Maintaining your Novel’s Pace-Time Continuum

Hours, days, months or years

While it is possible to write one, I have never personally read a novel in which the events took place in a matter of minutes, but I have read novels in which the action took place over several hours or a couple of days. Franny and Zoey, the novella by J.D. Salinger, is comprised of two events that happen over the course of a few hours. Bright Lights, Big City takes place over the span of about three days. The World According To Garp is a novel that spans the entire life of the main character, T.S. Garp, moving from the events of his birth all the way through his life and his death, followed by a descriptions of the remaining lives of just about every character in the story.

Pick a Pace

The way you teat time in your story should have a fairly consistent approach. For example, if you write one scene in great detail, with each moment discussed at length, then you should consider that approach for most of your scenes. It would be odd to have a scene written to that level of detail followed by scenes that happen much faster and are far less descriptive. There might be reasons why you would make that choice, but for the most part you want the pace of your novel to say fairly steady unless there is a specific result that you want to achieve by changing the pace.

Jump With Care

Moving forward and backwards in time is also a tool that should be used with great care. A flashback can add value and perspective to a story, but it can also jar the person out of the narrative or leave them confused about the sequence of events. Sometimes, for the sake of continuity, it is better for a character to discuss the past events than for there to be an actual shift in time. It a choice that should be made carefully.

Watch Your Place

Be careful when it comes to the sequencing of events. If your story is supposed to take place over the course of a week, for example, be sure that the events could logically happen in that time frame. Also, especially if you write your novel out of sequence, make sure that when the finished product comes together, everything happens when it is supposed to.

How Setting Influences Story

Most good stories are very heavily influenced by their settings. Consider this simple story setup. A young couple has just gotten married. At the reception, the bridesmaid reveals that she and the best man had drunken fling the night before the wedding. As they head off on their honeymoon together, the bride and the groom must work through this crisis or their marriage will end before it has truly even begun.

This is a story that could happen virtually anywhere, and at almost any time in history. It could be a comedy, melodrama or tragedy. All of the elements are there for any sort of story you can imagine. The overt crisis (though not the underlying conflict) is clear and the stakes are equally clear. Consider though, the effect that setting would have on this story.

Setting #1: 2008. The wedding took place at a posh hotel in Chicago, The bride and groom now face a long plane rise to Hawaii, where they have secured a small villa right on the beach. While they are in Hawaii they are scheduled to attend a luau, an island tour and snorkeling in a private lagoon.

Setting #2: 1988. The couple were married at a Las Vegas chapel by an Elvis impersonator. The reception was held at the Circus Circus hotel buffet, which is the hotel they will be staying at, surrounded by their family and friends, for the next several days. They have tickets to see Rich Little and have booked a helicopter tour of the Las Vegas Strip.

Setting #3: 1954. Rural Virginia. The couple were married in a large church wedding with the reception at the Elk’s Lodge. For their honeymoon they are driving down to a small motel in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Their car is a ten-year old Cadillac.

Obviously these are rudimentary setting details, but I think you can get an idea that the three different settings lend themselves to dramatically different effects. A posh villa in Hawaii will influence the characters much differently than a garish casino or a small-town motel. The morals and general atmosphere of the 1950s, the 1980s and the 2000s are very different. The economics of the three settings are also dramatically different. The feeling of being surrounded by family or being isolated during a crisis has influences the characters.

The setting can either have a weak or a strong influence on the plot and the themes of a story, depending on how the writer uses it. Here are a few ideas for choosing your settings:

• Choose settings that matter to the characters
• Choose settings that can influence the action
• Choose settings that you know enough about to describe comfortably
• Choose settings that will be of interest to the readers
• Take the time to describe the settings in enough detail for the readers to have a clear idea of where the characters are

Deciding on a Narrative Voice

There are many ways to tell a story and you will need to choose which one will work best for your novel. Here is a quick rundown of the basic narrative points-of-view.

Third Person

A third person narrative tells the story from a perspective outside of any one particular character. It discusses the events from a slightly removed position. “Billy went to the store to get beer.” Some of the decisions involved with third person include whether or not the narrator has access to the character’s thoughts or merely their actions, and whether or not the narrator has a point of view about the actions happening in the story. Finally, there is the decision of whether or not to follow more than one character. A narrative can be in the third person, but still only focus on the actions of a single character.

First Person

First person is told from the perspective of a character within the story, usually the lead character but sometimes a peripheral character that happens to know most of the events either through observation, participation or through someone else telling them what happened. “I went to the store to get beer.” It is also possible to have multiple first-person narratives, with the perspective shifting by chapter or by scene from one storyteller to another.

Reliable or Unreliable Narrators

In first person narratives, the character sees everything from their own point of view. This means that they cannot know what happens unless they observe it or are told it, and the way they observe the story may be pretty close to the facts or skewed by their own perceptions. A story narrated by a pathological liar or a child, for example, may not accurately reflect the reality of what is going around them. Third person narrators are usually not unreliable, but it is possible to do this as well.

What Ar Your Needs?

Choosing which type of narrator to have can be difficult. You want the narrator that is going to best reflect the needs and goals of your story. A story with twenty different characters, for example, may need a third person narrator simply because a single character within the story may not be able to observe or even be told all of the things that occur. A first person narrator, however, generally adds a level of immediacy to the story, and the fact that they are seeing what happens from the character’s perspective may increase the reader’s feeling of connection to the story.

