Prepping for Nanowrimo 2016

What’s the trick to writing a good novel? I don’t know, and I’ve written eight of them. I do know that every novel must have three things: interesting characters, fascinating settings and an intriguing plot. This year, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I want to develop these three things for my own novels. I’ll discuss exercises, templates, outlines and examples of how to develop these elements of novel-writing before starting a new novel, and hopefully, become better prepared for Nanowrimo 2016 this November.

I use Scrivener to organize my novels. My Scrivener template will be available on my Google Drive for anyone who wishes to download it. Just follow the link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzGNFy181nZiM0J5TGI3WXJyUkE/

My template is organized into the following sections:

1.      Manuscript – Chapters and Scenes

2.      Plot Development – contains exercises and the final outline

3.      Character Development – contains useful exercises for developing characters

4.      Setting Development – contains links and ideas for visualizing settings

5.      Front Matter – Contains elements needed for publication like copyright notices and dedications

6.      Research – a repository of all research including web pages and scanned items

7.      Marketing – a repository for submissions to agents, contest entries and advertising

If you want to get your own copy of Scrivener, go to their web site at http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php/.

My next post will examine how to develop an interesting character, and don’t forget to check out my self-published novels at http://www.amazon.com/author/lauraewrites/.