9 Tips After the End of the NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo has been ended for a while, and what to do now?

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

This article is the English version; if you are interested in the Italian version, you can find it here: 9 Consigli Dopo la Fine del NaNoWriMo

Whether you have reached the end and wrote the words you have set as your goal, or you have not succeeded, you can still follow the next synthetic steps (as for each of them, there would be a lot to say) which are the same that I’m following.

1. I took a break.
2. I’m writing every day (or almost).
3. I decided what to do with what was written.
4. I rearranged the material.
5. I am rereading what I have written (I have come to this step).
6. I will integrate the missing parts.
7. I will attend the NaNoWriMo Camp in April.
8. Let some time pass.
9. Reread.

EXTRA. And after?

1) I took a break

Immediately after the NaNoWriMo, I took a break, a nice break of about a month; I only got back to my story at the beginning of this year.

Taking a break at the end of NaNoWriMo can be useful because:

• Taking part in it may have been challenging, especially the first time you participate.
• It helps to distract attention from your story, it seems counterintuitive, but some ideas to add to it may come to you just when you put it aside for a while (in this case, I recommend, it’s okay to take a break, but the ideas write them down somewhere, on a sheet of paper or a digital note that you know you can easily find again when you actively recreate your story).

In my case, I took a break because it didn’t go quite as I had planned, and it was more challenging than expected, especially towards the end because I was left behind and had to recover.

2) I’m writing every day (or almost)

With NaNoWriMo, I got the habit of writing (see, for example, my article), so why not use it to continue writing (after the pause in the previous point)?

Since the end of NaNoWriMo, I have continued to write, certainly not with the same rhythms. I have written everything, from articles to also a little part of stories that will be useful for that current or other ones.

Indeed it is not a simple habit to keep but once taken, it could lead to exciting results, especially if you want to write a book or even generate content.

Once you have managed to make this habit your own, participating in the next NaNoWriMo could be much more comfortable.

For further information, you can read this article:

Because Writing Every Day Can Be Useful

3) I decided what to do with what I wrote

I decided what to do with what I wrote in November; I decided that I like it and that I would like to get to the bottom of what I wrote by revising it, integrating it, and finishing it better.

If you do not like what you wrote, do not despair, and above all, do not delete it, put it aside, maybe over time, you can recycle what you have done, or maybe you get the idea on how to recover this story.

4) I reorganized the material

Unfortunately, in my case for the NaNoWriMo, I was messy with the writing, so I had to reorganize what I had written by dividing it into hypothetical chapters.

The disorganization was born from the fact that I wrote on a tool that would not have been the same with which I would later revise the story and that I wrote in jumps, I had already planned the chapters, but I often jumped back and forth from a chapter at the other, while I was reorganizing all the material I promised myself for the next NaNoWriMo to:

• Mark the reference chapter immediately.
• Write everything so that it would be easy to then resume the story from that point.

In this way, everything will be already organized much more easily.

If during the reorganization you find some pieces to delete because you realize that they are not good, do not delete them but maybe move them to another file, you never know that maybe later you can change your mind and you get the idea of ​​how to rework what you thought to eliminate to make it useful for history, perhaps in other parts.

This advice is to be considered for the most consistent pieces, otherwise you would end up having a support file too large to be useful.

5) I am rereading what I wrote (I have come to this point)

At the moment I have reached this point, even after having reorganized it is not the best, this for various reasons including:

• The goal of NaNoWriMo was to write 50,000 words and to do it, the focus is on quantity and not on quality, so there are undoubtedly many things to correct.
• In the reorganized material, in some cases, I have written the same scenes several times (from different points of view, at other times), because in the material I have also added what I had already written before the NaNoWriMo about the same story, so I will have to select the best scenes.

With the rereading, I will go to correct the multitude of mistakes made for the haste to write, I will choose the best version for the various scenes (or maybe I will write a further one that combines the best of what is written).

6) I will integrate the missing parts

Although I have written a lot, I have not written everything, so there are parts that I will have to write completely and merge with what is present. In this case, I will help with the next point.

7) I will participate in the NaNoWriMo Camp in April

In addition to the November event, which is the main one, NaNoWriMo also organizes two “minor” events which can also be useful, the NaNoWriMo Camp in April and July.

In this case, the rules are less stringent as you simply choose them. You decide how much you want to write (there is no lower limit of the 50,000 words of the main event), and you can also choose the goal itself, it doesn’t have to be the number of words but maybe even the number of lines or whatever.

In my case for the NaNoWriMo Camp in April, I will revise, reorganize and integrate the story I wrote in November so that a first draft is considered.

8) Let some time pass

This advice can be valid for more steps than the previous ones, as soon as a step is finished, let some time pass (a few days), you will realize in the meantime that without working on it you will get other ideas, in this case, write them down to integrate them later in your text. However, do not let too much time pass because it could have a counterproductive effect.

9) Reread

Once you have finished the previous steps, reread what you wrote again and integrate any notes you have taken in the “pause” moments.

With this step, you will carry out a complete second reading of your story, and it will be very easy to notice other errors you had missed previously.

EXTRA) And after?

After all these tips, I should have a reasonably consistent story. Still, far from over, I will probably leave it waiting a week or two and then proceed with the next steps to make it more robust; I will have a few friends read it and look for some beta reader to get the first feedback to adapt the story based on what has been received and then we will see it based on what is found (such as an editing and proofreading).

Thanks for reading; if you liked it (or even if you didn’t like it) or if you have any considerations about it, let me know in the comments.