Nanowrimo, or National Novel Writing Month, is an event in which writers challenge themselves to write an entire novel in one month every November. That’s 1667 words per day. It can be torture, but we’re writers. We like torture.

I made a couple of failed attempts at Nanowrimo in 2015 and 2016 before finally succeeding in 2018. I must make a couple of pathetic excuses for the failures here: In 2015, I was in the midst of renovating a house we’d just purchased while living with my parents. In hindsight, it was foolish to even attempt it. And the other time? To be honest, I just flaked. I ran out of words.

In 2018, I finally succeeded, and I’m going to tell you about the tool that helped me the most.

Two words: beat sheet.

In the ongoing debate between plotters and pantsers, I used to fall more on the pantser’s side of the spectrum. For those not familiar with the terms, pantsers don’t plot out their stories ahead of time, or, heaven forbid, outline. They write by the seat of their pants. But what about the days when you’re not wearing pants?

Those were the days when a beat sheet was my best friend. A beat sheet is like a blank outline. It uses the principals of story structure (which I highly recommend every writer needs to study). I found some excellent beat sheets on Jami Gold’s extremely useful website. Her sheets are built as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. There’s a box where you can enter your target word count, which, during Nanowrimo, I actually knew: 50000. The rest of the worksheet populates word counts based on that goal. So, you can scroll down and see that your story should have a pinch point around 18750 words. Midpoint should fall at 25000, clearly. Another pinch point falls at around 31000 words. You get the picture.

This sounds like a terribly formulaic way to write, but it’s only a guideline. I found it useful during Nanowrimo because that early excitement only carried me to about day three. After that, I sat down at my computer and thought what happens next? I looked at the beat sheet and, bingo, it gave me an idea and got me going again.

In the past year, I’ve taken more creative writing classes through the continuing ed program at a local college, and I’ve become more of a plotter than a pantser. Maybe a plantser. I still consult the beat sheets when I get stuck, and they help. Say what you will about formulas, but story structure is not a new invention. It’s ancient. Don’t fight it. Use it. It is your friend.

I’m not participating in Nanowrimo this year, because I’m already 61000 words into a novel I started over the summer. The lessons I learned during that first successful attempt have continued to prove valuable.

Good luck, Nanowrimo writers! Keep writing!