_plot_a_novel_visu...
Continuing our discussion of ways to plot other than mindmap, we have a link to a system for plotting things out a little more visually. It’s also a little more flexible to plot use index cards. Some people feel like they’re committed to something as soon as they put it on a computer, so this would be a method of plotting that can keep things flexible. It’s easy to decide to pull a card out of your stack. And if you later decide that you did actually want that card in your pile, it’s easy to stick it back in.
October 15/Day 15
Today’s Link: http://www.write-your-short-story.com/short-story-writing-prompts.html
Anyhow, today’s link might seem like a departure, but I figure we’re halfway through the month. Either you’ve been following along and doing all the prewriting and you almost have an outline. Or, you’re still back at the beginning trying to figure out your basic idea. Either way, this link could be good for you. It’s full of writing prompts for short stories, and you can use it for prewriting in two ways.
1. You’ve got your outline figured out, but you don’t want to lose your momentum. You’ve been working on your novel every day, but now that you’re ready, you can’t do anything until November. Well, now’s the time to practice writing 1667 words every day. Pick a prompt and write until you hit the magic number. The writing may have nothing to do with your novel, but you’ll be preparing your brain for the creativity that you will require of it next month.
2. You still don’t know what you’re writing about. So pick a prompt and get writing. Did you know that Ender’s Game was originally a short story? Now there are multiple books in the series. You never know when something that starts as a short story will have the spark to get your brain going into novel-land. So, when all else fails, just write something.
October 16/Day 16
Today’s Link: http://www.3m.com/us/office/postit/digital/?WT.ac=TopNav-Products-Digita...
I think it was last year’s NaNoWriMo, but I’m not sure. I ended up in a thread that was either talking about organization, or was talking about writing spaces. Either way, there was a picture of an author’s writing space. It was a desk (normal) sitting in front of a wall (normal) that was absolutely COVERED in Post-it notes. Her method of organization was Post-its. The hero has blue eyes? Post-it. His cat’s name is Kibbles? Post-it. He went to KU? Post-it. By the end of November, she had a wall full of notes. Which maybe works great for November. But I can’t even imagine the headache of trying to translate that into anything organized for further drafts. Though, maybe she doesn’t revise her NaNovels. In which case it works perfectly fine. But for those people that want to do something with their novel after November, now is the time to think about long-term organization.
October 17/ Day 17
Today’s Link: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/writing-software/
Okay. I tried really really hard to find a good article about how to use Excel for keeping track of writing notes. The best I could find was a short article on how to use it for taking notes if you’re running a roleplaying game. Since half of the article wouldn’t really apply in the case of a novel, I decided that I would just have to talk about using Excel and give a completely different link. So, instead, we have a link to a site that lists different writing software (including Microsoft Office).
October 18/Day 18
----------Today’s Link: http://www.angelfire.com/wi/writingprocess/prewriting.html
Today’s link might seem like we’re going backwards, but I realized that while I talked about this at the Worldbuilding presentation, I don’t think I got around to posting anything about it here. At this point, you may have an idea, maybe even an outline. But there will be a time during November when you will feel like that’s not enough. You’ll sit at the keyboard one day and think “What the hell do I right next?”
Perhaps my entire novel can be written during hours and minutes that my toddler is sleeping. Perhaps not.
51,256 / 50,000
Oct 25, 2009 - 18 30
Debra/Maidenfine is publishing a column called "30 Days of PreWriting" on her blog.
http://maidenfine.wordpress.com/category/writing/nanowrimo/
October 25/Day 25
Today’s Link: http://procrastinatingwritersblog.com/2009/09/get-ready-for-national-nov...
I’ve pretty much linked to as many sites as you could possibly need for NaNoWriMo. Now, it’s time to talk about the other things you’ll need to think about in order to prepare for the month. Like stockpiling chocolate. Or figuring out what 1667 words looks like and how long it takes you.
October 24/Day 24
Today’s Link: http://www.davidniallwilson.com/?s=nanowrimo%2Bscheduling&submit.x=0&sub...
We’ve been working hard. We either have an outline, we’re working on our outline, or we’re still desperately behind. That’s fine. Whatever place you’re at, now might be a good time to take a day or two off. Take this writer’s advice and start thinking about scheduling and time management now. …But while you’re working on preparing for your novel, don’t forget to also prepare for the way your whole life is going to rearrange for 30 days.
October 23/Day 23
Today’s Link: http://www.writing.com/main/forums/item_id/1474311
It might seem like it’s too late to start doing pre-NaNo activities at different sites. But I don’t think so. Maybe I’m optimistic. Maybe I just don’t think it’s ever too late to get started on prewriting stuff. So this site’s challenge month sounds fun to me, even this late in the month.
