Road Trip to NaNo: Uniting Description, Plot, and Motivation for Your Novel

NaNoWriMo is an international event, and the stories being written every year reflect our hundreds of participating regions. We’re taking a Road Trip to NaNo to hear from our amazing volunteers and writers all around the world. Today, Sonia, our Municipal Liaison in the India region shares how to unite the diversity of description, plot, and motivation to write a great novel in November:

India is a land of diversities: physical features that range from the Himalayas to the oceans, weather that traverses the extremities; and cultural differences that encompass dress, food and language. These dissimilarities aside, there are three topics that make most Indians’ hearts beat faster: Bollywood, politics and cricket.

Bollywood, or How to Fill Your Novel with Song and Dance

Bollywood, as the Hindi film industry is known, is located in the city of Mumbai which is the financial capital of India. It is also the capital of beauty and emotions, which form the base of Bollywood. Hordes of starry-eyed youngsters throng the film studios with the hope of making their debuts in films whose earnings are inching closer and closer to what the Indian Mission to Mars cost. Emotions rule us Indians, and Bollywood turns those emotions into things we sing and dance about, no matter the genre.

Your NaNoWriMo novel, too, needs song and dance. Make sure every scene that you write involves all the senses. Make use of smell, taste, hearing, touch, and intuition to add depth to your novel. As you prepare for November, observe, recognize and evaluate the various senses you experience in daily life, then jot them down for future use in your story.

Politics in Delhi, or How to Plot an Ending

If Mumbai is the financial capital, then Delhi, the capital of India, is the political hub. Delhi has been witness to clashes, both ideological and physical, from the Mughals of yore to the British when they ruled India to the latest electoral rout. Plotting and planning was definitely rife.

And that is what you will do in your novel. But like the roads of Delhi, which form a circular network, you could end up going in circles with your novel. That can be avoided if you know how your story is going to end. Not knowing that is one of the main reasons for stories being left half-finished. Be like the commuter in the Delhi Metro who knows which Lines will lead her to her destination. She takes detours, too—the Yellow Line for a quick visit to the bookstore or the theatre—but knows that she will take the Violet Line to return home at the end of the day.

Cricket, or Embracing Team Spirit

India is a cricket-crazy country. Here, cricket is not just a game, it is a religion and its God is Sachin Tendulkar, widely acknowledged as one of the greatest cricketers of all time. Sachin, a child prodigy, began his cricketing career at age eleven, under the guidance of his coach Ramakant Achrekar. He polished his innate skills with hours and hours of daily practice. Like Sachin, your novel-writing, too, needs both a coach and regular practice.

But Sachin’s success also lies in embracing team spirit. NaNo’s team spirit are the write-ins, both online and offline. Pledge to participate in them because the motivation and the team spirit in those events goads you, and encourages you to push forward and complete your story.

And so, in the rich diversities we also see unity, same as in any well-written novel.

Sonia Rao lives in the busiest of cities, Mumbai, which gives her innumerable opportunities to learn more about life, and then share this knowledge in her sometimes-humorous, sometimes-poignant way on her blog. This is her fourth year as an ML and if there is anything that gives her great joy in life, it is motivating Wrimos in India to reach their writerly goals.

Top photo by Flickr user Meanest Indian.