NaNoWriMo (or nanowrimo) stands for National Novel Writing Month (though it's international); it started out in early internet days, and has grown, a lot. It's held annually during the month of November (which always seems like a weird month for it to be occurring—to me—because, in the US, it starts during Halloween hangovers, (many local groups of folks all over start writing at midnight, which really interferes with any late-night / midnight Hallows activities), then continues (some years, some places, and other years everywhere) during election season (and I've been a paid political operative so I find it impossible to participate those years), then finishes during Thanksgiving & the start of the December Holidaze season, including travel (though writing during a layover or travel delay *could* be productive, but not optimal), and Black Friday. I've often thought about participating, and have even written a few thousand words here or there (the goal is 50k for a slim novel) on 3 different ideas, but have gotten stuck because I've gone at it like a 'pantser'—i.e.: by the seat of my pants, at the last minute, without much of a plot, or plan, or a 'built world', or well-drawn characterizations—vs. being a planner, which really does make the process easier, because you spend more time on it up front. (Pantser vs. Planner is one of the topics that nano folks discuss, and one of the original Nanowrimo leaders even wrote a book about how to be a 'pantser'!)
Some of the 'Novel Idea Inspiration' techniques I am using to try and be a planner this year for that I found on the nano site include:
- Brainstorm a bunch of things (I did 50 now, & then did another 50) that I like (or "that make you feel excited, inspired, or curious") including settings, motifs, themes, subjects, interests, genres, etc. Really, I think one is writing this novel for yourself, first...you are your own ideal reader / audience, for most first-time writers. {This exercise is from the nano Young Writers Prep} ...I had: cyber, herstorical fiction, gardens, needlework, candles, bodies of water, tarot and survival as some of my 'things'.
- Summarize 3 (at least) favorite books/movies (in 3 sentences or less), including setting, key characters, and plot points to "Borrow a Plot"; then rework those summaries with a few new additions of your own; the example was The Hunger Games; My 3 choices: The Matrix, and 2nd in Jean Auel's 'Earth's Children' series: The Valley of Horses, and last, but not least, Margaret Atwood's Lady Oracle:
- In Blade Runner, Neo discovers that the world he has been living in is a computer matrix and the *real* world is actually a bombed out world-at-war with machines a century later than the present time. He must fight for independence and the right to live against various software program Agents, like Agent Smith; he fights alongside his ship's team who rescued him,, esp. Trinity, his soulmate and contact, and Morpheus, his ship's captain. The machines' energy source is ultimately human bodies, kept in a fetal state.
- In The Valley of Horses, Ayla, a Cro-Magnon woman, must survive alone, after being exiled by her Neanderthal adopters, with only a horse and lion cub as company in the harsh Ice Age climate, until Jondalar, on a rite-of-passage journey, travels into her area, injured. They get to know each other as he heals, then decide to continue his journey together, leaving the valley.
- In Lady Oracle, a parody of gothic romances and fairy tales, Joan Foster, a romance novelist, is revealed through flashback sequences of: her past overweight childhood self, being a mistress to minor nobility, and relationship with a performance artist, while attempting to hide this past from her husband, and then being blackmailed and faking her own death, after publishing a viral success of her feminist poetry.
- Neo, a physicist, creates a wormhole in the fabric of spacetime and jumps back to the last ice age where he meets Cro-Magnon Ayla and her horse. He falls in love with her and they jump forward to the future, but she hates it, yet cannot escape because the hole back is closed.
- ....Meanwhile, Jondalar was also picked up in the wormhole but deposited in present-day France. His past is discovered by scientists, and he is trapped for samples and study. Ayla learns about this and rescues him.
- Joan, an upper-class mystery writer and suffragette, is the prime suspect in her lover's murder. She is jailed after a protest and force-fed along with other suffragettes, which causes her to have flashbacks to her anorexic past, and she realizes that her husband killed himself and framed her. She must prove her innocence.
- "Borrow a Character"..."invent a future/history for someone"...choose a sub-section and then "find the story" within your invention
- Choose a viewpoint of a character from a current event ('News You Can Use') and make up your own details
- "A Whole New World": make up stories from a picture (abandoned or weird places)
The first (brainstorm, then refine) is from the nano Young Writers program: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IKUWhBwf1jQ9_Yw5Px4DDqM96F-uN7avXGbPoNkh3-g/edit#heading=h.cbw7dmb4z42x
and the other four ideas (borrow a
https://nanowrimo.org/nano-prep-101#week1
