Young Writers Society

Welcome back to the first NaNo event of 2023ǃ Alongside the one true NaNo which happens every year in November, we also run a few mini-NaNos called Camp NaNos. (NaNo is a short form for 'National Novel Writing Month'). Whilst the goal in November is to write 50,000 words, the aim of Camp NaNo is up to youː you set your own prose writing goal, and you work to achieve it.

Stepsː

1. Set your goalː do you want to write 20,000 words? Or 50,000? Do you want to revise something, or maybe plan a new novel? It's up to youǃ

2. Make your threadː make a thread to keep track of your progress in the Camp NaNo Forums. Just like in NaNo, you report your daily/weekly progress in this thread and maybe share snippets if you like.

3. Participate in the Journal Challengeː if your goal involves writing a draft, maybe you might want a challenge to do some planning beforehand. The PlanMo Journal Challenge is available in this thread from now and all throughout April in case you need a bit of inspo (there are some shiny badges up for grabs too).

4. Visit other people's threads and spread encouragementː unless someone says 'no comments please', do pop in to like people's updates, say 'Great goingǃ' or 'I love that snippet you sharedǃ', because it really does help motivate people.

5. When Camp NaNo starts (April 1st) start updating your threadː you can give your daily wordcount, or just mention some parts of your planning you completed - this depends on your goal. It's up to you what you share and when!

6. Have funǃ (This part is mandatory I'm afraid)


The Official NaNoWriMo site, though not linked to YWS, is a good resource to use. It can help you keep track of your wordcount if you have a wordcount goal.

Don't forget also that April is National Poetry Writing Monthǃ Find out more about that here.

We'll hopefully be having some write-ins throughout the month where you can work on NaPo, Camp NaNo or both. Subscribe to this thread also, as we'll post further events and hashtags to do with Camp NaNo here!

Sample Camp NaNo Threads for Inspo

carlito's Camp NaNo 22: A Roadtrip Romance
Spearmint's July 2021: Sort-of Superpowered

Hello, hello, and welcome to Planning Month (PlanMo)! This month is the time to prepare for Camp NaNo in April, and whilst the goal doesn't have to be 50k words, we hope the activities we have this month will help you achieve whatever goal you set for yourself.

In the PlanMo club, you can start your own thread. In your thread, record your responses to the challenges, so you can refer back to them when writing later. You can work through the following challenges at your own time and pace. Feel free to do as many or as few of them as you want.

(There's also some badges up for grabs for those that complete the challenges!)

If you'd prefer, you can also log these in your personal NaNo thread, just make sure to link us to where you've completed the challenges so we can award badges correctly!

Here are the challenges for the month (you can complete these in March ahead of Camp NaNo, or continue working on them through April).

Main Challenges

Elevator pitch

An elevator pitch, elevator speech, or elevator statement is a short description of an idea, product, or company that explains the concept in a way such that any listener can understand it in a short period of time. Describe your novel as though it were an elevator pitch.

Character tweets

Character tweets. How would your characters introduce themselves to social media? Write their first tweet. You can do one for as many of your characters as you like, but remember you only have 280 characters.

Character Motivations/Goals

Write a few paragraphs about a tangible thing your main character wants before the book begins. Why do they want this? What will getting/achieving this thing mean to them? What do they think it will say about them? What is your main character's biggest fear keeping them from getting what they want? What is their misbelief about the world that fuels their fear?

Story arc
What kind of story arc does your novel follow? Is it a classic rags to riches, a redemption arc? How do your character's fortunes rise and fall throughout the story?
If you need some extra inspiration for this one, check out our most recent Gen Lit Clinc where we looked at all kinds of different parts of a story arc including how to add conflict, balancing progression of a character vs plot and lots of other thought provoking things!

The stakes
To keep your story interesting, you want your reader to be invested in the outcome. What will happen if everything doesn't work out? What do your characters have to lose?

Most challenging character

Describe which character you think will be the most challenging to write. Plan how you will rise to that challenge! Do they need extra research? How might you tackle the scenes they are in differently to other scenes?

Question & answer

Questions! Post two (or more) questions in your entry, then, go round other threads answering questions with your thoughts. This month is likely to lead to different realisations for different people, or maybe some people are more experienced with NaNo than others. Either way, we are sure that if you ask a question of the YWS hivemind, the YWS hivemind will answer.

Extra Challenges

Use the media code to put in a song that will inspire you to write this story when the going gets tough.

It could be the something that reminds you of the location your story takes place, one of your characters or just a good motivational song!

Code: Select all

[media][/media]

Character & location List

List down all the characters and locations that will or might appear in the story. Include some that seem unlikely, but might for example be a cool setting to add to a scene that needs some spice. You could also include some names or general descriptions for supporting/ background characters that you might need in a hurry.

Character questionnaire

Fill out the following (condensed) questionnaire from the NaNo site about at least one of your side characters, though the more you do the more prepared you will be.



Our wonderful @Spearmint is also drawing characters for the first five people to complete the character profile questionnaire!

Badges

*beep boop* Hello! There are a variety of badges you can earn from participating in PlanMo and CampNaNo. You can see them below!



Here is what you need to do to get each of them. Remember to create a post in this thread to track your achievements and claim the badge! Badges can be claimed for doing any of these throughout the month of April (and for PlanMo badges, in late March as well). All links should be added by May 4th.

Camp NaNo April '23 Pantser

1-4 PlanMo Challenges complete (and link in a post below.)


Camp NaNo April '23 Plantser

5-9 PlanMo Challenges complete (and link in a post below.)


Camp NaNo April '23 Planner

10 PlanMo Challenges complete (and link in a post below.)


Camp NaNo April '23 Cheerleader

Post 10 encouraging posts on other Camp NaNoers threads and link them in a post below.


Camp NaNo April '23 Finisher

Log your progress each day of CampNaNo, meet your goal (and link your thread here!)


Camp NaNo April '23 Reflections

Make a post responding to the end of month questions (more on that later) and link them in a post below.

claiming a spot! =D

Camp NaNo April '23 Cheerleader

Camp NaNo April '23 Finisher

Camp NaNo April '23 Reflections

Claiming a spot as well!

Camp NaNo April '23 Plantser

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Camp NaNo April '23 Cheerleader

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Camp NaNo April '23 Finisher

Camp NaNo April '23 Reflections

Claiming a spot here!

Cheerleader
1. Camp Nano '23: The Last Conqueror
2. Camp NaNo '23: SSED Revisions
3. Camp NaNo April 2023: Angel Astrid
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