Planning for NaNoWriMo
Three people have asked me in the last few days how I plan a novel out before I write it, especially for NaNoWriMo. I've won NaNo for the last two years, and by the looks of things, there are three main ways that people plan for it:
Snowflake method. Google it. It's marvellous.
Phase method. This one I like a lot, because it makes actual writing an absolute breeze once you get around to it. It's pretty labour-intensive, though.
Pantsing: which is to say, not planning at all, and going where the fancy takes you.
I am no good at pantsing whatsoever - partly because I am completely rubbish at not skipping ahead, so I always end up with quite a lot of plan in my head, and once it's there I may as well write it down before I forget it. Over the last three years or so, I've tried both Snowflake and Phase outlines, on various projects inside and outside NaNo, and now I use neither.
Generally speaking, I'm a really plot-driven writer, but inevitably I start with a character. When I plan, the first thing I do is take a character I'm really interested in, and put them in a context. If I really like both, I'll buy myself a large narrow-lined notebook, and go and write a few unconnected scenes to see if the character works, and if they do, I'll start to fill out a before and after around that. After a while, I'll have a rough series of events written out, usually in a series of 1000-word excerpts with the gaps filled in with notes, all in longhand. Those events may or may not bear any resemblance to the eventual plot - it's quite fun to come back and look at them a year or so down the line and see how much has changed.
Then I'll describe the setting, and fill in some of the minor characters I'm going to need - also on paper. I'll allocate some good lines, and normally a couple of sub-plots or minor mysteries, to give my other characters something to do. I might write a bit about their childhoods, or backstories, or motivations. This is really good for pre-NaNo prep, because I tend to churn a lot of them out without overthinking too much, and that's great for getting into the habit of writing a lot of stuff in the right voice before November starts. This is the closest I get to the Snowflake method, but it's not really the same because it has next to nothing to do with the actual plot of the novel.
Once I've done that, and I've got a feel for how it's going to go, I get really enthusiastic. I stop everything, and sit down with my notebook of short scenes and notes, open an Excel spreadsheet, and write a list of everything that's going to happen in the actual novel, with columns for characters, settings, approximate expected length (normally between 1000 and 4000 words). I spend one or two days messing about with the order, working out an ending, finding out what actually happens. And this is the closest I get to a Phase outline, even if it is only in the vaguest sense. For an 80k novel, I normally have about 30 plot points, each described in a sentence, with possibly a second sentence of facetious commentary (because that's what all my notes are like!). If I need to do some research, this is where a lot of it happens, because now I have something concrete to attach it to. Then I leave it a day or so and come back to mess with it some more - so this whole part takes about a week, maximum.
After that, I can't do any more work on it until I start writing - it's actual writing or nothing at all. I normally depart from my spreadsheet a lot, but if I dry up, I know what's supposed to happen next, so I can push forward, but it gives me a lot of room for exploring any ideas that come up.
And that's where I am now - I'm rebelling this year, carrying on writing something I've been working on for a while. The initial character came to me about a year ago, I've been writing the little scenes of introduction since about March, the spreadsheet came into being in about the middle of August and I'm currently about 18k in. Of course, I'll only count what I write during the month of November for NaNoWriMo. Last year, it took me about three weeks from choosing the character I was going to work with to actually starting to write on November 1st. It's really variable, but I like the freedom it gives me without feeling like I've got no safety net, like a lot of pantsers. It means I get to feel creative all the way along, too - I don't just do the fun bit first then end up churning out words for four weeks.
So there you have it - moderately unconventional way of plotting, but it works for me.
If you're doing NaNoWriMo, or you otherwise write - what works for you?
