Hello, writers!

I know the world’s still a dumpster fire (in places, an actual raging fire) but I hope some business-as-usual-ness can lift your spirits.

There’s a very old saying about no battle plan surviving contact with the enemy. Truer words were never spoken. 

I’m an intensive planner and outliner, but I always go in knowing that something is going to change. In the manuscript that got me into Author Mentor Match I added an entire leg to my protagonist’s journey, because I wrote up to that point and knew something was missing. (This was before I had a solid Monster Novel Structure to work from, it was still in development.) 

I was right to add that section, even though it meant winging it in the middle of NaNoWriMo when I was used to writing from tight outlines. But my instinct was right--and instinct in storytelling should not be ignored.

Turns out, by virtue of being humans and communicating with other people, we all have an innate understanding of what constitutes a story. That gets expressed as gut feelings while writing. Even plotters get those feelings.

And that ties into today’s blog post.

In my notes for the newsletter I had this week down as “using Monster Novel Structure to win NaNoWriMo” but when I went to draft the blog post it turned out most of what I had to say was for pantsers. So I retooled the post into How Pantsers Use Story Structure.

The post includes a step-by-step guide for those who are pantsers at heart, but want to find a way to consciously implement more structural elements in their writing.

As for winning NaNoWriMo using the Monster, here are some fast tips:

1. Know your big tent poles ahead of time: Hook, Turning Point 1, Midpoint, Turning Point 2, and a rough idea of the Climax.
2. 
   
3. The Workbook comes with downloadable 30-day drafting calendars, which assign each day a story beat. Use that to keep yourself on track (spend at least a little time on the assigned day thinking about just that beat) so you have a complete story by the end of the month.
4. 
   
5. Monster Structure is flexible, and you should be during November, too. Especially in 2020. Give yourself room to feel out the story, to go in weird directions, to fall behind. The point of NaNoWriMo was never to beat yourself up for not finishing. It’s to celebrate whatever you do get written.

Let me reiterate that last point: The point of NaNoWriMo was never to beat yourself up for not finishing. It’s to celebrate whatever you do get written.

So be gentle with yourself, do what you can, and have a really fun reward waiting for you in December.

Before I let you go, this Chicken Dumpling Soup is one of my favorite comfort foods--it reminds me of pot pie, which is a rarity for gluten-free me. I use an all-purpose GF flour, and discovered that mixing the dumplings up early and letting the batter sit for at least 15 minutes results in dumplings that are less dense. Delicious.

As always, if you have any questions about writing you can drop me an email and ask! 

Be good to yourselves,



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