No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days (2 page)

Writing for quantity rather than quality, I discovered, had the strange effect of bringing about both. It didn’t necessarily make a whole lot of sense to me, especially as a writer who had spent days laboring over seventy-five-word record reviews for the local paper. But the proof was incontrovertible, and everyone who finished NaNoWriMo that first year agreed: We were only able to write so well—and have such a merry time doing it—because we wrote so quickly and intensely. The roar of adrenaline drowned out the self-critical voices that tend to make creative play such work for adults.

LESSONS LEARNED

I’ve organized National Novel Writing Month every year since 1999. I now have three books in various states of editorial redemption, along with two hopelessly execrable rough drafts whose highest calling in life will forever be propping up a listing leg of my couch. Through the good books and bad, I’ve learned a lot about getting first drafts written, and picked up countless strategies, tips, and housemateannoying behaviors that help get that initial, breathless sketch of a novel down on paper. I think the lasting lessons from that first year, though, boil down to just four revelations.

-1) Enlightenment Is Overrated

Before being swept up in the momentum of National Novel Writing Month, my general approach to fiction writing was to stall as long as possible. In fact, I had high hopes of delaying any novel writing attempts until I was older and wiser, and had achieved a state of complete literary enlightenment. From this position of all-seeing wisdom, I knew I would have amassed a roster of brilliant, original plots and dynamic, compelling characters. And then I could cherry-pick the best ones for my masterful creation.

If all went according to plan, I figured the state of enlightenment would descend on my bald head sometime around my ninetieth birthday. And then, fully primed, I could simply dictate the Nobel Prizeworthy manuscript to my assistant or nursemaid, who would then pass it on to an appropriate publisher. Having written a not-irredeemable novel as a twenty-six-year-old made me realize that “sooner”

definitely trumps “later” when it comes to writing. Every period in one’s life, I saw, bustles with novelworthy passions, dilemmas, and energies specific to that age. The novel I wrote at twenty-six is much different than the one I wrote at thirty, which will (hopefully) be much different than the one I write at fifty. What better reason to get writing now? With each passing era, a new novel is possible. And a potentially great book you could have written slips away into noveling oblivion.

-2) Being Busy Is Good For Your Writing

You’ve probably heard the old adage that if you want to get something done, you should ask a busy person to do it. I’ve discovered this is acutely true when it comes to novel writing. Because here’s the thing: However attractive the idea of a writer’s retreat may sound, having all day to poke around on a novel actually hampers productivity. This is something I suspected after the first year of NaNoWriMo, and something I confirmed after the second—when, emboldened by a pair of questionable successes in the month-long noveling field, I decided that the only thing separating me from Oprah’s Book Club was three months of uninterrupted writing time with my laptop. And so I spent the following half year saving up enough money to resign my various obligations for three months, and then dove into the deliriously productive life of a full-time novelist. Things went awry almost immediately. With nothing to do all day but write, I found myself doing everything but writing. Essential errands were run. Laundry was done. The bathroom was cleaned. Less essential errands were run. The bathroom was re-cleaned. A complex rooftop Habitrail system designed to make tree-to-tree transitioning easier for the neighborhood squirrels was built and nearly installed before the county’s animal services unit intervened. And so on.

The mounting guilt I felt each evening over accomplishing so little writing during the day would then force me to cancel the plans I had made with friends that night. So I could stay in and get some writing done.

Night, of course, simply involved more work on the Habitrail.

At the end of the three months, I was frustrated, my friends were worried, and the squirrels continued to make their clumsy, desperate leaps from branch to branch. The experiment in nonstop writing was a total disaster.

For me the moral of the story is this: A rough draft is best written in the steam-cooker of an already busy life. If you have a million things to do, adding item number 1,000,001 is not such a big deal. When, on the other hand, you have nothing to do, getting out of bed and washing yourself before 2:00

P.M. feels like too much work to even contemplate.

