The NaNoWriMo draft revisions to focus on so your story stands out
A comprehensive revision checklist for your NaNoWriMo draft
You’re done NaNoWriMo, now what? National Novel Writing Month is over and regardless of whether you “won” or not, you’re probably relieved! The good news is, it doesn’t matter if you win or lose NaNoWriMo. What matters is what you do next with your draft (no matter how many words you got down). You likely joined NaNoWriMo because you wanted to challenge yourself to finish a novel or meet a writing goal. That’s a good thing. But, writing a novel is more than 30 days of motivated writing. Writing 50K words is one thing, but telling a good story is something completely different. If you’re serious about your story idea and want to see it get into the hands of readers, you’ll likely need some heavy revisions. These revision checklists focus on the building blocks of great storytelling. They are the exact story elements I help my book coaching and developmental editing clients develop in their manuscripts.
First, take a break
NaNoWriMo is a tough challenge and many of my clients have been severely burnt out by it. I don’t typically recommend it unless you thrive with community or the push to meet a deadline. Writing 1600 words every day when you’re juggling school, work and family obligations is a lot. It’s no surprise if you’re feeling burnt out. Before you do anything else, it’s important to rest and allow your creative well to refill. Creativity doesn’t do well when it’s rushed or forced. When we’re just striving to get words on a page, we’re not writing at our best level. We are human beings who were designed to rest, so never feel guilty about taking a break. When you return, you’ll have a fresh new perspective and ideas for your story.
Character arc checklist
When you are ready to return to your WIP, one of the most important things you will need in your story is a complete and compelling character arc. This is something that has to be decided on early in the writing process because your character’s decisions drive and influence the plot. If you didn’t plan out your character arc before NaNoWriMo, then you will need to go through your draft to see where you need to go deeper with your character transformation. Generally, completing this checklist will leave you with a solid character transformation:
Act 1 - checklist
Establish the main character’s ghost: what happened in their past that is still haunting them?
Establish the main character’s wounds/flaws: what’s wrong with your main character that needs fixing?
Establish the main character’s misbelief/worldview: what do they believe about the world or other people?
Establish the main character’s want and need: what are they chasing to fix their wounds vs. what do they really need?
Act 2/part 1 - checklist
Chasing their want - Is the character hyper-focused on their want, believing it will solve all their problems?
Challenging the misbelief - Has something or someone come on scene to challenge their misbelief?
Act 2/part 2 - checklist
Need grows stronger - How is the character becoming more aware of their need and less focused on their want?
Questioning misbelief - How is their worldview or what they’ve believed for a long time beginning to be challenged and change?
Act 3 - checklist
All-is-lost mess up - how did the character have a lapse in judgement/return to their want?
Fixing things - what finally makes the character fully aware of their need and ready to fix things?
Final test - what final test or challenge do they need to pass in the climax to see if they’ve truly changed?
Story structure and plot checklist
If you didn’t notice from the above section, character and plot need to be woven together and cannot be separate from each other. Your plot has to be a direct result of your character’s personality, actions and decisions. This is the key to a strong story. Plot combined with character arc is the crux of story structure. Story structure is what hooks readers and keeps them reading until the end. If you don’t have it, the result could be poor sales, bad reviews and low readership. Generally, completing this checklist in tandem with your character arc will leave you with a strong structure.
Act 1 - checklist
Status quo: what does your character’s normal life look like and how is their ghost, wound/flaw tripping them up?
Inciting incident: what event shakes up the status quo?
Call to adventure: what does the character agree to that changes their life in a big way?
Act 2 - checklist
Rising action/falling action: are things in the new world/circumstance going well or is your character failing miserably?
Midpoint: What twist or turn in action raises the stakes and changes the trajectory your character has been on?
Falling action/Rising action: How is your character more proactive, taking control or making the best of things?
All is lost: How is your character now further away from their goal than they’ve ever been? What did they lose?
Act 3 - checklist
Dark night of the soul: How does your character process their loss and how do they decide to climb out of the mess they’re in?
Climax: What events happen to test your character to see if they are truly and fully changed from who they were at the beginning?
Denoument: What loose ends in your plot need to be tied up?
As you can see, plot without character arc doesn’t work very well. A clever plot alone won’t keep your reader hooked all the way until the end of your story. If there’s one thing you’re going to focus on in your NaNoWriMo draft, I’d recommend building up and solidifying your character arc.
If you’re looking for a manuscript evaluation, these are the elements I help you build up and refine one on one. All my feedback applies directly to your characters and story and it helps you build up a compelling narrative that attracts and hooks readers, agents and publishers. Check out my services page to learn more.
