So I wrote 50k words in November and now what, part 1

So I took up the task to write 50k words in the month of November. Some of you who never heard of NaNoWriMo might think I am crazy and yes, I am. But, I am not the only one. In the entire world, there are way more crazy people taking up the goal to write a novel in a month.

At first, I just joined for the nice community and to make a start with my first book. I never really thought I ever came close to actually making it but, I did. I even finished it in the first week of December. Is it good absolutely not, but it is something.

I have heard that a lot of people end up throwing their NaNoWriMo draft in a corner somewhere never to see the day of light again. I could do that, hide it in a corner, say I wrote a book and call it a day. I didn’t do that. Even the most crappy draft with the most boring characters and plot holes as big as the moon can have protentional. At least that is what I am telling myself in order to keep hope.

Well, editing a whole manuscript can be pretty daunting so I made a plan. In itself, it is pretty straightforward. In order it be (1)make an outline, (2)wait, (3)read it over and write everything down that needs changing, (4)do more research+ worldbuilding + character-building, (5)change whatever needs changing, (6) get some beta readers, (7) make more adjustments, (8) decided what to do now. I already did the first step. So in this post, I am going to write about the first two steps.

Step one: the outline

The first step in my plan was to make an outline. Yes, I am that kind of person that writes without a solid outline. Make an outline, sounds easier said than done. There are many ways of writing an outline. Depending on the goal, personal preferences and when in the process you make one. Remember that every writer has different ways of writing what often also differ for each book.

This time the main goal is to get an overview of the manuscript. The basic of the outline is a short summary of every chapter. To make things easier down the line I included two more things under every summary. Questions that need to be answered and things that need to be changed. In the chapters where something important happens that I want to come back on in later chapters, I also added another heading, where I added that just so I don’t forget.

Step two: waiting  

And then up to the next step the waiting. Honestly, I was pretty happy arriving at this step. Not that I didn’t like my world no, just after writing intensively at it for a month I really needed some distance. Other things that needed to be done, friends to talk to, books to read.

This can vary from just a couple of weeks to a couple of months. In this case, I am planning on continuing with the next step in March and hopefully successful achieve my plan.

To be continued