CampNaNoWriMo Winner!

So this happened today!

I always wanted to do CampNaNoWriMo, but I've always been too busy with summer school to do it. I drafted 40,000 words of the sequel to my middle grade series. I'm going to let this sit for three weeks before I plunge into the editing.

Camp NaNoWriMo

I've decided to take the plunge, and try do CampNaNoWriMo. For those who don't know it takes place during July, and sometimes April in which you set your own word count goal. Normally during November you have to hit 50,000 words. Some writers don't do it because November is hectic with the holiday season.

I'm going to write the sequel to the middle grade series I hope to get an agent for. It's an idea I've been brewing in my head, but the agents I've been following said they are looking for a middle grade series. So by writing this sequel it will let me know if it's possible.

Angela Quarles 7 Steps to Revising Your NaNoWriMo Story

So a USA Today Bestselling author who is also a participant of NaNoWriMo. Her 2010 NaNoWriMo story became a bestseller. These are her tips for revising her NaNoWriMo stories.

1. Read it through in its entirety, but don’t get hung up on nitpick-y editing. At this stage I’m looking to see what the heck I’ve written and make notes of any changes I’d need to make. Some of these are big-picture thoughts I write in the Notes section for that scene in Scrivener, or it’s a footnote I’ve added to a word or sentence. 

At this point, I’m only concentrating on the big picture—the bones of the story. This is the Emergency Room stage—your story is bleeding, the plot has so many holes, or is missing an entire limb, and so you should only be figuring out what the massive wounds might be and how to fix them. Don’t worry about the small cuts. Not yet. Resist.

2. As I’m going through, I also write down a short summary of each scene in the Synopsis “card” in Scrivener.

3. Once done, I go back through each “card” and make sure that the scene has a goal, motivation, and conflict, or if it’s a sequel scene or transition scene, I make note of that and see what might need to be added. This is a final check to make sure I haven’t missed some important story bones.

4. I then take a deep breath and see if I can write down a 25-30 word or less “logline”. If I can’t succinctly capture the protagonist, their goal, and the conflict, while also getting across the tone and genre, I know my story could be in trouble. 

Some of you plotters might have already done this before you even started writing—make sure it still applies!

5. If I’m really having trouble seeing the “shape” of the story, I print out the scene synopses and make notes on there, marking and shifting things around. It’s essential to find some way of seeing your story as a whole, instead of getting mired down in the words. Believe me, that’s a quick way to feel like you’re drowning in revisions, unable to get a grasp of what needs to be done.

6. Once I’ve let all this marinate and plugged in all the notes where they could be tackled in Scrivener, I start revising. But, I don’t do it by starting from the beginning and editing and changing as I go. I only dip into the parts of the story that I marked during the read through. This keeps me focused on the big picture. It also has the added benefit of preventing story fatigue. 

I’ve found that the fewer times I have to read the story, the fresher it stays and the less of a chance I get sick of it by the time I’m ready to publish. The scene synopses help at this stage to keep me oriented so I don’t have to reread each scene.

7. Then I read it again, smoothing out the patches as I go, and hand it off to my Alpha reader.

After that, it goes through what I’d call edits, instead of revisions, and that’s a different tactic. But I do another revision pass after it comes back from the Alpha reader (again only dipping into the parts that need fixing). 

Next, it goes to the developmental editor I’ve hired in the past. Then I use a color-coding highlighting system to help me self-edit—this is basically my own line editing pass. Then it goes to my Beta readers, then to my line editor/copy editor. I incorporate changes, and then hand it off to two separate proofreaders before I’m ready to format and publish.

But, as I said earlier, I didn’t have all this in place when I first started. So if you don’t have a critique group or Alpha and Beta readers, don’t despair. ForBreeches, I participated in several forums and used a ton of Beta readers until I found ones that were solid. I also found places like critiquecircle.com extremely helpful in learning and honing my craft. Many people read chapters (or the whole story) there and helped me get it into shape.

How you handle revisions will be depend on how you think and perhaps how you drafted—are you a plotter or a pantser?—so have patience as you learn what works for you. The important thing to keep in mind:

Take it in stages, working from big fixes down to small fixes.

There is no sense in fine-tuning the cadence of a sentence in the opening scene, getting it just perfect, and then realizing that the whole first scene needs to go because it doesn’t do what you need it to do for the sake of your story.

