Tips for CampNaNoWriMo

Welcome to this post, CampNaNoWriMoers.

I wouldn't call myself a veteran NaNoer but I have been through quite a few of them. And I know what you must be going through right now, trying to see into the future, one month later, when you have met your word count and feeling mighty proud of yourself...but then, there's that moment of doubt.

Can I do it? Me? Can I really commit to this? Am I serious enough to do it?

Getting those first few words down on the screen might be painful.

"Once upon a time... no that's not it. Jim was alone in the old cabin and...no that doesn't work. Where's my creative spark when I need it!"

And even if you get to 1,500 words, you still might wonder if you were in over your head when you signed up for this.

Someone of you may have even signed up with NO PLAN on how each chapter will go.

But don't fear! Here are some helpful tidbits (and an EXTREMELY IMPORTANT PLANNING TOOL at the end of this article).

These are little bits from other articles in this blog. If you would like to read the article the bits came from and learn a little more, I added the link :)


Just write even if it sounds stupid.

Google wallpaper in Google Images for visual inspiration.

Write the first part on paper. Apparently the act of writing by hand can keep you focused on your story and away from distractions. But don't feel obligated to write the whole story by hand :0
(From - How to: Start Writing Again)



If you have a plot line, write the climax scene first. The one where the MC is in such trouble. Make it your temporary "prologue" and go from there. Inspire yourself :)

Writers are often pressured not to write cliche. But for NaNo, you can write cliche. Use it to get you started.

Imagine you are watching your story. Imagine an opening scene in a movie. What do we see first? Describe that.
(From - How to: Begin Writing a New Story (5 Tips))



There are many different types of beginnings, as you may well know. Here are some for you to consider trying:

First Time NaNoWriMo: Prepping

With NaNoWriMo around the bend in four or five days, I thought I'd tell those of you who are doing it for the first time, how you should prep yourself for it.

I'm guessing you're at the end of your own personal prepping but here are a few things I do that have helped for many NaNoWriMo tries and this time as well.

1. Use the Story Outline Template

2. Look up images in Google Images that represent or loosely represent the many places you want to write about. It's good to get a visual on it.

3. Make folders and sort the pics in them.
Example: Village, Mystic Creatures, Main Character Sketch, the Main Square

4. Do a few doodles of your characters but don't push yourself to come up with the perfect look. You can always come up with the details later while you write.

5. Leave it alone but keep contemplating on it. Don't think too deeply about it until you actually need to write it.

6. Work on other projects to get a boost for your writing momentum. Writing for a whole month after having not written for weeks can be hard on you because you might end up suffering from Writer'sblockitis and get nowhere, ending up just wasting your time. To not waste your time, write little stories, even one-page short stories to keep that writing momentum. Another thing you can do is read books that inspire you or watch movies that inspire you.

IMPORTANT TIP:

Four Protagonist Criteria: Deciding on your MC

You've built your world, now you need to write your story.

But wait, you've got all these juicy characters and all of them seem like they would make fascinating MCs.

How do you decide?

Let me tell you how I did it. I didn't worldbuild, I just dove into the bulk of the story and suddenly I had two MCs. And that was about 7 years ago.

This year I found out that only one of my MCs was the actual protagonist.

Well, how did I find that out?

Story Outline Template

I used this for NaNoWriMo but you can definitely use it for any fiction story.
===================================
Title(s): Name of Title for story. If you have several ideas, write them all down. If you're unsatisfied with what you have come up with, just keep it there for now or just don't write anything.

Main Character Name and Character Description/Profile: Such as Age, Color of Hair, Height, Fashion, Hairstyle, Personality, What their face looks like (e.g., old for his/her age, freckles, blue eyes, gray eyes, short nose, unibrow...etc.), Occupation, Species (if it's important to make a point about this, otherwise you can let yourself assume most of your characters are human so you don't need to keep mentioning it)

Secondary Character(s) Name and Description/Profile: If you don't know the details yet, just list up some names you want to use and keep it as that.

Chapter 1: Basically write what is going to happen in this chapter. Doesn't have to be complete sentences. This is just for you to look at and reference to.

Chapter 2: Do the same for this chapter. Let me give you an example from a Camp NaNoWriMo I did in 2013.
EXAMPLE:

Chapter 2
Calico goes into the city.  Gets lost.  Finds a place to keep dry as it has started raining though there is no cloud in the sky and the stars are shining.  He is there for quite a while when he feels a scruffy hand on his arm.  It is Jonnie the Janitor.  Jonnie takes Calico to his house.  Calico meets three other kids who have been taken under Jonnie’s wing.  Calico talks to them.  The eldest suggests they go out to find the shards.  Calico agrees.  Jonnie suggests they visit the gypsy woman because she might know something with her power. (copyrighted 2013 N. J. Folettia).

See? Just nice and simple. Like a memo to yourself.

Chapter 3 and so on: Do the same thing for all the chapters.

Continue on with this until you come to a sort of ending. Just write in short sentences and don't even bother with the details, you'll deal with those when you actually write.

How to: Begin Writing a New Story (5 Tips)

If you've already been to my blog and already looked at all the articles you might think,

NVM about that stuff, how should I even frickin start writing this ish? (iiSuperwomanii reference)

So, let me give you some tips so you can write your ish.

These tips will be very very VERY helpful IF you have a basic plot line. I'll show you one of my NaNoWriMo plot lines later in the blog label "Editorial Details". Keep in mind, as long as you get everything in that is important to your story, then it is okay to drive completely off your plot line road.

Okay now that we've established that,

Tip 1: Just write. Even if it sounds stupid just write. I mentioned this same tip in "How to: Start Writing Again" and I think it's a pretty good start. You'll start writing and then you'll be "AH! I know how this should go."



Tip 2: If that doesn't work,