As Isaac Newton observed, objects in motion tend to stay in motion. When writing your first draft, being busy is key. It may feel frustrating at first, but having daily writing periods curtailed by chores, family, and other distractions actually helps you get the thing done. This is partly because the hectic pace forces you type with a fleet-fingered desperation. But it’s mostly because noveling in the midst of a chaotic life makes “book time” a treat rather than an obligation. It’s a small psychological shift, but it makes all the difference in the world.

-3) Plot Happens

From that first NaNoWriMo, I learned that you are allowed to begin a novel simply by turning on the nearest computer and typing. You don’t need to do research; you don’t need to understand anything about your characters or plan out your setting. It’s fine to just start. And making it up as you go along does not require you to be a Particularly gifted novelist. That first year, I started with neither plot nor characters, and I ended up with a reasonably accomplished novel that had tension and momentum and even a subplot or two. And I did all that with an imagination the size of a pea. If you spend enough time with your characters, plot simply happens. This makes novel writing, in essence, a literary trapeze act, one where you have to blindly trust that your imagination and intuition will be there to catch you and fling you onward at each stage of your high-flying journey. The good news is that our imaginations live for these high-pressure situations. The human brain is an agile, sure-handed partner, an attention-loving, razzle-dazzle showthing that can pull plausible transitions out of thin air and catch us before anything (save our pride) gets too terribly injured on our inevitable tumbles.

The key to writing a novel is to realize that you are in the greatest hands possible: your own. Ray Bradbury said it best: “Your intuition knows what it wants to write, so get out of the way.”

-4) Writing For Its Own Sake Has Surprising Rewards

That first year I learned that writing a novel simply feels great. Slipping into “the zone”—that place where you become a passive conduit to a story—exercises your brain in weird, pleasant ways and just makes life a little bit more enchanted. No matter what your talent level, novel writing is a low-stress, high-rewards hobby.

After I’d written my own manuscript, I also found myself able to appreciate my favorite books on a different level. I stopped taking the text for granted and began noticing a host of crafty details and wellconcealed seams. To really get behind the scenes and understand the books you love as beautiful art and crafted artifice, it helps to write one yourself. Creating my own manuscript also opened my mind to the joys of genres I’d never read before, as I become curious about the way different kinds of books are constructed.

And finally, the more I wrote, the better my writing became. I now see each of the month-long novels I’ve written as a thirty-day scholarship to the most exclusive, important writing academy in the world. If there’s one thing successful novelists agree on, it’s this: The single best thing you can do to improve your writing is to write. Copiously.

The more books you have under your belt, the more comfortable you are with your writing voice, and the more confident you are in your style. Treating a novel like a hands-on writing class-room—where advancement relies as much on dramatic failures as it does on heroic successes—has been an amazingly liberating experience for me. And it’s taught me exactly which aspects of noveling I’m good at (coffee drinking and complaining) and what my weaknesses are (dialogue, character development, plot, etc.).

It’s invaluable feedback, and I couldn’t have gotten it any other way. MEANWHILE, BACK AT NANOWRIMO HEADQUARTERS

And what happened to NaNoWriMo after that first year? In 2000, I moved National Novel Writing Month from July to November to more fully take advantage of the miserable weather. That second year, an amazing 140 people signed up, and 29 people ended up winning.

Then word began to spread about NaNoWriMo. The Los Angeles Times did an article, as did USA Today. A talented engineer built the new, more-robust
www.NaNoWriMo.org s
ite for the event, one with discussion boards, novel-excerpt posting areas, personalized word-count progress bars, and a winner verification system.

The event grew larger still—five thousand participants the third year—and I continued to work as both director and participant, sending out pep-talk emails, overseeing the Web site, and interacting with nascent NaNoWriMo chapters around the world.

