: Re: I'm not a great pantser; what kind of preparation do I need for NaNoWriMo? I'm very appreciative of NaNoWriMo's "your first step is writing a crappy first draft" credo, and I like the motivation

@YK4692630

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One planning task I find useful is listing out all the chapters and a 1-2 sentence overview for each of what happens. If I have a better idea of what it'll be about, I'll also say what I want to reveal in that chapter, eg. Shows Character A's weakness for peanuts.

What you end up with is a pretty good idea of the plot and how it progresses, but it's still empty and flexible enough that you can just let things happen. For example, in one of my chapters, the summary was, 'Character confronts father, they fight and don't come to a resolution.'

When I finally wrote it, the character ended up walking out on her entire family (and life) at the end of the fight - completely unplanned and it changed all the subsequent chapters, but that's how it played out. At that point you just go with the flow and take it from there; pantsing, as you call it. :) That's also part of the fun and excitement of NaNo - and writing in general, really - that planning just doesn't provide.

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