Another Year Completed

This has to be some record of how many book I can write before I end up getting an agent. I want to see if I can get an agent with the historical fiction I wrote. This one took me faster to write because it was a contemporary thriller. So all I had to do was worry about plot.

I'm going to finish with the last edits on my historical that I was really excited about writing for the first time. Then I can hop back to this one when I send out the queries.

Camp NaNoWriMo

Let the writing fun begin!

WINNER

For the third year in a row I won NANOWRIMO! After finals I will spend every waking moment editing, so I can send it out.

NaNoWriMo Check In

This year I tried something different. Instead of what I normally do writing as I go along I ended up outlining my whole book before I wrote it. I outlined chapters, wrote the synopsis, and pitch. I found myself writing faster than I normally do. I do write fast enough as it is, but this time I ended up trying something different and I am amazed with the results I am getting so far.

Hope everyone else is doing well. I plan on posting my playlist for the story soon.

NaNoWriMo Check In

Day Three of NaNoWriMo, and I wrote 10,000 words!

I'm really excited for this story, it's nothing like I ever have written before. Normally I draft faster than this but this semester is piling up on me.

HAPPY NANOWRIMO

NaNoWriMo Pep Talk from Chuck Wendig

Imagine being allowed to do something you’re not supposed to do.

Imagine you’re given the keys to a mud-bogging Bronco, or a dune buggy, or a Lamborghini. And then, you’re pointed toward a field. A soccer field outside a high school, or maybe just a wide open grassland. Nobody there. No kids playing. No animals frolicking. In fact, right now, nobody is here to see you at all.

You have total freedom to rev the engine, slam the pedal to the floor, and gun it through that field. You can do donuts, spinning the car wildly about, flinging up mud, leaving tracks that look like the calligraphy of an old, mad god.

You can slop mud on the car. You can get out and dance in the grass.

You can do whatever you want.

This is not something we’re particularly used to, as adults. My toddler gets it. He isn’t fenced in by the boundaries of adulthood—which, okay, yes, that means he doesn’t necessarily know not to shove a ham sandwich into a whirring fan (instant ham salad!) or not to climb the tallest thing and leap off it like a puma.

But it also means he doesn’t know why he can’t just pick up a pen and start drawing. It means he has no problem grabbing a blob of Play-Doh and creating whatever his fumbling little hands can manage. It means that he’ll grab a Transformers toy and half-transform it into some lumbering robot-car monstrosity—and when an adult might say, “No, no, it’s like this or it’s like that; it’s a robot or it’s a car,” he’s like, “Uh, yeah, no. Go back to your tax forms and your HGTV, stupid adult, I’ve just created a Frankencarbot and you can go hide your head in the sand-swept banality of grown-up life, sucker.”

His entire creative life is the “Everything Is Awesome” song from The LEGO Movie. Because he doesn’t know what he can or can’t do. He doesn’t know about art or form or criticism or any of that. He can do whatever he wants. (Ham sandwiches and fan blades aside.)

And you can do whatever you want, too.

The blank page is yours. Cast aside worries over art and criticism. Imagine a land without rules. Imagine that nobody has ever told you that you cannot or should not do this thing. Those people were wrong. Forget those voices. Because, for real?

It’s an empty field and you’ve got the keys to a freaking Ferrari.

It’s a white tablecloth and you’ve got ketchup, mustard, and relish.

It’s a blank page and you’ve got all the letters and words you need.

Rev the engine and take the ride. Paint with all the colors the condiments at your table allow. Create whatever robot-human monstrosities your mind cares to conjure. Crack open your chest and plop your heart onto the page.

Right now: just write. Donuts in an empty field.

Leave your mark.

Chuck Wendig is the author of the Heartland Trilogy, the Miriam Black series, and The Kick-Ass Writer.

NaNoWriMo Pep Talk From Erin Morgenstern

Dear Brave, Beautiful NaNoWriMo Writer,

I feel a bit like I am writing this from the other side of the looking glass. I am more accustomed to being the participant and not the pep talker. Also, “pep” is a strange word. The Online Etymology Dictionary informs me that it dates from 1912 as a shortened form of “pepper” figuratively meaning spirit or energy. (“Pep talk” only dates back to 1926.) It sounds to me more like a soft drink or a nickname for a small dog. Feel free to think of this pep talk as a small dog full of spirit or energy.

