On Narrative Structure: The Mock Table of Contents

***This post is one of several in our prewriting series. To read the first post, click here.***

Ready for more prewriting tips? Here’s Aaron Pogue with the next installment in the series designed to streamline your JuNoWriMo experience.

Aaron Pogue

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Okay, May is already washing out from under us like sand in the surf, right? Next thing we know, we’re going to be caught in an undercurrent and sweeping toward June without a lifeguard in sight.

(I may have gotten lost in my metaphor there.)

That’s okay. Most of the prewriting steps don’t take more than a day or two.

Today we’re going to start with the quickest and the easiest: the mock Table of Contents. All you need to write that one is a vague idea what happens in your story. Continue reading “On Narrative Structure: The Mock Table of Contents”

On Narrative Structure: Outlines

***This post is one of several in our prewriting series. To read the first post, click here.***

Want to make your JuNoWriMo experience go as smoothly as possible? That’s what we’re here for. Today Aaron Pogue delivers part 3 of his prewriting series.

Aaron Pogue

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The whole fabric of your story — no matter the genre — depends on the things that happen, and what order those things happen in. So at the very least, you should give the order of events some thought. My first JuNoWriMo prewriting step is designed to make you do just that, so let’s consider what kind of preparation needs to go into a mock Table of Contents. Continue reading “On Narrative Structure: Outlines”

Prewriting: The Steps

***This post is one of several in our prewriting series. To read the first post, click here.***

Welcome back! This is the second post in the prewriting series by Aaron Pogue. In this series, we hope to  empower you to succeed at JuNoWriMo. It’s great if you’ve never participated in a month long challenge, but even if you’re a pro, I encourage you to try it. Having a prewriting plan has immensely helped me with my own novels and Aaron has a great strategy.

Enjoy! Continue reading “Prewriting: The Steps”

Prewriting for JuNoWriMo

May is halfway over—can you believe it? June will be here before you know it, so now’s the time to get ready. For the next two weeks we’ll have a series of posts to help guide you through the prewriting process. Prewriting is not required to participate in JuNoWriMo, but we highly recommend being as prepared as possible before taking the leap into June (and 50,000 words). If you follow our prewriting advice, it will help set you up to succeed from day one.

We’ve brought in a special guest just for this purpose. Aaron Pogue is the bestselling author of the fantasy novel Taming Fire. He has published six books and a handful of short stories. He’s the President of The Consortium, a non-profit organization that strives to support artists and make quality books more accessible to the public. He’s also won NaNoWriMo  four years in a row, so he’s got some experience in knowing how to prepare for such a high-intensity writing adventure.

Now here’s Aaron. Continue reading “Prewriting for JuNoWriMo”

JuNoWriMo Features Authors and YOU

I’m so glad you’re doing JuNoWriMo with us! June is going to be amazing, and it’s coming soon, so I hope you’re getting ready.

We Want to Feature YOU!

We’re big believers in teamwork and supporting writers. Through the next few months we’ll have regular blog posts to keep our community connected. One of the things I’m really excited about is our Featured Authors section. During JuNoWriMo we plan on having a series posts highlighting a few of our authors. It’s a great way for all of us to get to know each other better. I don’t know about you, but I’m very curious about what my fellow writers are going to be working on in June. And some of the titles/synopses I’ve seen sound very intriguing!

You don’t have to be published or famous to get featured here. You don’t even have to have finished a book yet. We’d like to help promote you—and this is a great forum for that. Continue reading “JuNoWriMo Features Authors and YOU”

Welcome to JuNoWriMo

This is it, folks—the real deal! Our blog is finally live, thanks to Anna, who has done an amazing job. Isn’t it lovely? *swoon*

All Aboard for Adventure

If you’re new to June Novel Writing Month, don’t fret–we all are! This is a first-time adventure for all of us, and you can bet it won’t lack in the area of excitement. (If you’re curious about what JuNoWriMo entails, go here to read about it.)

We are both big fans of (and participants in) NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). We’re not trying to do it better than them. We’re not trying to get you to stop doing NaNo and join JuNoWriMo. It doesn’t work that way. We’re all on the same team here, just one other organization cheering for you as you write your book. I don’t know about you, but I’ll be writing my second book of the year in November.

Since coming up with the idea of JuNoWriMo, I’ve heard of several other programs that are doing the same thing – challenging you to write 50,000 words in June. Our take on that is—great! That just means there are more writers out there to support each other. If you’re participating in one of the other events, feel free to join ours as well. You can count your words for both. This isn’t an exclusive relationship. We’re not trying to compete with anyone, just create our own little community. Continue reading “Welcome to JuNoWriMo”