No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days (11 page)

If all of these questions sound suspiciously familiar, it’s because one of them (coupled with the allimportant “What would happen if We added an orangutan to the mix?”) has driven the plot of nearly every movie you’ve ever watched and every book you’ve ever read.

Some might bemoan the fact that world’s plots can be distilled into a quarter page’s worth of cliches, but I see it as just further proof of the miraculous power of well-told stories. No matter how many times we hear tales of a pluckish underdog triumphing over an all-powerful foe, we still respond to it. Ditto for romantic comedies. Even when the endings are obvious, we usually don’t care so long as the story is well told, with protagonists we can love and antagonists we can throw things at—and with the details grounded in the particulars of their lives and situations.

Which is yet another reason why you shouldn’t beat yourself up trying to develop an exciting or original plot in the next seven days. A good plot is less a matter of innovation and invention as it is one of creative re-use; the most acclaimed books of the modern era have used the same building blocks as the worst soap operas and clumsiest cartoons. The main thing separating the mind-blowing, lifechanging stories of a great novel from the treacly dreck of daytime TV is the manner in which the tale is told. And this telling is the very thing that will emerge out of the clang and sweat of your weekly blacksmithing next month.

Besides, just because a plot idea heading into your novel feels hackneyed doesn’t mean the resulting book will be. As you write your rough draft, the story will take itself in directions you’d never intended. What starts out as a word-for-word re-write of Jurassic Park may end up as a historical dramedy set in a Portuguese barber’s underpants. It’s just the way writing works. Just when you think you know where it’s going, it zooms off in a new, unpredicted direction. Don’t get me wrong: The quest for originality is an admirable one, and it’s something you should definitely think about when you rewrite your manuscripts. For now, though, grab whatever tropes or cliches appeal to you and go. You’ll be surprised at the quirky plot twists and inspired characters you come up with when you stop worrying so much about being innovative.

BACKGROUND ON BACKDROPS

Happily, most novel ideas suggest their own settings. A story about rampaging zombies terrorizing a Phish concert, for instance, would best be set in a medium-sized town—the cemetery in a small town probably wouldn’t be able to produce enough zombies, and a big city would have too sizable a zombierepelling security force. Or if you’re writing a quirky romance about two people who meet on an online dating service for agoraphobics, most of your story will occur inside apartments, with an occasional miniscule restaurant or airless bar thrown in for nights on the town. In my experience, the trick of drafting a setting for your novel is in modeling. The more you can base the cemeteries, amphitheaters, and claustrophobic restaurants on real-life versions of those things, the more mental energy you’ll have for the truly important aspects of writing—eating the chocolate reserves you’ve stockpiled, bragging about your progress to attractive strangers at parties, and demanding wrist massages from loved-ones.

If possible, set your story in the area where you currently reside. If setting the book on familiar turf is not an option, consider having your story take place somewhere you’ve always wanted to go. This will make writing your novel a little like a vacation, but without all the ragged hours spent stuck in airports. And if you’re planning on inventing an entirely new fantasy world for your characters to frolic in, consider drawing out a basic map of the area before you start the actual writing. Improperly routing your orcs to the swampy Scarr of Bectkdor when they should be advancing on the foreboding Mountains of Mignal can cause no end of headaches in the rewrite period. Wherever you end up setting your story, don’t worry overly much about lending an enormous amount of realistic detail to the tale’s backdrop. In the same way that a theater set will use two or three potted trees to suggest a forest, so should you leave much of your setting to the reader’s imagination in the first draft. The editing stage will be the time to painstakingly fill in all of the parks, bars, and stores that make up your fictional world. With writing time in short supply, it’s important to scrimp on the small stuff so you can get the overall gist of the story down before crossing the finish line. When your story takes place will also have a pretty profound effect on the amount of carpentry work required when preparing your novel’s sets. Setting your book in the past or future will require more mental energy than ones where you can borrow the cultural mores, architecture, and technological topography of the present.

