Mucking around in the rough draft of your NaNoWriMo creation

For NaNoWriMo, here are some things I’m leaving in as I write:

• Before November, I’ve already written a one or two sentence summary of each scene. For NaNoWriMo, I write a “scribble version” of the scene. This is a more developed summary containing key phrases, important dialogue, cues when to describe this or that, etc. Then I expand on the scribble version with actually narrative. I don’t erase the scribble version. I count it toward my 50,000.

• I may want to describe a person or a setting in three different ways. I keep all three. I count it toward my 50,000.

• After I finish a scene, I may want to rewrite it a totally different way, I keep the original. I count it toward my 50,000.

• If I need a name for someone or something, but can’t think of one right away, I just type XXX. Later, I can do a search for “XXX” and fill in a proper noun. I count the XXXs toward my 50,000.

• If you don’t know how you’re going to get to a certain point in the story, just write a generic, vague placeholder. IF you have no idea why Jenny and Bruce break up, just say, “Jenny and Bruce get into an argument and break up.” Later you can come back and draw out the details. I count the placeholder toward my 50,000.

Being an anal person, I had trouble doing this at first. But now I like to muck around in the chaos of a NaNoWriMo rough draft. Good luck during your first week!