I have been where you are. I suspect this might feel like someone yelling encouragement from a far dry shore, sipping a fancy-glassed drink with a little paper umbrella precariously perched atop it, waving with my free hand while you swim through icy, toe-numbing water. But I have been in that water, many times. My toes have been numb during those dismal days when even minimal wordage seems unattainable and that 50K beach is barely visible through the salt-spray surf. There are probably sharks involved in this analogy as well.

(True confession: I love analogies. I also love adverbs. There, I said it. I love adverbs so much I sometimes contemplate getting an –ly tattooed behind my ear to encourage the whispering of sweet, sweet adverbs. But I digress.)

I participated in my first NaNoWriMo in 2003, after years of thinking about writing and not actually putting words down on paper. I managed around 15K before I quit.

I’m not sure why—perhaps I am determined, perhaps I am simply stubborn—but I attempted again the next year and made it to 50k. And again the year after that, and the year after that, and so on and so forth, the most recent being 2009. I have a 6/1 winning record over 7 years. I think my personal best is in the range of 80k in 27 days or something like that. The pride that comes with that winner icon is still a joy. (I particularly liked the Viking-themed year, those were good icons.) And I do so love a progress bar, that gorgeous visual representation of word count progress. I’m a visual person, so that bar helps, it really does.

2010 marked the first NaNoWriMo that I haven’t participated since that first try, and I didn’t have the time mostly because I was in the midst of my final edits for The Night Circus, which began life as a surprise tangent in NaNovel ’05 and was very roughly, sprawlingly drafted during NaNo ’06 & ’07. I am aware that this is cheating. I’m sorry. In my defense, I’m not certain it had enough plot at that point to be considered the same novel.

The circus was my variation on the wise and ancient NaNo wisdom: when in doubt, just add ninjas. I had this plodding, Edward Gorey-esque thing with mysterious figures in fur coats being mysterious and doing very little else. I got tremendously bored with it because nothing was happening so I sent the otherwise boring characters to a circus. And it worked. I ended up tossing that beginning and focusing purely on the circus. An imaginary location I created out of desperation expanded and changed and became its own story over many non-November months of revisions and more revisions and now it is all grown-up and book-shaped and published and bestselling. And it all started with NaNoWriMo.

I like to think of NaNo-ing as excavating. You uncover different things at the 30K mark than you do at 10K. Things that felt like desperate, random nonsense on page 72 (the abandoned broken pocket watch, a partially obscured tattoo, that taxidermied marmot on the mantelpiece) are suddenly important and meaningful on page 187. Everything could hinge on the fate of that marmot. Or the marmot may be a red herring. Or perhaps the marmot is just a marmot. You have to keep writing to find out.

Even if you’re an outliner, leave room for the unexpected things to sneak in. Surprises are half the fun, the spontaneous road trips through tangents and subplots. They might end up being more important than you think. And if they’re not, you can always edit them out after November. No one has to know so for now, for this glorious November, you can do whatever you please. It’s your world to create and explore and even destroy if you want.

I wish I could think of cool, witty things to say. I want to mix you each the beverages of your choice, cocktails or sodas or tea or foam-topped espresso drinks that all magically maintain perfect drinking temperature. Bring you truffles or tira misu or chocolate-covered popcorn and give you wrist massages while whispering these encouraging, fortune-cookie bits of wisdom-esque whatnot garnered in my years of NaNo-ing:

Never delete anything. If you can’t stand to look at it, change the font to white and keep going.

If possible, get a running start. It gives you flexibility for later in the month when you desperately need to do something, anything that doesn’t involve writing once in a while.

Do something, anything that doesn’t involve writing once in a while. Take a walk, go to a museum, do yoga, paint your toenails, spin around in circles. Shake your brain up so the ideas can move around.

Backup. Frequently. Flash drives are your friends. Also, I hear you can store things on clouds now but I’m not sure how that works. It sounds very whimsical, though, and I am a fan of whimsy.

Take risks. (Microsoft Word wanted to autocorrect that to “Take care.” Clearly, Word does not understand NaNoWriMo. Also, this is why I normally write in Scrivener. Scrivener would never suggest such a thing.)

When in doubt, just add ninjas. (Ninjas do not need to be actual ninjas.) (But they can be.)

Let yourself be surprised.

I wish you happy, daring writing laced with surprises. Have fun. Bonne chance.

Erin Morgenstern

Have Your Inspiration Board Ready to Go

To help you get through NaNoWriMo make sure you have an inspiration board in pintrest.

For example I'm going to show you the one that Kami Garcia made.

