Those of you who partake deserve strong praise
If you are right now participating in National Novel Writing Month, I applaud you. Suppose you are furiously banging on your keyboard trying to write 1667 words every day for this entire month. In that case, I admire your stamina and your determination. I think you should be applauded as a group of idealistic writers attempting to make a point.
What is the point
According to those who support NANOWRIMO, if you can produce a manuscript of at least 50,000 words in one month, you have succeeded. By implication, if you do this, you are a writer. The laws of probability tell us a monkey in front of a keyboard can do what we’ve already done. Does that make the monkey a writer? Well, by that definition, absolutely. We do know that writing involves more than probabilities. Monkeys can certainly use a keyboard. However, monkeys do not create persistent writings. That is why most monkeys make lousy writers.
I am not a Participant
I have never participated in NANOWRIMO. Nor have I had the urge to do so. I do not write novels. I prefer short writing, and while I do write short stories, I am more an essayist, a memoirist, but certainly not a novelist.
The Value of NANOWRIMO
It certainly has value. It teaches persistence. You know you are writing this number of words a day. You’re not editing. You may or may not have evolved a plotline. All you are doing for certain is placing words into your manuscript. The value of what you have created is not yet realized. What you have done is an unproven manuscript. For that alone, you are due kudos. In short, volume hooray, quality……..maybe.
Making it to The End
I think writing a book in one month is an act of irrationality. But, if you insist on competing with a monkey in front of a device, let me give you one small suggestion that might give you a chance not only to finish but perhaps to have something worth enhancing in December.
The rules state you cannot start writing your manuscript until November 1. By the end of October, you should have written a summary of your novel. This should include short bios of all your characters and all the salient moments in your plot. Always remember you are summarizing and finding the tension points of your book that will guide the reader from high point to high point until the book ends. You can call this an outline. By necessity, it is sparse, and the details are minimal. The whole idea is to give you a path to follow so you won’t stop at page 112 and say, “Now what?”. The “Now What?” question is terrific during the summary phase. Even if you have to back up a bit in your summary, it is nothing like having to blow off three or four chapters of your book. Keep in mind the major rule of NANOWRIMO. **Write. Do not Edit. ** This rule leads us to Berman’s Corollary, which states: If You do not know your plot, do not start to write.
Success
If you succeed in producing a 50,000-word manuscript before December 1, I congratulate you on your persistence. That is an accomplishment. I think you are entitled to a plaque congratulating you. What you have is a document that requires more than a modicum of work before submission to an Editor.
Summary
I finished writing this the first week of November. I had mentioned in my personal notes to finish this in late September, but that obviously did not happen. Hopefully, anyone interested in pursuing this competition next year will understand that the life of your novel does not start and end during November. If you have a month to write your story, it is far less daunting if it has already been planned before writing the first sentence.