Nano Prep 2023 – Plans and Plans

It started with a character worksheet; to be specific, this worksheet – 51 Questions You’ve Probably Never Asked Your Characters. It takes more than a minute to answer these many questions. The experience is fun, you end up thinking up all these little side ideas, and amass a bunch of notes for each character. In the end, the process of creating characters can feel quite intensive, but you end up with a wealth of information. Information that truly makes the next step easier.

I moved to deciding the type of plot to use. Now, I’ve primarily been someone who sits and comes up with a story as I go. This idea is fun while it lasts, until you get stuck in the middle chapters and have to spend a few days, maybe months finding away to be unstuck. Hence, I became someone who writes on the fly, while also making plans before I started. Then, in time, the structure made more sense, and I fell in love with it some more. So, here we are. Testing out different types of plot ideas. I’m very sure this plot plan will work for me this time. Plot Method: Save the Cat! Beat Sheet. Hopefully ^_^ Maybe, I just like that it has a cat in its name.

Now that there was a map, the last week has been filled with word-building! For this, there was this worksheet – 20 Questions to Ask Yourself When World-building. I will confess that I’m still answering some of the questions in this worksheet and we’re now fully past world-building week. It is a lot of work thinking up places, lore, habits, meals, legends, and landmarks. It might end up being an encyclopedia of sorts. Someone stop me now before encyclopedia status that is, hahaha.

Alright, thankfully, we’re now in the building a community week. I’m excited by Nano this year because after an application, I became the Municipal Liaison of my Nanowrimo Region. A fancy way to say that I’m our region’s cheer leader. I get to hype everyone up for the challenge, and share info about Nano Prep. More importantly, it means getting immersed in it like no other time, so, I’m glad I’m managing to get some prep done. I can’t wait to put in the word count through the writing sprints in November. Which is like a blink away? Ever notice how the days fly when you’re having fun?

Alright, this is it for Nano-Prep. I came out of it with an encyclopedia, so yay for me. NaNoWriMo, here I come on Nov 1^st. Let’s see how the story goes.

If you wanna join in this fun writing challenge, sign up here: nanowrimo.org.

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