The Problem with NaNoWriMo

Just Say No To NaNoWriMoCongratulations! You’ve completed NaNoWriMo, aka, National Novel Writing Month, and you have 50,000 words or so sitting in a giant pile in front of you!

Now what?

See, the thing is… you haven’t really written a novel. You’ve just written.

If you really want to write a novel, or be an author, you have a lot more work to do. NaNoWriMo won’t get you there.

Isn’t NaNoWriMo a great way to become a writer?

NaNoWriMo is a good, one-time goal to get you used to putting down words on a regular basis. Writing regularly is a tough habit to develop, and NaNo can help you get into that groove. Unfortunately, that’s all it can do and people expect more.

This is where the problems start.

Don’t do NaNoWriMo more than once

NaNoWriMo Process

(cc) D Sharon Pruitt

If you want to start running marathons, you don’t learn how to run all over again each year. If you want to play piano, you don’t dust off the keyboard just one month in twelve.

That’s the trap – people use NaNo as their yearly motivational pat on the back, and don’t really use it to change their behavior. Like people who diet for a month, lose weight, then quit the diet and gain it all back.

Once you get started, you move on. If you fall off the wagon, now you know what it takes – get back on the horse. Don’t wait until next November. If you do NaNo more than once, you’re missing the point!

NaNo doesn’t give you a novel, it gives you words

NaNoWriMo Results

(cc) bburky on Flickr

The first “No” in NaNoWriMo stands for “Novel”, but that’s false advertising. What you have on December 1st is only a first draft. Congratulations, but that’s all it is, and it has a long way to go. There are word generators online you can use to crank out 50,000 words. Think that’ll be a fun read?

Unfortunately people think they’re done and dump their “novels” out onto Amazon.com and other stores in December. Junk clogs up the online stores, digital publishers roll their eyes, and a lot of NaNoWriMo’ers get frustrated.

Do you have someone to help you edit your story? Stephen King estimates a good editing pass cuts up to 10% of his work. Do you have any grammar or spelling errors? First drafts are riddled with them. How much effort has gone into your cover? Good graphic design can impact how your book shows up and sells.

A novel is a lot more than just words.

What comes after NaNoWriMo?

If you want to really write a novel, then you have a lot more work to do:

Developmental Editing

Review your story for pacing, flow, and consistency. Then have others read it, a professional if possible. If you have a specific genre, look for someone who specializes in your area and can provide insight into improving your story.

The phrase “writing is rewriting” is famous for a very good reason. This will take a lot of time, and won’t be easy, but is necessary to turn your draft into something approaching a polished work.

Copy Editing

Spelling Cuonts

(cc) infomatique

It’s not enough to make all the red-squiggle-underlines go away in your word processor. Scrub your story for technical mistakes, then do it again. Here is another great place to connect with a professional editor and have them clean any mechanical issues you missed. If you don’t know a professional editor, talk with English teachers or others with a detailed eye for the language.

Don’t understimate how quickly poor grammar or spelling errors can turn readers away.

Graphic Design

You need not only an attractive cover for your book, but it if you’re going to sell it online that cover needs to look good at the size of a postage stamp. You need good typography and layout on that cover, and even though you think you might have a good eye, you really should work with a professional.

If you doubt this, scan the book covers in your favorite ebook website. The professional ones will jump out from the amateurs.

Sales Copy & Promotion

Being an author these days doesn’t end when you upload your manuscript to the ebook marketplaces. You need some solid sales copy, promotion within book circles, as well as reviews and support from fans.

Devise a plan for promotion before your book is published, because you won’t get any time to rest if you want your book to get noticed.

The difference between a Writer and an Author

Fortunately, there has never been easier access to the tools and info you need, including some from the two digital publishing geniuses behind this rant.

NaNo can help you get started writing, but if you really want to be an author then move past NaNoWriMo and starting taking this seriously.

Being an author is more than a month’s worth of word-count.

  • http://nimlas.org/blog Nuchtchas

    I like a lot of your points here and I agree with you on most of them. I will say that I have seen the advantage for some serial WriMos, for instance, the people who are able to write but not edit yet, most of these people are younger, after a few years doing NaNo they hopefully will started to edit (I have seen this happen with a few people, in HS they never edited, they got involved in a good group that pushed editing after NaNo and started editing) next, the fanfiction writer: There are a lot of people who start with fanfiction and you really can’t do more than write it and share it with your friends. A lot of people start there but with NaNoWriMo they may move on the following year to original content.

    For me, NaNoWriMo is a great way to meet people with like minds, we all write together in November and then hopefully continue to meet through out the year. I have been lucky, the two regional groups I have been involved in have a writing group through out the year where we share our work and continue to work on the craft of writing and how to edit. My old group would often become editors for each other so it’s a great resource for people.

    Lastly, there are a lot of people who never want to publish and do it as a hobby so for them NaNo is great to just write… is that ideal? No, but it’s what happens and I can’t tell them they’re wrong if it makes them happy.

    What I do try and tell people is to edit edit edit :)

  • http://PhoenixRealEstateGuy.com Jay Thompson

    I just participated in, and “won”, my first NaNoWriMo. Do I now have a novel sitting on my hard drive? Oh God no. I have 65K words that barely qualify as a first draft. People keep asking me, “When can I read your book?” Hell, *I* can’t even read it — it’s not a book and what is there is practically unreadable.

    But, I learned a LOT going through the process. Most importantly, I got off my ass and wrote (almost) every day. I learned about my writing style, ability and desire. I learned that plotting a novel is a hell of a lot of work. I learned I loved the process. Well, most of it.

    But did I write a novel?

    Not even close.

    I plan to spend at least through Q1 2012 revising and rewriting. I suspect *at least* 20K of those words I wrote in November will get tossed in the trash, never to see the light of day. What remains after revision / rewrite remains to be seen. I happen to think I can craft a good story and tell it well. NaNoWriMo helped me realize that. Or that there is at least some potential there. A tremendous amount fo work remains….