Ah, NaNo. That lovely time of year when writers roll up their sleeves and commit to writing 1,667 words a day in an effort to complete a 50,000-word novel by the end of November.

I’ve participated in National Novel Writing Month twice, and while I had fun both times, I never came close to that 50,000-word finish line. It’s not that I’m not capable of writing 1,667 words a day. I can do that. But somewhere along the way, after two strong beginnings, I found myself getting disorganized and losing my way. This had me giving up on NaNo long before the end of November, both times.

It’s relatively easy to start a novel. You take an idea, you start writing. Most novels start with pure inspiration. But the thing with inspiration is, it doesn’t always last. When I get an idea for a book, I know how I want it to start. And I have a pretty good idea of how I want it to end. But what about the pages in between? How do I keep myself – and by extension, future readers – engaged the whole way through?

Focus on the middle.

Middles are killer. Middles are where a book is made or broken, because if there’s any place in a book where a story is likely to sag, it’s the middle. My books tend to clock in around 90,000 words, which means a good 40,000 words in my novels are middles.

That’s a whole lot of potential saggage.

How to keep middles exciting? Start with the characters. Throw difficult situations at your protagonist and always keep the tension high. And don’t be afraid to allow your minor characters to shine as well, but be picky about who gets face time. Make sure everyone has a unique voice.

As for plot, focus on the main storyline. As you write, you’ll probably discover a subplot or two brewing – that’s fine. Go with it. But always keep your eye on the main outcome. Subplots are like a spice. Use them to add flavor to your book, but don’t let them overtake the entire meal, lest you end up with a confusing, disorganized, weird-tasting middle.

If your middle is strong, getting to the end is usually a downhill slide (and so much fun to write). I’ve never had a problem bringing a story home after writing a good, clean, interesting middle. If you’re having trouble ending your story, you don’t necessarily have to go back to the beginning. Go back to the middle.

And the biggest piece of advice I can give for finishing a novel?

Turn off your internal editor and just write.

Your first draft doesn’t need to be perfect – that’s what revisions are for. Don’t worry if your narrative is stiff. Don’t worry if your dialogue is clunky. You have thirty days to write 50,000 words, so November is not the month to be worrying about perfect prose. Everything is fixable in future drafts. Just write, and trust that your work will shine in the edits.

———-

Jennifer Hillier is a Filipina who was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. She spent four years living in the Pacific Northwest region of the USA, which inspired her to write her debut psychological thriller, Creep, available now from Simon & Schuster/Gallery Books. Freak, the sequel, will be coming in 2012. Visit her on the web at www.jenniferhillier.org.

Dear WriMos,

If your NaNoWriMo experience has been like every one of mine since I started in 2006 (this year included), then you’ll have hit the disease that seizes all of us word marathoners in the third week of NaNo—the slump. Okay, I’ve heard it called The Abyss or The Vortex of Doom, but I refuse to give it that much importance, so “the slump” will have to do.

What is the slump, anyway? In general, it’s what I call the period when writing has gone from passion to chore, when you find yourself having to work at ideas instead of just allowing them to flow. If we’re going to use clichés, we can call it the dark hour before dawn—the dry spell before the flood that is Cram Week.

But how do you draw—or crawl or claw—your way out of the slump? Well, for me, it depends on where you’re feeling the slump, and in my experience, the slump manifests itself in one of three ways, and I’ve written myself out of all of them thus far.

SCENARIO #1: I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO NEXT.

You hear a lot of different ways to express falling into this trap. Two of the most common are “my story doesn’t make any sense anymore, if it ever did” and “I’ve run out of ideas or I’m bored with my plot.” For this, I have two things to say:

(1) It doesn’t have to make sense. Say your plot has turned into a ball of string that’s gotten all tangled up. Pick out the threads that interest you the most, the ones that have the best potential for moving your story forward, and work with those. You’ll have time to unravel things after NaNoWriMo. That’s what second drafts are for.

(2) Let me assure you that you haven’t run out of ideas, and a plot that bores you still has a chance to take a turn for the better. The well of your imagination has not run dry—you’ve just forgotten how to draw the water, with all the busy-ness of November. Take a breath. Calm down. Get a change of scenery if you need to. Treat yourself to a handcrafted coffee drink. Go for a run or a walk. Go for a swim. Roughhouse with your dog. Once your mind has been able to get off hyper drive, it’ll be more receptive to ideas.

SCENARIO #2: I DON’T KNOW HOW TO GET TO THE POINT I WANT TO GET TO.

This happens when, having hit Point C in your story, you have absolutely no idea how to get to Point D. There are two ways you can deal with this. The first is to use the second tactic I mentioned for Scenario #1—shake yourself up and refresh your mind so you can take on a new perspective and hopefully figure out where the road between those two points lies, how it winds, and how your characters are going to travel it.

The other thing to do is to skip it. Just give yourself a novelist’s tesseract, travel that wrinkle through time, and start writing at Point D. Because maybe you already know how to get from there to Points E and F, all the way through to the ending. You have a month to write out 50,000 words to your novel. You can write in that middle bit later. After all, when you’ve written all the way around it, it helps you get a sense of the shape of the middle.

SCENARIO #3: I CAN’T SEEM TO FIND THE TIME TO WRITE.

I’ve left this for last not just because this is the way my slump is slumping this year, but because I personally find it the most frustrating of all slumps to be crawled over. Consider that, this year, I’ve outlined my way through to the final chapter. My ideas are flowing madly, and my characters are wailing inside my head to be fleshed out. I know exactly who they are and what they’re going to do. It’s just a question of putting it into writing—and I find I don’t have the time to do it.

But the truth is, I do. And so do you. It’s like dieting—it’s just a question of figuring out where to trim down on some of those indulgences you’ve been luxuriating in this month. Sleeping on your commute to work? Try writing instead; after all, the traffic we’ve been “enjoying” these days is perfect for it. Lunching with your friends? Stick to your office pantry or a lonely café, take a sandwich or some other kind of food you can eat with your weak hand, and write things down with your free hand. Hit the snooze button five times before you finally rise and shine? Think of it as 25 minutes you could have spent writing, and just get up!

Anyway, whatever scenario you’re suffering through, just remember you’re not the only one. Hit the chat room or forums, and you’ll find everyone singing the same song with different tunes. Don’t allow yourself to think of suckage or boredom. Just keep writing. Sing it in Dory-esque fashion if you need to: just keep writing, just keep writing, just keep writing. Soon enough, it’ll be Week 4: Cram Week. And you’ll be amazed how a little time pressure will have your fingers flying!

Cheers!
Purplyana (AKA Liana)
Co-ML for Asia :: Philippines