writing workshop

The 30 Day Novel: NaNoWriMo Series, Day 3

Welcome to Day 3 of National Novel Writing Month!

Today we’ll talk about continuing to escalate the conflict, triggering your protagonist’s flaw, wound or defining trauma through conflict, using setting to narrow your protagonist’s options, and more.

Come back tomorrow for the Day 4 video!

Workshop: Dan Wells on Story Structure

NaNoWriMo’ers: This incredibly useful plotting workshop that shows how to identify multiple story arcs in your novel and weave them all together. Especially helpful if you want to include one or more subplots and aren’t sure how to work them in!

It’s split into five videos:

On a side note, his seven point outline is also great for plotting out short stories.

Must-See Videos If You’re Brainstorming a Novel or Short Story

Working on your NaNoWriMo plot?  If you haven’t seen it already, you owe it to yourself to check out “How to Write a Story That Rocks,” a workshop by John Brown and Larry Correia.

They teach you how to use more than a dozen techniques for turning a basic scenario into a complex plot full of twists and turns that your readers will love.

Use now, as you prepare to start your novel, but bookmark it and come back if you get stuck in the middle. Your secret weapon for finishing NaNoWriMo!

You’ll need a couple of hours to get through the whole workshop–longer if you stop the video for each exercise and apply it to your work-in-progress, like I do. So you might want to watch 15-20 minutes per day and work through a couple exercises at a time.

John has made a “cheat sheet” for the techniques available on his website here (http://johndbrown.com/writers/), along with a ton of other great articles on the craft of writing.