Sunday, April 10, 2016

planning - I'm not a great pantser; what kind of preparation do I need for NaNoWriMo?


I'm very appreciative of NaNoWriMo's "your first step is writing a crappy first draft" credo, and I like the motivation that NaNoWriMo encourages. I'm precisely at the point where what I feel I need most is some serious butt-in-chair routine, with less emphasis on writing well, so this credo suits me well right now.


But I don't feel like I can just start pounding out words at a given cue. I need some sense of plot, setting, character; I don't like pantsing the entire thing, since my first ideas rarely interest me. I need either a ton of prep work, or else a concept that's very easy to leap straight into and work out as I go along. Right now, I don't have either of these. (I do have a few exciting ideas that require a ton of prep work.)


I want to be able to start typing real words on Nov. 1st; I don't want to risk tripping up by demanding of myself that I produce complex, meticulous prep-work beforehand (that kind of seems to contradict the "just write stuff" ethos). So: is NaNoWriMo a good fit for me? Is there some kind of preparation and planning that would be useful to me? Do I need to go as far as doing all the prep and planning I would for a "regular" novel-writing effort?





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