Once you choose a voice though, especially if you are trying to work quickly for a deadline like Nanowrimo, you need to stick with your first choice. Changing the narrative voice requires a great deal of editing and can take quite a lot of time.

How to Write a 50,000 Word Novel in a Month

Nanowrimo is a project that requires speed. There are certainly slow and deliberate ways to write a novel but they won’t help you if you need to produce one in a month. Writing 50,000 words in a thirty-day month is no easy task, and it is made even harder by the difficulties of a novel, which has pitfalls such as writing yourself into a corner or deciding along the way that a plot point or character trait was a mistake. Here are some tips for speeding up the process and getting through the month.

Explore Your Idea

Explore your story idea before the start of the month. If you have a general idea of what you want to write, take the time to examine it. Write out the plot points, create some background for the characters, think about the settings, and decide on what point-of-view you want the narrative to use. The more of this you have settled before the first day, the easier it will be to start producing from day one.

Set a Daily Goal

Set a 2000 word a day goal. In order to finish the project on time, you technically have to average 1667 words a day. Setting a 2000 word a day goal allows you to build up some cushion in case you have days in which you aren’t able to write or aren’t able to produce as many words.

Stick to a Schedule

Schedule time every day to write. You need to look at your own writing speed to make determination of how many hours you are going to need. If you are comfortable that you can write 1000 words an hour, then two hours a day will be sufficient. If you feel as if 500 words an hour is the most you can handle, then you need to schedule four hours a day. If you expect your speed to be lower than that, you need to adjust accordingly.
Remember that you are writing a first draft. A first draft does not have to be perfect.

Don’t Expect Perfection

Accept that what you write on the first try only needs to be good enough for a first draft. Try to avoid going backwards and rewriting what you have already created. Instead, if you know something needs to be changed, go back to that point and make a note in the text, then move on.

Stay in Motion

If you get stuck, find a way to get unstuck quickly. If you know that a scene needs to happen, but you aren’t ready to write it yet, make a note in the story describing the basic events, then jump to the part that you are ready to write and get going. If you need to choose between two different directions for the plot, choose one of them and don’t look back. Your focus should always be on forward momentum.

Write What You Know

Pick characters, locations and themes that you are comfortable writing about. It can be difficult to write quickly about places you don’t know or characters that are radically different from your experience. Look for a story that can leverage the things you know about and are comfortable writing about quickly. If you do think you will need additional information, try to assemble as much of that information as possible before you start the project.

Swim With a Buddy

Find a way to hold yourself accountable. Nanowrimo has groups in most major cities that you can hook up with to compare notes and keep the pressure on you. You can also find a partner who is working on it so that you can regularly keep each other focused and enthusiastic. A little friendly competition doesn’t hurt. I intend to track my progress on my blog, so that people can see where I am at.

Have Fun

Enjoy yourself. Nanowrimo should be a fun challenge. It is a way to make you better as a writer, but it shouldn’t be something to make yourself miserable over. Just relax and no matter what obstacles get in your way, keep writing, even if you don’t think you are going to make it. The only way to have a chance is to keep at it.

There is no Right Way to Write a Novel

November is National Write a Novel Month, also known as Nanowrimo. The goal is to write the first draft of a novel, producing at least 50,000 words. This will be my second year as a participant. Over the next couple of weeks I will be providing tips for those who want to participate.

The first, best, and most important thing to learn about writing a novel is that there is no one way to do it. Novels have been written in a thousand different ways. One person’s style and approach can be radically different than another person’s and yet still produce a good novel. There are people who plot out every detail before they start writing. Some novelists start with an outline that can stretch for several pages. One writer might write down each possible scene on an index card. Another writer might spend all of his preparation time creating elaborate backgrounds for the characters. Another writer might just start writing, with no idea in advance of where the novel is going and how it will get there. None of these writers would be wrong. Each approach can result in an excellent novel.

Some writers fret over every single word of the first draft. Their choices are so careful and exact that second and third drafts look almost exactly the same as the first. Some writers just tear through their first draft as quickly as possible, unconcerned with the possible messes they have created and sure that they will fix every problem when they start editing. The end result of this process may look almost nothing like the original. Again, neither writer is correct or incorrect. Different styles work. Different approaches work for different people.

If you are looking at writing for Nanowrimo, however, there are some approaches that may be more advantageous. For example, because you must create your first draft in a single month, sweating over every single word of the first draft is probably not a good idea. That approach may work well when you have six months or longer to produce a draft, but it is virtually impossible to be that exacting and produce a 50,000 word or longer draft in a single month.

Writing off the top of your head also has its pitfalls. If you attempt this, at the hurried pace of Nanowrimo, and you could find yourself unable to generate sufficient action or creating character arcs or plots that go nowhere. It can lead to a lot of frustration down the line. While the rules of the process are that you need to write the draft during the month of November, there is no reason why you can’t prepare as thoroughly as possible before you reach the start date. You can create a detailed outline, an in-depth character study, research any subjects you plan to write about and create descriptions of the real or imagined places that will be the settings for the action.

You can prepare as thoroughly or as lightly for the process as you want, but I for one want to take advantage of the advance time so that I can be as ready to write come 12:01 November first as possible. I’ll be spending the next several days providing my tips for how to get started and how to make the most of this process.