If you’re struggling with Nanowrimo right now, you’re not alone. This phenomenon goes by many names – the 30k blues, the saggy middle – and is one of the most common challenges writers face during Nanowrimo. It’s characterized by a profound loss of momentum during the third week of the month. It’s often accompanied by some of the stickiest cases of writer’s block people get during Nanowrimo, and has caused many a participant to drop out, ditch their novel, or just scream into a pillow a lot. (And I’d recommend that last one whether you’re having writing problems or not, really. We could all use a good pillow scream from time to time.)
This is my 12th Nanowrimo, not counting all the Camp Nanowrimo and other miscellaneous spin-off write-a-thing-in-a-month challenges I’ve attempted over the years, so this is far from my first rodeo with the 30k blues. And friends, I have tried everything. Today I’m going to share with you the methods of defeating this big, sticky monster that tend to work for me. I’m not saying what I’m about to present are the solutions that will work for everyone, but it’s the best advice I’ve got, so here we go.
- Write an outline of your story up to this point. You’re not planning. You’re writing a summary of what has already happened. So if you’re not a planner, don’t let this step stress you out.
- Identify every place in that outline where a character makes a decision. If it helps, pretend this is a Choose Your Own Adventure story, and point out to yourself the places where the “reader” (i.e. your protagonist) appears to have chosen one branch over another.
- Also make note of any big emotional reactions your characters have. Moments of anger, passion, angst, despair, hilarity, whatever. If someone is having a big moment of Feeling, tag it.
- Take each tagged item (decisions and big emotions) and consider it in isolation, and write down all the potential consequences for that item you can think of. Were rules broken? Feelings hurt? Did the nosy neighbor call the cops? Make a big ol’ list of things that could happen as a result.
- Now look at all those lists you just made together. Do you see any places where one consequence might affect another one, either by worsening it or offsetting its effects? Write that down – any place where the consequences of one event could potentially interact with the consequences of another.
Congratulations, you just thought up some really good act two plot points.
But maybe your second act is sagging not because of the plot itself, but because of how you feel right now. This is so normal it would be almost weird if it wasn’t happening to you. So check in with yourself. Are you feeling burned out? Is your inner editor clawing at the walls of your brain, screaming to be released? Those are not feelings to drown out or push down. Take a few days off (your word count will live, ok? Trust me) to remind yourself that this challenge is not the most important thing in the world. Read or watch movies or otherwise recharge your creative batteries. Or give yourself permission to revise your first chapter (this is actually a really good thing to do halfway through a novel anyway, for reasons I talk about here).
Or maybe the story you’re writing just turned out to be not quite as fun as you thought it would be. If you’re not excited about it and feel like you’re not allowed to scrap it because it’s Nanowrimo and blah blah blah, stop right there. I have no authority in this, but if it would make you feel better to pretend I do, hear me say: I give you permission to scrap your project and write something else. You’re supposed to be doing this for fun, for God’s sake. This isn’t English class. When you sit down to read for fun, you don’t force yourself to read books you hate, and you shouldn’t be forcing yourself to write one either. (But do not start your word count over again at zero. You wrote those words – they did not vanish just because you ended up not being psyched to write more of them two weeks later.)
Whatever the reason for your dwindling momentum, I hope this post served as a shot of encouragement and inspiration. I hope that no matter how many words you’ve written, you’re enjoying the ride.
Happy writing!