NaNo Prep: How to Go From Plotless to Polished

November is just around the corner, and as we gear up, we’re sharing advice on how you can best prepare for a month of writing. Today, author and designer Derek Murphy shares his advice on how to turn a messy work-in-progress into a polished draft in November:

NaNoWriMo is a
great opportunity to push your boundaries and see how much writing
you can get done in thirty days. If it’s your first time shooting for
50K, write whatever is easiest for you. However, if you’ve been
doing NaNoWriMo for a few years and have struggled to turn your newly
generated manuscript into an actual book that sells, here’s some advice that should help:

Save a Darling—Plot Ahead

First of all, if
you started your story with very little plotting, it’s likely you
have dozens of powerful scenes but no backbone to hold it all
together. And it’s very difficult to go back and operate on
your manuscript after it’s finished. “Kill your darlings” is
good advice, but painful for a reason. It’s hard to cut the stuff
you love—but if it confuses the narrative or doesn’t need to be
there, it’s hurting the story.

Rather than spend
a month generating content and then months of frustration trying to
polish it into something that actually sees the light of day, it’s
much easier to plot before your start—at least loosely.
For most commercial fiction, I use a simplified
hero’s journey with 12 major plot points.

As long as I hit
most of those points in roughly the right places, I know my story
will stand strong even if the writing falters. You don’t have to
chronicle the exact details of every scene, and you shouldn’t worry
about writing beautiful prose, but having a rough idea of your
pivotal scenes will make it much easier for you to finish a powerful
story in record time.

If you get stuck
halfway through your NaNoWriMo novel, it’s usually because you’re
sinking into the muddy middle—where you didn’t plot enough events
to carry the story forward—so you invent a bunch of random and
increasingly incredible plot developments to span the gap, then rush
towards the epic conclusion. The problem with this is your story will
feel rushed and implausible.

Let your characters drive your outline.

A basic story
might look like this:

Character
wants something but can’t get it. Something happens that forces
them on a new experience or journey. They resist, but are forced by
circumstances to move forward.
The
antagonists appear, showing danger and consequences. There is a
conflict or battle and the protagonist’s forces lose. More is
revealed, until the protagonist finally makes a deliberate choice to
fight back or take control.
The
protagonist makes a mistake; a failure that causes irreparable harm
to one of their allies. They feel guilt, fear, loss and almost give
up.
The
protagonist reaches into themselves, finds a new will to continue,
discovers a new power or ability, and overcomes the antagonist’s
forces… this time.

But how do you
fill it all in? And what do you add when your plot events are sparse? You can make your characters’ problems harder. 

You might have already plotted something like:

Desire

→


problem

→

overcome problem

→

introduce new problem

But that’s too
easy.

You can extend
the sequence by adding steps:

Desire

→

problem 1

→

try to
overcome problem 1, meet problem 2

→

try to over come problem 2,
meet problem 3

→

try to overcome problem 3, meet problem 4…

That sequence can
go on until they have too many problems and are overwhelmed.
Eventually they succeed in one and go back through the sequence to
solve the original problem.

Make your characters fail. 

Characters shouldn’t succeed easily. You want them to
fail, again and again. So have them discover new problems and
setbacks at every turn. No matter what they want to do next, give
them three big and insurmountable problems that get in their way.
Don’t make them all accidental (the weather / a broken leg). Some
of them should come from opposition, either the antagonist’s forces
or the protagonist’s allies.

Create more
paths. 

You don’t just want a happy band of comrades agreeing
with each other; your inner circle needs conflict, too. Each of your
main characters should have their own desires, agendas, and
problems to solve. They will have priorities that put them in direct
conflict with your main character. Even if they’re friends or
lovers, they will be forced into opposition based on their personal
desires, and each will be fighting their own dragons to get what they
want—leading to betrayal, jealousy, guilt, dishonesty and anger.

I recommend three main characters (protagonist + best friend + love interest), a
teacher or voice of wisdom, a hidden antagonist directing mayhem from
the shadows, and also a system of legal enforcers (who persecute the
protagonist but think they’re acting for the good of society). The
sides should not be clear cut, and everyone will have to wrestle with
moral decisions, like when it’s OK to break the law or do something
evil for the universal good.

Change the scenery.

If your book is getting boring, give your protagonists
a new, incredible setting and a reason to get there. It could be a
treasure hunt for a necessary item, or a shelter, or a lost city—make it epic and larger than life. Your story will keep readers
reading, but your settings and descriptions are what will stick in
their brains. I like to think of my scenes like a painting; a
dramatic backdrop and a central character doing something amazing.

Once you
have a basic plot outlined and have built in enough conflict, writing
a successful book will be easier, and take much less time to revise
and polish before it’s ready to be share. During
revision, add in more details like what characters are wearing,
improve the dialogue, strengthen the transitions and openings, and
fix any lackluster character motivations. Remember, adding conflict
is as easy as giving a character a different backstory (”your father
killed my father”) or withholding a secret (”you lied to me”).

Once your book is
ready, share it with beta readers, put it on Wattpad, or even get a
cheap cover and publish it on Kindle. It’s scary letting go, but
getting feedback is the best way to learn and improve.

If you take an hour to ask and answer these questions before November 1st, you’ll be able to win NaNoWriMo with more than 50,000 words of slush as a reward—you’ll have a clean rough draft you can polish up and publish, without ending up in editing purgatory forever. 

Derek Murphy has
a PhD in Literature and now writes young
adult fiction. He’s renting a castle for NaNoWriMo, drinks too
much Coke Zero, and loves supporting indie authors—his publishing
resources and book design
templates have had over 20 thousand downloads.

Top image licensed under Creative Commons from Project 404 on Flickr.