There are plenty of NaNoWriMo prep guides and blog posts out there but this is how I do it in 5 easy to follow steps.
Step 1: Sign Up
Go to http://www.nanowrimo.org/en and sign up. Then go to your My NaNoWriMo page and fill out your info (or in my case update it). Some features aren’t unlocked yet (like the writing buddies and word counters) but they will be in a few days. I’m KatGirl_Studio if you’d like to add me as a writing buddy.
Step 2: Know What You are Going to Write
Some people like to make it up as they go but I wouldn’t advise starting the month off with no idea of what you are going to write about. If you need help deciding what to write about these posts I wrote for The Graphic Novel Challenge may help you. They’re both about making a graphic novel but should be relevant to writing non-illustrated novels as well.
Picking Your Project
Developing Your Story
For me it was just a matter of choosing which project to work on since I have about 15 story ideas in queue. I decided to go with the sequel to the book I wrote last year for NaNoWriMo.
If you’re writing a sequel, for your own sanity read the previous book beforehand. As you’re re-reading your first book take notes of possible things to explore with the sequel. Look for plot elements and loose ends that can be tied up, walk on characters that you can have make a second appearance, or new ways you can throw a wrench into your characters lives.
Step 3: Make an Outline
Outlines are like blue-prints for your story. They help you quickly map out the bare bones of your story so you don’t write yourself into a corner. You don’t have to have a very detailed outline but you should be able to at least answer these 5 questions.
Who? Who are your characters? What are they? What are they like?
Where & when? Where does your story take place? Another planet? Another time? An alternative reality?
What? What do they do?
Why? Why are you telling they’re story? Why do they do what they do?
How does it go? Do they succeed? Do they fail? Does everyone make it out alive? How did they grow along the way?
Scrivener allows you to construct outlines in a more visual way much like how some authors use index cards and move them around on a table or bulletin board. In fact they even made it look exactly the same in Scrivener, just paperless.
I start by picking an arbitrary number, 30, and creating new pages and numbering them accordingly. I take the notes I made while re-reading my first book and start filling in the 30 note cards to make my outline.
Once you have your outline done and your story broken up into chapters take 50k and divide it by the number of chapters and you will get your required word count for each chapter. Doing this will help you break down the daunting task into more manageable pieces. As you move forward you can easily adjust you chapter word counts to accommodate longer or shorter chapters or extra chapters you added in.
Step 4: Make a Playlist
Most of my stories are inspired by the music I listen to. When I listen to music I see stories; like small movies playing in my head. Because of the music magic I actually make playlists for every project I work on. If you have iTunes it’s relatively easy to make one from your music collection. I myself seem to own a lot of movie soundtracks which are great for this sort of thing. Another thing you can do is visit free for use music sites like 0 Comments on How I Prepare for NaNoWriMo as of 1/1/1900