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| Brainstorming Techniques During NaNoWriMo So You Can Get Back to Your Novel
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November 9, 2018
Oakland, CA
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| | | Hope you're well and writing! If you're doing Nanowrimo, I wrote a list of prompts for you, featured as a guest post on Susan Palmquist's blog, thiswriterslife.com. You can read it here or read on...
But first some fun news! |
| | | As I mentioned last week, I'm working on Plan Your Novel Like A Pro: And Have Fun Doing It!.
I'll be ready to give beta reader copies for advanced reviewers next week.
Hit reply if you'd like a review copy and I'll send it to you in a week, hopefully less. Ezra and I are putting the final touches on the book!
Based on our Plan Your Novel home study course, this book will help you get excited to plan your novel. The tools shared here are designed to spark your muse and give you confidence when you sit down to write your story. Plan Your Novel Like A Pro: And Have Fun Doing It! is for organic writers and pansters who want a roadmap to follow, so that they can let their creativity loose.. |
| | On to the writing prompts...
You’ve started your novel with NaNoWriMo. Hurrah and congrats! But maybe on some days you lose your focus and don’t know what to write next.
If you haven’t planned your novel ahead of time, then you may need some help coming up with ideas of what to put in your next scene or what kind of characters to bring into your story.
You probably want to come up with a new idea quickly and then get back writing. So here are 15 prompts to help you do that.
Whenever you’re stuck, pick a number between 1 and 15 and use the corresponding prompt to brainstorm, then get back to your writing.
*Do tweak the prompt however you’d like. And if you don’t like the prompt you’ve chosen, chose another one.
1. Set the timer for 5 minutes and write as many ideas as you can of what could happen next. Then choose the one that scare you and write that into your story.
2. Choose two very different items in your environment and ask, “How could these be connected?” Use that connection in your next scene.
3. Ask, “What could be worse than this?”
4. Ask, “What’s the most exciting thing that could happen next?”
5. Ask, “What would be the opposite of the obvious next action?”
6. What character would be the least likely to show up now? Have them show up.
7. What next action would make you laugh? Use that.
8. Pick a location you’ve never been to and use something from what you know in the next scene.
9. Think of someone you don’t like or get along with and ask what they would do in this situation. Have your main character do that.
10. Observe people in a public setting and give one (or more) of these details to your main or secondary character.
11. Introduce a random event into your story that then needs to be logical explained.
12. Pick two items from your kitchen and use them as props in your scene.
13. Put someone in your story that you’ve always wanted to meet and have them say the unexpected thing.
14. Write the next thing that scares you because it tells the truth in the clearest way you can through the words of your character.
15. What if the impossible happened? What would life be like for your character? Write that next.
That’s it!
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| Have a happy creative week! Happy writing!
Best,
Beth
P.S. If you would like to plan your novel, you can anytime with our home study/self-paced course here.
P. P. S. Early Bird Registration opening soon for the 2018-2019 Group Coaching program for Genre Novelists. If you're curious about this 12-month program, go here.
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You may share this content intact and with no changes with this attribution:
c. 2006-2018 Beth Barany, Creativity Coach for Writers, www.BethBarany.com
Not sure which program or course is right for you?
BTW, I'm a working novelist too, with two series published in two genres, and more on the way. :)
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| ABOUT BETH BARANY
Beth Barany is creativity coach for writers, a teacher, workshop facilitator, and speaker, who helps fiction writers experience clarity, so that they can write and polish their novels, and proudly publish them to the delight of their readers.
Owner of the Barany School of Fiction, an online training hub, Beth takes great interest in how humans learn, create, and grow, and includes all her students’ life experiences, including the ancestors, into the moment.
She's also a novelist and writes magical tales of romance, adventure, and mystery to empower women and girls to be the heroes in their own lives.
Check out her Henrietta series here (YA Fantasy) and her Touchstone series here (Fantasy/Paranormal Romance).
Support her mission to empower women and girls with her fiction on Patreon here.
Read her latest book for writers, Twitter for Authors, here.
beth@bethbarany.com
Barany School of Fiction
Writer's Fun Zone blog
Photo Credit: by c. 2018 Ezra Barany
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