October 22/Day 22
Today’s Link: http://www.silveragebooks.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/mag/ns/ns_2006.htm
While we’re on the topic of workbooks, this is another nice one. They have updated versions, but I was partial to this particular one. I like the discussion of plot formation. And I especially love the page for keeping track of things you need to fix. It’ll keep you a little less editing obsessed in November.
October 21/Day 21
Today’s Link: http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/
Okay, yes, most likely everyone reading this is an adult. But that doesn’t mean you can’t benefit from things designed for kids. Especially the Young Writers Program workbooks. One word: Awesome. I printed out the version for teens last year and used it to help me prepare. It was amazingly good.
October 20/Day 20
Today’s Link: http://www.facade.com/tarot/
I love this site. I have used it so many times, I memorized the address. … It could be used when you don’t have a plot already, too. You pick a Significator that sounds like your character, then you pick a layout and see what you come up with. And you can interpret tarot cards in different ways, so depending on what you get, you could end up with a romance story, a horror, or a fantasy. Whatever your thing is. It’s a lot of fun to play around with. And I really love the Two Paths spread. It shows two different outcomes from one event. So it makes it easy to figure out what the results will be of the main character screwing up the big climactic moment. And that’s always good information.
October 19/Day 19
----------Today’s Link: http://www.amazon.com/What-Writing-Exercises-Fiction-Writers/dp/02056168...
Okay. I don’t like linking to things that cost money, mostly because I don’t want people to think I’m getting something out of it. But this link isn’t so much about this particular book. It’s more about writing books as a species. Basically, it never hurts to have one or two around. I like this one because it has an exercise of some sort for pretty much anything you’re trying to do. Revising? Head to the revising section and see the different ideas there. Working on a character? There’s a section for that. Right now, for plotting? Section for that too.
Now, you can get a book that’s only about plotting, or only about revising, or a book that’s all about everything. And there are plenty of choices out there. This one just happened to be a textbook for a class I took and I liked it, so I’ve gone back to it more than a few times. I have a few other books around that I can turn to when I need a little help with something I’m working on. And while we’re preparing things for November, now is a good time to buy/read writing books that could come in handy next month.
Perhaps my entire novel can be written during hours and minutes that my toddler is sleeping. Perhaps not.
51,256 / 50,000
Oct 29, 2009 - 11 04
Debra/Maidenfine is publishing a column called "30 Days of PreWriting" on her blog.
http://maidenfine.wordpress.com/category/writing/nanowrimo/
October 29, Day 29
Today’s Link: http://www.jennymeyerhoff.com/writers.html
This author has a lot of good advice on her page. But the really great stuff is her worksheets. She says that she’ll pull them out and go through them whenever she gets to a tough spot and I have to say, they probably work for that. I think they’d also work great for prewriting. And I’m looking forward to printing off several of the character worksheets. I like that they’re two pages, so they’ll fit nicely front to back on a single piece of paper. I can fill them out and stick them in my notebook, then if I need to add stuff later, I have a sheet for each character and I can just add it on.
October 28, Day 28
Today’s Link: http://www.wikihow.com/Participate-in-NaNoWriMo
So I realized that we’ve been spending all this time preparing for NaNoWriMo and maybe not everyone knows exactly what it is or how it works. So today’s link helps with signing up, figuring out your novel, preparing for the month, staying motivated, and even winning. It’s pretty important stuff, and the closer you get to being 100% prepared to write your novel, the more important it is to think about how you’re going to accomplish that.
October 27, Day 27
Today’s Link: http://www.wikihow.com/Plan-out-a-Novel
I like this link, mostly because it’s a whole different system of planning than anything we’ve looked at so far this month. Though, it’s the sort of system that works better if you have more time, it could easily be used to maximize the last few days before November begins.
October 26, Day 26
----------Today’s Link: http://www.wikihow.com/Come-Up-with-a-Topic-to-Write-About
Okay, I know I said I’d given you as many as you could possibly need. But just in case, I found a couple more. For those of you that still still still don’t know what to write about, here’s an article about finding a topic. Basically, it’s brainstorming, but it’s a little more specific instruction on brainstorming for writing. So if nothing else, you can come up with a list of things that your main character might like to do. For NaNoWriMo, having a really detailed outline isn’t always required. It depends on the kind of writer you are. If I get stuck, I like to know where I’m going, so I can get unstuck. But if you have enough other tools, you could maybe get unstuck without knowing how you’re getting to the end of the book.
Perhaps my entire novel can be written during hours and minutes that my toddler is sleeping. Perhaps not.