If you do decide to set your book in the past or future, be sure to use the same half-assed approach to getting the details right as you would with any aspect of the setting. Having the historically appropriate wool weave on your nineteenth-century character’s kneesocks, or detailing the quantum physics powering your twenty-third-century Starhopper, should always take a backseat to getting the basics of your story written.

FAQS ON POVS

Though it’s the last thing we discuss in this chapter, point of view is the first writerly decision a book reveals to readers. As you think about your characters, you also need to think about the perspective you’ll be using to detail their exploits. You essentially have two choices: first person or third person. Most of you probably remember discussions of first and third person from seventh-grade English classes. In case you’re a little rusty, the best way to understand the difference is to think of your story as a movie. In first-person stories, the movie is shot through a single camera glued to the space between your main character’s eyebrows. In third person, you get to use as many cameras as you like, and you can place them anywhere, from the bottom of a blimp passing over the city to an ant hiking up your character’s shoe.

The first-person perspective is immediately comfortable for first-time novelists because it echoes the language we use when telling stories in conversations, emails, letters, and journal entries. It’s also very conducive to high-speed noveling, since you can spend as much time as you like paddling around in the bottomless depths of a character’s thoughts.

If you are writing in an “I”-based narration style, though, know that you will be trapped in one body for the whole story. Ultimately, what this means is that if your main character wants to leave a party just as you’re starting to enjoy yourself, you have to go home as well. When your character wants to take a nap, the story stops. And if something essential happens while they’re in the bathroom, you’ll miss it. Going with third person, on the other hand, lets you see all of the action, regardless of how long your characters spend in the bathroom. In third-person point of view, the characters, all of whom are described as “he” or “she,” are more or less interchangeable from a narrative perspective. Third person gives you the power of monitoring the words, actions, and thoughts of everyone in a scene. With the third-person perspective, you are able to peer into every nook and cranny of your fictional realm, and everything can be revealed to the reader.

If that sounds like a clear argument for third-person point of view, remember that with the added number of perspectives comes increased responsibility. If you have the ability of showing everything, you’re forced to spend a lot more time separating the essential from the superfluous. Also, you’ll have to worry about hurt feelings and an unbalanced storyline if you start playing favorites and giving more book time to one character over another. With first person, the field of view is reduced, but that limitation means less running around for you as the writer.

Ultimately both POVs are great, and you’ll just need to decide which works best with the tone of your story. And you don’t need to commit to just one: Feel free to play around with first and third person as you go, letting different characters tell their sides of the story. Sometimes handing the narration over to a different character can save both story and author when things in the book hit a difficult point. And yes, there is something called second-person point of view. It looks like this: “You sense that the author has begun using an odd, second-person narration style. It feels unnatural and awkward, and it reminds you of those Choose-Your-Own-Adventure novels you read in fourth grade.”

You are not allowed to use second-person perspective in your novel next month. Not even ironically. Sorry. Rules are rules.

-------------------FINDING INSPIRATION IN THE WEIRDEST PLACES

From the manicurist to the online personals, NaNoWriMo winners talk about the inspiration behind their novels’ people and places.

“I set my 2003 NaNo novel at the Hand Stand, the salon where I get my nails done. I told Ann, the owner, and Terrie, my manicurist, that I was so inspired by them that I was going to shamelessly use them as the main characters in my mystery novel, The Hand Job. They were thrilled. I gave Terrie the enviously delicate ankles she had always dreamed of. Ann just wanted to be forty pounds lighter and get a chance to seduce the UPS man, on whom she has had a long-time crush.”

—Kimberli Munkres, 37, three-time NaNoWriMo winner from Redlands, California

“I’ve found that a good place to generate character names is from the glossary in my college physics textbook. I also keep lists of good spam email names in preparation for my next novel. Bradford Martini, Elden Yo, and Vallie Shankles, I will write a novel about you.”