I agree with Kami about being visual I have always been a visual learner. Before I changed my major in college to science I was originally in the arts. So when it comes to writing I have pictures of things that relate to my story to give me inspiration. Here are three things that can help you get the visual.

• Having pictures if it takes place in a town you've never been before
• Get pictures of actors who resemble your characters
• Pictures of the outfits your characters wear

Since this year I am writing a historical I have to have tons of pictures. I had to get pictures of that time period. Pictures do help when your writing. If you're writing a book dealing with a mystical closet get pictures of that and make it in pintrest. The visual aspects will help you with your story.

Good Luck with NaNoWriMo! Write On!

NaNoWriMo Pep Talk from Kami Garica

In October, you were busy plotting your novel, or—if you’re like me—pinning motivational quotes on your Pinterest boards. Now it’s almost November, and the plot that seemed perfect a month ago reminds you of Harry Potter or Star Wars, and those motivational quotes aren’t as motivating as you thought.

It’s the 11th hour, and Doubt is paying you a visit. Giving Doubt a name is helpful. I call my unwelcome friend Ozzy because he sounds suspiciously like Ozzy Osbourne from one of my favorite bands, Black Sabbath. Whatever you call him, Doubt’s endgame is always the same: to keep you from writing. There are so many reasons why you shouldn’t write this book, right? Here are a few of the things Doubt whispers in your ear:

• You’re too busy. You have a job, or kids, or a spouse, or a pet, or a pint of chocolate ice cream waiting for you. How can you possibly find time to write? So what if Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 on a typewriter during his lunch breaks?

• Your idea sucks. Now that you’ve read over your idea a few times, it’s clear that your idea is worthless—and there is no way to fix it. Real authors come up with ideas that are completely formed from inception, and they never outline or rework an idea, or call a friend sobbing because they think their plot isn’t salvageable.

• Your muse is MIA. Everyone knows that when real writers sit down in front of their computers, the words just pour out. Real writers have muses who whisper ideas to them in their dreams and solve their writing problems. There are, of course, a limited number of these muses—and to date, they’ve all been assigned to other writers who are not you.

• You aren’t qualified to be a writer. You don’t have an MFA in Creative Writing; maybe you don’t even have a degree, which everyone knows is a requirement for successful writers. Harper Lee, Ray Bradbury, Charles Dickens, Jack Kerouac, and William Faulkner are the only exceptions to the rule. Or maybe you have an MFA, but now that it’s time to start writing, you don’t know how you earned that degree in the first place.

Here’s the truth, from me to you:

• Most writers are “too busy” to write. We have spouses, or children, or dogs, or cats, or gremlins we’re responsible for. Some writers even have another full-time job that (gasp) has nothing to do with writing. Yet, they still write. Instead of finding the time to write, you make the time to write.

• As far as having a plot that sucks, welcome to the first draft of every idea I’ve ever had. If you don’t believe me, ask one of my writer friends; most of them have endured at least one of my sobbing phone calls, during which I insist that my book is broken beyond repair.

• And the muse? I have no idea who has one, but if anyone does, I’d like to know so I can stage a kidnapping.

• While it’s wonderful to have an MFA, you don’t need one to be a writer. At the end of the day, the only thing you need to be a writer is an idea and a pen. Your job is to write the best song, poem, story, or book you can.

Here’s the million-dollar question: how are you going to write this book if you’re afraid to start writing? Give your friend Doubt a name, and then block his calls.

I’m not a fast writer. I type with three fingers, and there’s a video on YouTube to prove it. The way I finish my novels is one word at a time. Don’t focus on 50,000 words or 30 days. Just write one word at a time, and focus on hitting your word-count goal one day at a time.

So start writing your novel. I’m waiting to read it, and I’m rooting for you.

XO Kami

Kami Garcia is the co-author of the Beautiful Creatures series, and the author of Unbreakable and Unmarked.

Write Your Pitch, Your Synopsis and Your Full Detail Synopsis

My next tip for planning for NaNoWriMo is that will help you get your story done is writing something that is so important when you send it out; the pitch, the synopsis and the full detail synopsis.

You pitch is one or two sentences that hooks someone into the book. Have your pitch ready. For my example I'm going to try doing Harry Potter.

Harry Potter is not your ordinary boy he's discovered he's a wizard. When he goes to a boarding school to learn how to control his powers he also learns the mystery of his life he never knew.

The hook helps to suck the reader into the story.

