Why You Should Consider Sharing Your Novel As You Go

Chris Baty founded NaNoWriMo in order to extend a simple invitation to people around the world: to write the novel inside of them. When he was invited to co-write a story and share it as a work-in-progress, he stepped up, just like you stepped up to our November challenge. Today, he explains why you should consider sharing your novel-in-progress, too:

Last month, I got an email from author Tom Kealey. Tom teaches a NaNoWriMo class for undergrads at Stanford, and he wanted to know if I’d be interested in collaborating on a short story about a happy teen going through life with an arrow sticking out of his head. 

These are the emails that every book nerd dreams of getting. An award-winning short story author wants me to help him write something involving dangerous projectiles and atypical head wounds? 

Finally!

I had assumed that collaborating with Tom would mean he came up with a rough sense of the story and character arcs, worked out the general tone, and then did all of the actual writing. I would pick out the font, insert the page numbers, and fly to Oslo to accept the Nobel Prize for Literature on our team’s behalf. 

But Tom, sadly, had other ideas. 

Tom wanted us to write the entire story in two weeks using an online collaborative writing tool called Ensemble, created by Stanford students Joy Kim and Justin Cheng. Ensemble is built to get reader feedback on works-in-progress. (Eeep.) Tom would post the first 500 words on Ensemble, and I’d have a day to come up with the next chunk. Which Tom would then add to the following day. And so on, for two weeks. We’d ask readers to weigh in on the tale, and help us make story decisions.

There wouldn’t be much time to edit. There would barely be time to write. Every weekday, we would just post whatever we’d come up with and let the other person take it from there. And let a whole lot of strangers read it along the way.  

I’ve spent the past 15 years embracing the power of imperfect first drafts, but the idea of actually showing those drafts to other people terrifies me. I’m an obsessive editor, and feel most comfortable sharing a piece of writing only when I know every sentence has been polished for a decade or so.  

But because I’ve resolved to do as many scary things as possible this year, I told Tom I was up for all of it. We started "Arrowhead" last week, and it will conclude on October 31, just in time for NaNoWriMo.

I’ve been loving the story so far. If you need a break from your NaNo prep, please come by and meet Caleb, and tell us what he should do next! 

I’ve also learned a couple lessons from the whole thing that I wanted to share.  

Writing with a partner and posting the story as you go is nerve-wracking, but the inflexible deadlines it creates are priceless. Even if your co-author (and readers) don’t love what you come up with, you know you have to give them something. Those expectations have helped me prioritize writing on days I would otherwise try to weenie out of it.
Having someone reach out and invite you to do something that’s exciting and daunting and maybe a little over your head can totally change the way you see yourself. (Thanks, Tom!) I’m going to send out some invitations of my own this week.

Okay! I need to get cracking on today’s installment of the story.

Happy writing, everyone!

Chris

Chris Baty is the founder of NaNoWriMo and a maker of fine posters for writers. In the Bay Area? Chris and Tom are doing a free event together at Stanford on Monday, October 28 at 7:15 PM.

The “Arrowhead” illustration is by Sara Sisun.