—Kara Platoni, 28, three-time NaNoWriMo winner from Oakland, California

“Since a character in my story had a dog, I found it helpful to follow someone walking his dog as he ran various errands, and make up their story. I wonder if there are people in my neighborhood who are still trying to avoid me as a stalker?”

—Ryan Dunsmuir, 38, five-time NaNoWriMo winner from Brooklyn

“One year I decided to write about polyamorous couples—people who engage in loving and open multiperson relationships. In order to research their world, I checked out a Web site devoted to matching such people with like-minded couples. The only problem was that in order to see all the profiles, I had to write one myself. So I was forced to go undercover as a neophyte bisexual looking for a caring, nonpagan, somewhat hip, somewhat slim couple from the San Francisco area. Sadly, no one ever contacted me.”

—Dan Strachota, 35, five-time NaNoWriMo winner from San Francisco

--------------------

SECTION TWO

WRITE HERE!

WRITE NOW!

A FRANTIC, FANTASTIC WEEK-BY-WEEK OVERVIEW TO BASHING OUT YOUR BOOK

[This is the first of 30 installments that correspond to the 30 days you have to write your novel. Please set your DailyLit subscription to arrive "daily" so you'll stay on track. Also, no skipping ahead! Peeking at Week Two’s pep talk while you’re still exploring the exciting terrain of Week One will cause strange and disquieting rifts in the temporal fabric of the universe, and may needlessly jeopardize the lives of everyone on this planet. Be a responsible (and fiendishly creative) global citizen and take it one day at a time.]

CHAPTER 5

WEEK ONE, DAY 1

TRUMPETS BLARING, ANGELS SINGING, AND TRIUMPH ON THE WIND

[Today's Goal: Reach 1,167 words]

Dear Writer,

Here it is: Day One. We’re standing together on the precipice that overlooks the vast, uncharted territory of your novel. It’s quite a view.

Every author you’ve ever admired started out at this same point, gazed out with the same mix of wonder and trepidation at that small verdant speck on the horizon called The End. You are ready, poised. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and there’s an unmistakable smell of victory in the air. There’s also an unmistakable smell of hot dogs wafting over from the Noveling Viewing Platform Snack Shop in the main parking lot. They’re running a two-for-one special today, and if you didn’t pack a lunch for the trip, I tell you: Get the cheddarwurst.

Mmmm... victory and hot dogs. Does life get any sweeter?

It just might.

For, in a matter of minutes, you’ll be setting out on your great noveling adventure. As unbelievable as it may seem, in just one month’s time you will have written a book the size of the one you are now holding. On the path to noveldom, you’ll ford rushing rivers of adversity, and repel countless attacks by television shows, movies, Internet chat rooms, and other bewitching distractions as you hack tirelessly through brambly questions of character, plot, and setting.

At the end of it all, you’ll stand on that faraway, majestic peak, manuscript clutched to your monitorirradiated chest, your sore, swollen arms raised in a gesture of total literary triumph. The lessons you take from your travels across novel-land this month will serve you well throughout the rest of your life. You will walk away from the four-week escapade with a mischievous sense of boldness and an increased confidence in your creative abilities. You will read differently, and write differently, and for better or worse, you will begin seeing the world with the ever-hungry eyes of a novelist.

And before you set off on your valiant and overcaffeinated mission, there’s one thing I’ll need to take from you.

I’ll need to confiscate your Inner Editor.

That’s right, the Inner Editor. The doubting, self-critical voice that we all inherited around puberty as an unfortunate door prize for surviving childhood. The Inner Editor is a busybody and perfectionist, happiest when it’s tsk-tsking our shortcomings and weaving our past blunders into a rich tapestry of personal failure.

For reasons not entirely clear to anyone, we invite this fun-spoiling tyrant along with us on all our artistic endeavors. And from painting to music-making to writing, our endeavors have paid the price of this killjoy’s presence. Thanks to the Inner Editor’s merciless second-guessing, most of our artistic output ends up tentative and truncated, doomed to be abandoned at the first sign that the results are anything short of brilliant.