Next write your synopsis, and your full detailed synopsis. After writing the outline for your book you should be able to write the synopsis fairly easy. By following your outline you should be able to write your full detail synopsis.

After you have written your full detail synopsis try to compress that into the synopsis that you will send to agents when it comes time to query, but query for at least five months until you've spent about three months editing your draft.

If you have not tried doing this before you must try to write your full detail synopsis before you write your story. Know the major scenes that are suppose to happen can help you write the story faster than you think. Just try it!

For Reasearch

Okay so since I now have my idea for the story I'm going to write for NaNoWriMo. Since this particular genre hasn't really been popular it's going to require I do a bit more digging. For the particular book I plan on writing it's going to require for me to remember the feel of the book.

So I bought a two new ones that were recently released, and one that is my absolute favorite.

The ones that were released

My favorite of all!

Craft Your Characters Ahead

Okay so now that we are getting back to the NaNoWriMo post I'm going to do a post on characters.

Writers get asked a lot how do you come up with your characters? Frankly I have no right way to answer that. Every writer comes up with their characters differently. In one of my completed stories the characters came to me in a dream. In other book I wrote the character was similar to my personality which is what made it easier to write.

An author Susan Dennard did a post on crafting characters and her idea made so much more sense when I couldn't think of how to write it down.

Her five tips for creating characters went like this

• Voice
• Desperate Need
• Backstory/History
• Behavioral/ speaking Quirks
• Looks/Physical Quirks

I followed her advice and found it really easy to make my characters for what I'm going to write for NaNoWriMo! I try to find new ways when I write something new to see what works best for me.

Now back to crafting the characters. By using the points she wrote here are the questions I ask myself when I am making each character. If you follow it you can be sure you will get the voice of the character into your mind that the story will just pop onto the pages! Here is my tip for each.

Voice
How is this character supposed to be? When we are in their mind are we going to be able to tell what they are feeling all the time? 

Desperate Need

What is it your character desperately wants? What do they need to get what they want? What is it your character desperately wants?

Backstory/History
What are the events leading up to the story? What is the characters background history? Did the family recently make a move?

Behavioral/ speaking Quirks

What is their behavior when they are around others? Do they slouch? Sit up straight? Do they have their legs crossed? How is the pitch of their voice?

Looks/Physical Quirks

How does your character dress? What is their body type? Does the way they look match their personality and voice?

Have these characters crafted and you are sure to have something that is going to pop off the pages! Good luck with making your characters for NaNoWriMo!

How to Start a Novel

For all new people looking to write a book. I wanted to point you to a post written by Chuck Sambuchino in Writer's Digest How to Start a Novel

Source: http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/how-to-start-a-new-novel-in-22-easy-steps

1. Open a new Word document.

2. Save it as tentative book title.

3. Wonder if any other books have this title

4. Check Twitter.

5. Google tentative book title.

6. Feel relieved that you’re somewhat original…

7. Type the title and “Chapter One” in Word document.

8. Check e-mail.

9. Check Facebook.

10. Stare at blinking cursor in Word document.

11. Check latest favorite blogs & tumblrs.

12. Type first sentence.

13. Click “save.”

14. Feel accomplished.

15. Feel thirsty.

16. Refill water glass.

17. Check Twitter.

18. Click on five different-yet-equally-inane HuffPo links.

19. Stare at blinking cursor after first sentence.

20. Realize that, though this is the third novel you’ve written, you’ve completely forgotten the principles on how to successfully start a novel.

21. Write blog post about it.

22. Type second sentence?

Outlining Your Novel

Writing Stats: Edits 80%

So anyway back to the world of writing that's about to get crazy in about three weeks.

It's time for my favorite time of the year NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH otherwise known as NaNoWriMo. I cannot emphasize how much I love NaNoWriMo. It gives me the fire to get that draft done and to spend countless amounts of time editing it so it's awesome!

In order to help other writers with NaNoWriMo I'm going to do a series of post to help you prepare for it.

So you want to write a book? Well NaNoWriMo is the perfect time to write that book you've always said you were going to write but never had the time.This is your chance.

Often a writer will ask themselves "what do I write." Today's post is something that is going to be very useful to you to get those important scenes written.

First start with a clean document.

Then make a navigation panel in word for your chapters. If you don't know how to do this look at the blog post on Natasha Neagle site! http://natashaneagle.com/organizing-your-manuscript-in-word/

(TIP: Her trick is going to save me so much editing time!)

