#prep_tober

In the topic of NaNoWriMo and writing, there are some formats and tables that help us writers a lot when we are adventuring into writing whatever it is. Since I want to help you guys maybe get your stories ready for NaNo, or just give you guys a little push to writing your story, I thought that giving you all the sources I used to help me structure my stories would be nice. If you guys have other sources, please send us!

3 acts, 9 blocks, 27 chapters outlining method

Plotting and brainstorming a story: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5

Worldbuilding and some mistakes you might commit

Character profiles (some different ways)

NaNoWriMo bullet journal I’m currently using

🍂 Website

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The Complete Novel-Prep Guide

The Plot Embryo Printable

How to Build a Novel (book)

[2017 VIDEO] The Tragic Plot Embryo: How To Write Plot For Villains, Antagonists & Tragic Heroes

Calendar & Motivational Wallpapers

🍂 2 0 1 6  V I D E O S

5 Ways to NaNoWriMo Like a Career Novelist

Write Your Damn Novel: Pep Talk

NaNoWriMo Hacks: 7 Ways to Streamline Fast-Drafting

MORE NaNoWriMo Hacks: 6 Ways to Streamline Fast-Drafting

How to Use Ambient Noise For Pure Focus

SHOULD You Turn Off Your Inner Editor? 

7 Ways to Recharge on a Writing Break

NaNoWriMo Tag

Let’s All STOP Calling Ourselves Pantsers and Plotters

🍂 E L S E W H E R E

NaNoWriMo Forum Thread

Prep_tober Twitter Advice Threads

Pinterest Board

Reddit Thread

So a few of you are going to be doing Nanowrimo and it’s hard, it’s basically a marathon of writing and you do need to do some preparation. Think of it in terms of actually running a marathon, you might be able to run a distance but you’re not going to enter a marathon with no training, right? 

Prep_tober and other things like this are great training for Nanowrimo. And some of you might not need it (maybe you’re just using Nano to get back into the habit of writing or you just aren’t a plotter in any way - those are all valid ways to use Nano) but others might need it. I find that Nano always gets off to a great start; I have so many ideas and I’m eager to get started. And then I flag. Because I’m not fully prepared, I’m out of practice, words are foreign things and most of the time I realise that I don’t know where I’m going. Back to that marathon analogy again: I start off at a great pace but then the stamina begins to go and shit, what was the course again? 

A bit of preparation would definitely help with this and it might be exactly what you need to get to the finish line of Nano and have something you can actually work with. I have completed Nano nearly every time I’ve done it. I’m really determined and I hate failing. Does that mean I’ve been able to use everything I’ve come out with? 

Nope.

Not even close. I start off strong, and then I lose my way and then I start fudging things just to get the damn word count. In marathon terms, I’m the person who is crawling over the finish line and then is rushed to the hospital because they weren’t prepared and they hadn’t trained. 

Don’t be me. 

If you’re going to be doing Nano seriously this year (with the intent of having a novel at the end) and want a little bit of extra help, try something like Prep_tober. Don’t put all the pressure to get the writing done in November, use October (even this last week in September) to figure out what you want to write, create your characters, do a few sprints, do some brainstorming. Start thinking about your novel and start asking yourself questions because you have time now to get some of those answers before you’re forced to come up with something when the pressure is on. 

Hey, guys! Admin light here!

As I already shared, I am prepping for NaNoWriMo 2019, my first ever nano, so we thought it could be nice to share a little bit of my prepping, since maybe there are some authors out there wanting to participate (which you can totally still do, it’s not too late, even if you decide to do a smaller word count) or even authors who have a hard time plotting and organizing their stories.

So, this is my Google Drive folder for my NaNo project, which here is called “here we go again” and on the NaNoWriMo site is called #illegalyblonde.

I like Google Drive because the design is really pleasing for me and it’s easy to navigate. You can of course use any platform you want to, I just recommend making a folder with all your docs in one single place, so you don’t have to hunt your documents around your pc.

I keep different documents for different things, so it’s easier to come back to them when I need to.

“Scene dump” is kind of my relief document, essencial in the early stages of plotting because every time I imagine a scene to the story, I simply write it there and later I use all those ideas to mindstorm the final structure the story will take.

I have two outline documents. The first one was my first outlining doc, meaning it has loads of ideas and a general plotline for the story. I like to think of it as the story’s skeleton. The detailed outline is where I separated the 3 acts, 27 chapters and am currently describing what happens in each chapter in detail. Some people don’t necessarily need a detailed outline, but I like to know exactly what will happen in each chapter, down to what the characters will do in each scene, so I can escape writer’s block more easily. 

You can see there is already a Chapter 1 but I’ll most likely make a sub-folder just for the chapters.

My characters sub-folder look like this:

As soon as I began the outlining, I wrote a profile for each character. They all have two pictures and a physical description underneath, then I organized their profiles in topics, just like this: 

Every document is organized in topics (and the Drive is great for it, because it identifies topics and lists them automatically), so I can travel around the document more easily. An example of how much those topics can help is my worldbuilding:

See how many stuff is under the “Politics” topic? Imagine having to go through all that to get to “Society”! 

Also, I use other authors’ tables to create all of this. “System of Government” is a sub-topic from Jenna Moreci’s table for worldbuilding. I made this post with all my sources.

Until then, hope I helped you guys a little! If you have any questions, please ask us!