Once again, November has descended upon us.  That means it is, once again, National Novel Writing Month.  The challenge is for aspiring authors to write a 40,000 word story in a month.  The forums swirl with people exchanging ideas, and local groups spring up to encourage each other.  My opinion of it?  A little mixed.

NaNoWriMo is really fantastic for some people who might be like me and often find themselves wrapped up in the quagmire that is “edit as you go.”  That’s often been a trap for me: well, this page didn’t turn out just right so I’m going to edit it before I continue.  A month later, I’m still on the same page.  NaNo’s goal of “spew out that rough draft, friend!” is admirable in that sense.  It gets people to push beyond that self-imposed prison by setting a goal for them.

The month also gets people connected.  In the past, I’ve been part of small groups that get together online and open up a chat window.  We’d spend an evening writing and asking questions.  Admittedly, I’ve never attended the in-person meetings in my area, but by all accounts, they’re quite nice.

But I do think NaNo has some problems.  What I’ve noticed is that many people treat these peer groups as their own personal think-tanks.  They ask the questions, “Why is my character doing this?  What’s their motivations?  Tell me what plot twists I should use!”  It’s often a little irritating for me to hear people who claim to be creators asking people to do the creative work for them.

To be clear, I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically wrong with asking for help. I’ve been stuck before, and sometimes I scratch my head about a problem I’ve run in to.  I’ve asked for advice, given a scenario.  I even have monthly meetings with another author friend of mine in which we discuss our progress and talk about what’s stumping us so we can try to work to help each other through the issue.  Asking someone to wholesale generate your story, plot, themes, and characters is simply a pet peeve of mine.

I also think the general goal of 40,000 words is a little low.  Most readers seem to prefer works closer to 85 or 90,000.  Admittedly, this one is kind of a dumb complaint.  Unless you are a savant or chained to a desk, producing 90,000 words in 30 days isn’t really feasible.  At the same time, I think suggesting a 40,000-word novel is a good breakpoint sets people up for the grim realization that they’ve skimped too much on necessary details to make a novel feel like a vibrant setting with fleshed-out characters.  Short stories and novellas make due with smaller word counts, but they’re also structured and organized somewhat differently.

As for me?  I’m not technically participating in NaNo this year.  My novel, at the time of this blog post, needs only two more chapters to become a working draft.  In fact, that novel was once a NaNo project!  Once I finish that draft, I have a very cumbersome editing phase to push through, and I will be spending a lot of November time doing that, I suspect.  As for you?  If you have an idea, write it!  If you have writer friends, write with them!  If you have questions or want some advice, you can always hit me on Twitter or through the Contact page!