Once you already have in mind how many chapters your book is going to be just add them to the navigation plane before you start. You can always add more later. (Again see Natasha's blog post)

After you have completed adding all your chapters to the navigation plane start doing little bullets for each scene in a chapter. For my example I'm just going to use Harry Potter I don't want to spoil my super secret project.

Then when it comes time to start writing just write the scene like you outlined on top. You can just subtract how many words were your outline from the total.

That's one of my secrets to survive NaNoWriMo! I would write each scene underneath it's bullet point! Here is how this helped me last year. I was able to see the bullet point above each scene I was writing. It would help just in case I couldn't figure out which scene I was going to work on next. Each of my scenes average to about 2k. 

Then when it came time to the revisions I would weave all the scenes together. Plus with Natasha's new trick in word it's going to save me so much time scrolling through the document. This is one way I outline a novel before NaNoWriMo normally I would plot as I go along. But this trick I found saves me countless times of copying and pasting scenes around in a single word document.

I hope you get the chance to try out this outline! I'm going to see about posting another outline for NaNoWriMo prep. If you use my trick let me know how you like it!

Stephen King Quotes

The best quote I have found by Stephen King on writing!In which I believe in every single word he said. My next book purchase shall be his book on writing!


"I believe the first draft of a book — even a long one — should take no more than three months…Any longer and — for me, at least — the story begins to take on an odd foreign feel, like a dispatch from the Romanian Department of Public Affairs, or something broadcast on high-band shortwave duiring a period of severe sunspot activity.

The scariest moment is always just before you start.

If you're not talented, you won't succeed. And if you're not succeeding, you should know when to quit. When is that? I don't know. It's different for each writer. Not after six rejection slips, certainly, nor after sixty. But after six hundred? Maybe. After six thousand? My friend, after six thousand pinks, it's time you tried painting or computer programming."

Article on Worldbuilding

I found an advice article on world-building on a blog called Freshman Fifteen, it's columns written by authors who are having their debut books released in 2015, and one of them has a fantasy novel releasing. Victoria Aveyard author of the Red Queen coming out in 2015 wrote about world-building for books, and I thought I would share it. (I found a lot of the material in this helpful since the first book I wrote was YA urban fantasy and I mostly made it all up as I went along). 

Source:http://freshmanfifteens.com/freshman-fifteen-author-victoria-aveyard-talks-worldbuilding/

I’m lucky in a lot of ways. 1) I got my hair ombré-d last September and haven’t had to touch it up since and 2) I can pinpoint the exact moment when I discovered my great love of creating stories. I was eight years old, flipping through a Legend of Zelda guidebook while my brother navigated through that god-awful Water Temple. Even back then, I was obsessed with maps, but I’d only had atlases to look at. Now I had an actual fictional map, and it was like setting off a firecracker. I immediately forgot it was my turn to play and got to work with my crayons. A few scribbles later, I had a map of my own. It was a terrible Zelda knockoff, but I didn’t care. My mind was racing. I was already thinking about the people who lived in the little dot cities and what monsters ruled the oceans and mountains. So begins my obsession with world-building, which is easily my favorite part of writing, and one I don’t think any story can be without.

Naturally, some stories require more world-building than others. A fantasy is going to have a lot more intense work than a contemporary, but world-building is equally important to both. In my opinion, world-building isn’t just a way to create the bones of your world. It’s a way to completely envelope yourself in its skin. You might not need to know the layout of your protagonist’s high school, but once you do, it’s that much easier imagine your characters in it. You basically remove one more barrier between yourself and the story, to the point where you’re not even writing it at all. You’re living it, and just happen to be jotting down what’s happening.

I’m a big believer in copying what works, so I’m going to outline what works for me when I start a new project. My own stories err on the side of the fantastical, with expansive worlds and back-story. Summary: I go pretty hard on world-building. My method is probably bit of overkill for a lot of genres, but applies very well to historical, fantasy, sci-fi, and paranormal.

Of course, you’ve gotta kick things off with the kernel of an idea. What kind of story do you want to tell? It can be as simple as one sentence. The rest will come in the world-building, I promise you. Let’s take an example: a boy decides to masquerade as a long lost prince.

