Planning A Novel

All right, so after months and months of writer's block, I think I might have actually gotten an idea for a novel for NaNoWriMo. My question is, what now?

Should I not bother to plan out the novel at all and just start typing November 1st? Or should I plan it? And if so, how? Should I start with an outline, or character profiles, or what? How much planning is over planning? Any advice would be appreciated!


~ Maggie

You can plan novels a lot of ways. I started with the Hero's journey (now a three-act structure instead of following the Journey to the letter) and it just morphed from there. I had the events for the ordinary world, start of the adventure, first trial, second trial, epilogue, ect. That's more the structure I have now; just picking what events trigger what "deaths" in the character:

First death: the past, when they start the adventure.
Second death: when they face their first trial and are tested physically.
Third death: near the end, where they are tested a final time.
Epilogue: resolution of the final trial.

Okay, that's a little sparse, but you get the idea. Three-act structure is classic and is what 99% of stories follow at one level or another. Some more than others.

To actually plan the scenes, I wrote what I had on index cards and put them in order. These cards were as sparse or as filled up as it took. So long as I had the details in my head down I was okay with writing small. Once that was done I typed them up on the computer, making edits as I went. However, if you're doing this for NaNo, writing down the scenes on index cards might be considered cheating.

Hope this helps!

~Rosey

Last NaNo I did very little planing, just had my MC and that was it.
Diving in with no plan was kinda fun, though it was some what easy to get stuck.

This NaNo I'm planing, mainly cause it's sequel to the first NaNo.
I'm just writing down the main idea and all those little details that pop into my head. Hopefully I'll have a plot by then.

I suppose you could really plan out every little thing, but that cuts out the fun of spontaneous ideas that really motivate you.

Good luck!

You need an idea for the overall plot, though this may be basically your premise for the novel with a little elaboration. You don't necessarily have to write anything down.

The reason for this is that while you are writing, you will have more ideas. For example, I was nearing the end of my novel when a secondary climax (and an extra forty chapters) sprang into being.

The most important planning is writing extra stuff down as you go, so you remember what has already happened (and what eye colour your main characters have).

I'll just give you my method for last year's NaNo. I pretty much:

1) Have an idea. Yeah...

2) Start writing on November 1.

3) About a few days in, I actually get some flashes of planning inspiration and sort of write impromptu outlines of future chapters. I tend to deviate from these a lot, but occasionally I follow them to the letter, so they are really good to have. Plus, they let me see if an idea will really work before I actually invest 4000 words into it that will get me nowhere. (I know NaNo is all about the word count, but there are some things that are not worth it...)

4) At this point, I sorta get some ideas of things that I know I want to happen. Particular scenes, characters to pop up, twists... I write 'em down and keep 'em in mind as I keep writing.

5) Keep writing. More writing. Still more writing...

6) Finish.

Yeah. I'm mostly a seat-of-my-pants writer, with little to no planning involved, so that was how I wrote my NaNo (and is pretty much how I write everything anyway). It really depends how you write though. Some people really like to have clear outlines and everything before they write. If you know which one you like better, go with that. If you don't know, then just experiment.

Good luck!

This is how I've planned my first nano so far:
Got inspiration for the climax/pivotal scene
Thought about cause and effect; loosely plotted the ending.
Thought of a couple cool scenes in the middle-ish
have no thoughts on the beginning
except that in the opening scene my two main characters are eating ice cream.
I think the amount of preparation depends on the genre: I'm doing basic romantic (?) fiction about a friendship that was slightly off to begin with and having it spiral into something really awful.
But if you were doing space opera or fantasy, there might be some worldbuilding- extreme plotting involved.
Organic writing shouldn't mean "you start with nothing and go from there." I tried that for scriptfrenzy; it was atrocious.
Its more of a hazy beginning, muddled middle, and limp ending.
I also find when I'm writing something long to break it down into daily scenes; meaning "this and this and that needs to happen in two thousand words today."
I sounds rigid but I've done it for other partially-finished works and seems both easy and flexible.