Pens at the ready

Fall break is approaching, which means most students on campus are overwhelmed, exhausted, and ready to take an exorbitantly long nap. In a matter of days, NaNoWriMo 2018 will be underway. Are you ready?

Reminder list for writers

1. Get into your narrator’s head. Make sure their voice sounds consistent and that you know how they would react in different situations. They’ll be your imaginary friend for the next 30 days at least. Get to know them.
2. Map out your setting on paper or in your head. Make sure you know a few major places your character will visit and some details that will stay consistent.
3. Have (at least) a vague idea of what your plot is. You don’t necessarily need to know all of the details about your plot yet, but you should know enough to be able to begin writing a story.
4. When does your story take place? If it takes place in an era you don’t know much about, take the time to do at least a little bit of research. This can be as little as doing a rudimentary Google search to find some context for your story. Just make sure you can write our story and have it make sense.
5. Are you writing in a fantasy world? If there are rules to life that do not exist in your culture or the world around you, write down a few of those rules so that you are able to keep them consistent. These can be rules about science, magic, culture, language — anything that your characters need to abide by for their interactions to make sense.
6. Does your conflict have a reason to happen? If it doesn’t, it should. Brainstorm about why your main villain would do the things that they are going to do. Humanize them, even if they aren’t necessarily human. A good way to nuance your story is to make it easier for your readers to relate to your villain.
7. Does your main character have a reason to save the world? Why are they working so hard to solve the conflict in the story? If they don’t have a reason that your readers understand, your readers will be less likely to care about your characters exploits. Make sure that doesn’t happen.

Inspiration and updates from an aspiring author

This week, I started working on a plan for my plot. I wrote out some ideas for my chapters and came up with some ideas that I didn’t expect. I want to flesh out my main conflict more, but I’m not necessarily sure that I will be able to do that until I start writing. I want to discover the world my character is discovering while she does. After that, I will keep a document that lists descriptions for settings and characters, a timeline of events, character motivations, and other relevant information so that my story stays consistent.

My story features a lot more romance than I thought it would because I discovered that in addition to writing a story about a person who must reincorporate themselves back into society, I want them to continue fighting something from the world that changed them and to discover things about themselves that they weren’t aware of before as a result.