Thirty days and nights of literary abandon!
"No Plot? No Problem!"
— Their slogan
It's the month of November. You have 30 days to write a 50,000 word novel. Get to it!
The idea behind National Novel Writing Month—NaNoWriMo for short—is that many of us have at least one book inside of us, but we're too lazy/busy/hesitant to spend the time to write it, or simply get overcome by the scope of it all—so it ultimately never materializes. NaNoWriMo challenges that, by encouraging participants to throw caution to the wind and write without revising, without obsessing over what they're writing, but to just get the words out. (There'll be plenty of time to edit it after the month is up.)
Even though it is called "National" Novel Writing Month, entries are accepted from countries other than the U.S.A and in languages other than English. note
NaNoWriMo also had a sister event called Script Frenzy, with a similar goal, but executed in script format. It ran in April every year from 2007, but was ultimately discontinued in 2012. The RPM Challenge is the musical equivalent to NaNoWriMo, in which budding musicians record and mix an album of 10 songs during the month of February.
The organization behind was formerly known as The Office of Letters and Light before it was renamed in 2013 to National Novel Writing Month. Many people do the challenge with no ties to the organization.
Examples of tropes exhibited by NaNoWriMo:
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Among the handful of awards one receives for completing NaNoWriMo, one of them is a t-shirt with a custom design announcing your winner status (that you still have to pay for if you actually want it).
- Artifact Title: National Novel Writing Month occurs in multiple countries.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: When pressed for wordcounts, some authors insert their personal thoughts into the story, directly addressing the audience or characters as a writer. It quickly becomes Hilarious in Hindsight.
- Chandler's Law:
- "If all else fails, have a band of ninjas attack somebody" is official advice for writers at a loss for material to further their novel's word count.
- Or Mr. Ian Woon (which is an anagram of "NaNoWriMo").
- Or The Traveling Shovel of Death.
- Or a Trebuchet.
- Or drown someone in ketchup.
- Constrained Writing: The entire point of the challenge is to see if you can write a 50,000 word novel in the span of only a month.
- Cosmetic Award: Zigzagged.
- Played straight on the site itself. The first and foremost prize for completing the NaNoWriMo challenge is... the mere satisfaction of completing it. But to show you've done it, your word count meter turns purple, and you can print out a certificate that proves it.
- Some of Nanowrimo's sponsors, on the other hand, offer slightly more tangible prizes for winning, which would avert this. CreateSpace offers to print up two free copies of a winner's manuscript, and Scrivener offers their writing software for half price.
- Determinator: Anyone who actually finishes a novel. Writing 1,667 words a day (on average) may not seem very hard, but doing it every day, for a whole month (especially a month with a holiday and new television season) takes dedication!
- Forum Speak: When the quick reply method was still around, some users would just read the first post, scroll to the quick reply section of the page, and reply without reading any of the other responses, especially for threads of the "share with the group" nature.
- Gratuitous Ninja: Make a band of ninjas attack somebody during a novel and you should at least be able to get a few hundreds words out of characters wondering "seriously? Ninjas?"
- In-Joke: Many, including the terms "nanoism" (bloopers that occur while writing) and "persimmons" (see Memetic Mutation). There is also the character Mr. Ian Woon, a Significant Anagram of "NaNoWriMo".
- It's the Journey That Counts: A major contributing factor to starting the challenge is that most new writers won't try to write something this long on their own because it's so intimidating. By giving new writers a challenge, advice, and a space to do it, you'll learn far more about writing and your style than many other methods of learning.
- It's for a Book: The official website has several forum sections dedicated to this purpose, some less realistic than the others.
- Memetic Mutation: "Permissions" to reproduce a user's Nanoisms in published form quickly became "persimmons", and have since mutated into frankensteinian concoctions like "permapurplepomewhatsits".
- Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught:
- Actually, no one really cares if you do, either. There is even a forum just for "Nano Rebels". In a sense, NaNoers are actively encouraged to "cheat" by artificially inflating their wordcounts—No Plot? No Problem, the semi-official handbook by Chris Baty, NaNoWriMo's creator, offers several tips on how to do this.
- You're supposed to start a new novel on November 1st, but some people continue working on the same novel (not a sequel) as the previous year(s).
- Writing nonfiction, a collection of short stories, a memoir, or a script (they had another event for that last one).
- Portmantitle: the official nickname NaNoWriMo falls somewhere between "portmanteau" and "acronym".
- Self-Deprecation: Participants tend to frequently criticise their own novel's plot, characters, and (especially) blunders — but mostly in good humor; blunders in particular are lovingly christened "Nanoisms" (allegedly a portmanteau of "Nanowrimo" and "aneurysm").
- Self-Imposed Challenge:
- Some users set a personal goal of a "Double Nano" (100,000 words in 30 days!) or more — 200,000? 500,000? Yup. So far, the absolute record is someone writing 3.030 million words in November 2015, which quite literally amounts to writing 100,000 every day. It was so high, the counters on the site plain refused to show that.
- There's also a Dares thread in just about every genre forum, where users think up crazy stunts for other users to insert into their novels.
- Then there are #50kDay and #50kweekend, which are Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
- Sturgeon's Law: First-time participants are advised that at least 45,000 words of their novel (if not all 50,000) will be "utter crap", and to learn to love it anyway.
- Technician Versus Performer: Nanowrimo as an exercise rewards the high energy and creative abandon of a "Performer" mindset, but this difference is still present in the "Planner" and "Pantser" camps. Planners completely plan out their novel in advance, and their creative energy goes into filling out their outline with vigor. Pantsers will "fly by the seat of their pants," perhaps with a couple of ideas in hand, but mainly charging forward on November 1 with no idea whatsoever of what they will create. There's a third camp between the two called "Plantsers," which are people who have a few of the big beats and general idea of a story's direction planned out, but how it's going to get there is going to be made up on the fly. And most Nanoers are happy to change their strategy if it helps them win or seems more fun.
- Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: "No plot, no problem" is the semi-official motto. The challenge itself encourages people to not go back and edit their work ("there'll be time for that later"), and just get the first draft of their story out of the way.
Examples of tropes exhibited by NaNoToons
(a comic about NaNoWriMo that used to be hosted on the website, now hosted here as of 2012):
- Humanity Is Insane: At least the part that is devoted to NaNoWriMo (which is all of the cast except Dave).
Dave: Are all NaNo people crazy?
- This only applies to the 2011 NaNoToons; in 2010 it's even given a Lampshade Hanging:
Jen: Rob & I have done it five years in a row & we're still sane. Aren't we, Rob?Rob: I'm on a horse.
- This only applies to the 2011 NaNoToons; in 2010 it's even given a Lampshade Hanging:
- I Resemble That Remark!: Invoked, sort of used.
- Minimalist Cast: In 2010, only four characters are ever named: Dave, Rob, Jen and Victoria the ML. Averted in 2011: now we also see Andrew, Bea and Carol.
- Missing Episode: A good deal of 2010 daily NaNoToons are hosted only on the Toronto NaNo website.
- Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The 2012 NaNoToons joke that the characters don't seem to be writing very much.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: Victoria says this about her fellow ML Andrew, and even her real boyfriend Dave makes fun of her for it.