I personally like to start with a map. It’s what got me into writing, and it’s just a hobby of mine. Again, not all stories require a map, but anyone can use one. Do it for neighborhoods or star systems, whatever. My favorite tools for mapmaking are graph paper, pens, and Photoshop or its equivalent. Computer programs are particularly helpful for using layers to denote things like geographical formations, roads, political borders etc. My very best advice regarding making maps is to read maps. Atlases are great, and I personally use Google maps on a daily basis. Just have fun and tool around. Look at how rivers interact with coastlines, where lowlands are, how mountains affect nation-building etc. Fictional maps are a must as well. My favorites are, of course, Middle-Earth, Westeros, and Narnia.

After the maps, I like to have a brief history leading up to my story time. Just the basics. Why this place is a monarchy, where the people migrated from, etc. Emphasis on the word brief. This is not the world of your story, but it is a bit of the foundation. Where would Lord of the Rings be without the Second Age? Or Westeros without Aegon’s Conquest? I’ll stop.

Maps and intense histories don’t have to be necessary to the reader (i.e. Harry Potter), but I think they’re essential to the writer. I personally would go nuts if I didn’t have a map of the Red Queen world at hand, even though it’s not something a reader needs to refer to every five seconds.

Back to the example. Now that your basic map and history is set, you know the boy pretending to be a prince grew up in those cool islands you drew. He was raised a pirate. Now he’s got to hide that rough and tumble upbringing to pass himself off as the heir to the throne. See where I’m going? Every step of world-building adds another layer. Bones, then muscle, then skin. Metaphors!

After maps, I usually start my info doc. If you don’t have them already, get down the basics about mountains, rivers, countries, cities, peoples, cultures, languages etc. Basically take your map and fill in the blanks. Go wild. As you do, you’ll naturally want to expand out. Oh, that’s called Whitetooth Mountain? Why? Giant wolves live there? Cool! Write it down! Use it! Go through Wikipedia and random history articles for inspiration. Pretty much all of A Song of Ice and Fire (minus the magic stuff) comes straight from historical events. Remember the Red Wedding? Look up the Black Dinner! I also advise going wild with family trees. I certainly do. Each piece of this will get your story muscles working, and it will be so easy to leap into characters and plot. You’ve pretty much built the mold, and now it’s just a question of pouring a person in. You’ve laid all the groundwork, so the character will pretty much shape themselves.

Now pirate boy has parents, friends, maybe a religion or educational background. You know him. You know what he sees when he wakes up, and why he wants to get so far away from it. This is where plot comes in. Just like character, you’ve got a mold, and you have all you need to fill it up. Pirate boy turned prince. Build from that. Outline, bullet point, index card. This is always the hard part for me (I hate outlining), but it pays off in the long run. By the time you’ve got your outline ready, you not only have a great story, but you’ve got a deep one at that. You know what city pirate boy is going to sail to, and who lives there. It will be second nature to describe, because you already understand it. You built it. This is your world, and it’s that much easier to control.

A word of caution: I am a chronic over world-builder. I get hamstrung by this all the time. I go too deep and I burn out. Red Queen is the project I did the least amount of building on (and it was still a lot), and it was also the first novel I finished. That’s me. I’ve got a limit as to how far I can build before I crap out and get bored. So whenever you feel that twinge and think of greener pastures, sit back. Even if you don’t have outlines, write down some prose. I’m a big believer in quote docs. I have one for every project, where I basically write lines, dialogue, and descriptive prose about stuff I know will happen, or stuff I just think would be cool to include. My favorite lines from my books usually come from these docs, and they’re a nice little carrot to keep you going. “I know this awesome comeback happens in two chapters! I need to get there!”

I can go on forever about world-building (and my Middle-Earth atlas), but I’m going to take my own advice and reel it in. At the end of the day, the point is to feel comfortable in the world you’ve made. You’ll know when you get to that point, because you’ll close your eyes and see what your characters see. Beyond that, you’ll see what came before, what’s beyond that hill, who lives in that house, etc. It’s like shooting practice before a basketball game. Eventually you’ll get to the point where you don’t have to think, and it’s all just feel. That’s my favorite way to write, although it makes me look a bit crazed (according to my roommates).

What are your favorite world-building methods? Better yet, favorite maps and fictional worlds? I won’t lie to you, I am thirsty as hell for an official map of Panem. WHY DO YOU TORMENT ME SO, SUZANNE COLLINS?

Cheers,

Victoria

If you decide to write something for NaNoWriMo 2014 that requires a lot of worldbuilding I highly recommend to plan the month before using this advice for your worldbuilding.