In November 2003, NaNoWriMo celebrated its fifth anniversary with more than twenty-five thousand participants from over thirty countries. By my calculations, NaNoWriMo is now responsible for more fiction each year than all of America’s creative writing programs combined. A handful of participants have gone on to edit and sell their creations to big-time publishing houses like Pinnacle and Warner Books. The biggest success stories of National Novel Writing Month, though, are rarely the published ones. These are the stories of everyday people who, over the course of one frantic month, discover that literature is not merely a spectator sport. Who discover that fiction writing can be a blast when you set aside debilitating notions of perfection and just dive headlong into the creative process.

YOUR MISSION

No Plot? No Problem! is intended as a guidebook and companion for that month-long vacation into the weird, wonderful realm of the imagination. In its nine chapters, I’ve tried to stuff five years of novelwriting tips, tricks, strategies, and schemes, as well as do’s, don’ts, and encouraging anecdotes from dozens of NaNoWriMo veterans. Chapters one through three describe how to prepare for the actual writing month. They guide you in creating a realistic schedule and in gathering the tools and treats that are essential in bashing your book out. They also look at ways to turn your home and immediate surroundings into phenomenally productive word factories, and lay out winning tactics to transform innocent bystanders into cheerleaders and fellow travelers on the journey. Chapter four introduces such novelish concepts as plot, setting, and character, and helps you uncover what it is you’d actually like to write about during your upcoming writing marathon. Chapters five through eight serve as a week-by-week guide to your writing adventure. They lay out the issues and dilemmas particular to each week, and offer plenty of exercises for sparking your creativity and goofy ways to bag the day’s word-count quota while maintaining inspired and generally coherent storytelling.

Chapter nine offers some thoughts and advice on post-novel life, particularly on making a graceful transition back into the day-to-day world, and it also contains a guide to rewriting one-month novels for those interested in shaping and polishing their work into publish-worthy form. No Plot? No Problem! makes a perfect companion for those looking to undertake the madcap National Novel Writing Month in November. But because November is an already-overloaded month for many people (students, I’m looking at you), No Plot? No Problem! was also created as a year-round personal trainer for anyone interested in embarking on their own month-long noveling journey. Whether you plan on writing your novel in winter or summer, next week or next year, I hope you’ll find in these pages the friendly kick in the pants needed to help you take your book from embryonic idea to completed draft in one action-packed month.

With great caffeinated well-wishes,

Chris Baty

SECTION ONE

A ROUND-TRIP TICKET TO NOVEL-LAND: GEARING UP FOR YOUR WRITING

ADVENTURE!

CHAPTER 1

SECRET WEAPONS, EXUBERANT IMPERFECTIONS, AND THE END OF THE “ONE DAY”

NOVELIST

Once upon a time, I believed that you needed to have several things before you set out to write a novel. These were, in order of importance:

-1) Heart-fibrillating amounts of coffee

-2) Plot

-3) Character

-4) Setting

When I actually sat down to write my first novel back in 1999 though, I discovered that my ideas about novel writing were woefully mistaken. You don’t need a plot before you write a novel, nor do you need an evocative sense of place or a winsome, engaging cast. You don’t even need coffee (though I still haven’t allowed myself to fully come to terms with that yet).

What you really need is a secret weapon.

You need a superpowered, diabolical device that will transform you into a bastion of literary accomplishment. And I’m happy to report that this implement is in the house, and it’s just waiting for you to pick it up.

THE MYSTERY MACHINE AND YOU

Without hyperbole, I can say that this tool (tucked securely at the end of this chapter) is the most awesome catalyst that has ever been unleashed on the worlds of art and commerce. Nearly every beautiful and useful thing you’ve ever touched or witnessed was born in its mighty forge. It’s portable, affordable, and nonpolluting.

It’s also invisible.

What you need to write a novel, of course, is a deadline.

Deadlines are the dynamos of the modern age. They’ve built every city, won every contest, and helped all of us pay our taxes reasonably close to on time for years and years. Deadlines bring focus, forcing us to make time for the achievements we would otherwise postpone, encouraging us to reach beyond our conservative estimates of what we think possible, helping us to wrench victory from the jaws of sleep.