NaNoWriMo is a writing marathon where the goal is to draft a 50,000-word novel in November. In this article, we'll deal with character creation, plot, and worldbuilding. This article is the third and last one of a series about creative writing. The previous one was about the basic strategies for writing 50,000 words in 1 month. This time we'll delve a little deeper into how to approach preparations for planners.

In the previous article, we covered the main strategies for dealing with writing: planners and pantsers. In the case of pantsers, there's not much advice I can give, after all, it's about improvising on the fly, but as general advice, try to think of a generic story, an open plot... something that helps you start the first day.

On the other hand, we have the planners, and the days before the start of NaNoWriMo are essential for them. There's still enough time to organize a novel in many ways, and if this is the path you have chosen, it's a good idea to start planning. Here are some guidelines that may help you.

Think about what genre you want to write in. A love story in space? A psychological thriller in a fantasy world? A historical life story in 2nd century BC Rome? Anything goes!

What characters will the story include? What kind of protagonist? Do you have a name already defined for them? Does the protagonist have friends, enemies, allies, and family?

Something quite important to have in advance is the time and person in which the story will be written. From the proximity of a first-person to the distance of an omnipresent third, there are tons of combinations that you can choose to play with. And this totally makes the story you want to tell!

If you already have some sort of plot, then you can start to think about the "outline". You can start with the basic structure (the three parts: a beginning, a breaking point that triggers the conflict, and the end), or something much more complex and detailed, like a chapter-by-chapter breakdown. There's even a secret technique (publicly shared by a Wrimo), which consists of enlarging and enlarging the detail of this previous preparation until there are sentences that describe what happens in each paragraph of the novel... and then you just have to develop those (many) paragraphs!

This is a good starting point for all those who want to be planners, although there are more ways to approach it, such as where to take ideas and from where you can start.

Additionally, as this is the last article in the series, we'll delve into more specific things about writing.

Story

Something important to note is that it doesn't matter how well you plan the beginning and the conflict. The most important thing is to have the ending in mind. Knowing how the story ends will make it easier for you to plan the beginning and the conflict because you already know where you are pointing. As the saying goes, all roads lead to Rome :) If you don't have the ending in mind, chances are that halfway there you'll get stuck and have to improvise on the fly and become pantser. So don't let this happen, show your planner pride! By having this, then you can divide the story into chapters and make brief summaries of what's going to happen in each one, as recommended in the previous article.

Characters

Surely you already have the characters for your novel in mind. But how well do you know them? Keep in mind that your characters are the ones who will bring your novel to life, and the reader will see the world as the narrator and characters perceive it. So regardless of whether you write in first or third person, you must know your characters as if they were your own children. Or better yet, you must BECOME your characters. A good idea to get to know them is to make a character sheet for each one. In the sheets, apart from the basic data such as personal data, physical appearance, etc., there are usually a lot of questions referring to their personality, such as what their tastes are, what goals they have, or how they would react if they were in this or that situation (come on, what writer doesn't like to answer "what if..."?) Here you'll find a fairly complete guide to building characters, with all kinds of questions. Complete this sheet for each main character.

NaNo Prep: The Official NaNoWriMo Character Questionnaire

Personality tests work too! Those tests that can be found online and that with a couple of questions determine what type of person you are, they can also be used with your characters.

World

If you plan to write a fantasy novel in worlds other than ours, you'll have a lot of work here. You'll need to put together a map with the geography of your world and name the places, among other things. But if you plan to set your novel in the real world, surely you think "why am I going to design the world, if everything is based on the real world? I just take things from there and that's it." Well... serious mistake! The real world is too wide to cover everything, and also the world will be seen from the point of view of your characters, so that's why you have to limit the "world" to the places where the story will take place, and this must be well defined and consistent with the story. For example, in a John Green-style young-adult novel it's not very coherent that the characters have to go to court and appear before a judge for being accused of a multimillion-dollar scam to a multinational, right? This applies to any story. A good starting point would be to think about what places your protagonist likes. Their house? Their workplace? What kinds of places do they like to go to? Do they prefer outdoor or indoor locations? Do they prefer places with warm light or cold light? :) Well, we are going around the bush and this is actually more related to the character sheets, but based on that you can get a better idea of ​​what the world is going to be like.

That's all for now. Thank you very much for reading. I hope this helps you to not feel demotivated at the time of writing. And remember, once you start writing, don't stop! Keep writing as if your life depends on it. Keep writing even if the world ends.

This was the last article about NaNoWriMo, but I'll continue writing about creative writing in the future.

Previous - Part 2 - NaNoWriMo - How to write 50,000 words without dying in the attempt - Basic strategies