No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days

Baty has a quick, light-hearted writing style, which is important considering the task this book promises to teach you. "Heavier" writing books (i.e., John Gardner's _The Art of Fiction_) call out for much thinking through your process. But if you're going to turn out a novel in 30 days, we have no time for that! So Baty's book moves along at a fast clip, which means you can get back to writing your masterpiece faster. I knocked out over 56,000 words in my month, and though the first draft has yet to be finished, there is no way I would have gotten THAT far without Baty encouraging me to get my inner editor out of the way and simply pound out my story.

A manual for NaNoWriMo participants, but can be read as a general creative writing guide.

This is one of the only writing guides I've come across that have actually made me want to write (in the fingers-itching kind of way!). Baty's approach is one of a fellow wannabe-writer instead of some kind of a writing guru, which makes his advice practical and realistic, not patronising or cryptic. It's the difference between "up your wordcount by afflicting one of your characters with a stutter" and "beware the mind monkey that wants to stifle your creativity". I very much responded to Baty's humorous philosophy of treating the writing process as Larger than Life but not something to be taken seriously, as well.

Want to laugh while writing 50,000 words in 30 days? This book is for you. “No Plot, No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days” by Chris Baty puts your inner insanity to work for you.

Baty, who founded the National Novel Writing Month contest, writes this book assuming the following:

You want to write a novel.
Having knowledge of how to write a novel is optional.
The book’s writing style is engaging and casual with enough sarcasm and off-beat humor that made me smile and, at times, laugh out loud. It is one part motivational speech, two parts coaching and one part tutorial on how to psych yourself up to get you write.

The book is short (about 50,000 words… hmm coincidence?), punchy and has lots of show more excerpts from people who have experienced NaNoWriMo (as National Novel Writing Month is called) first hand.

There is one excerpt in particular that strikes me as the most important in the entire book. “A Writer, Recharged by Gayle Brandeis” on page 163 demonstrates how this insane technique, writing a complete novel in 30 days, can recharge and revitalize a published author breaking the crust of publisher and audience expectations by writing with complete abandon.

One last note: Baty takes the noun novel and uses it as an action verb: I novel; you novel; he, she, it novels; they go noveling (gerund form), etc. And why not? Writing a novel is an active process that is different from writing a letter or a twitter update. So why not? show less

I have a checkered past with National Novel Writing Month. I first signed up for it years ago, and then my mother broke her hip and everything else went by the wayside. I tried again in 2010, and won, and had a great time; skipped 2011 because I was in the depths of despair about my writing, and then tried to try again in 2012 – and my mother fell again, and everything went by the wayside again. I get the sort of feeling my mother doesn't want me to finish my book. Maybe next this year.

One huge reason I continue to want to participate in NaNoWriMo is the spirit of it. The buoyant enthusiasm is surprisingly warming and encouraging. Pep talks usually make me roll my eyes. I generally look askance on cheerleaders and raises an eyebrow show more at unbridled optimistic zeal, and I've learned the hard way that shooting for the moon does indeed mean landing among the stars if you miss: in a leaky escape pod with no food or water and no rescue until an hour and a half after the air's run out or fatal hypothermia has set in, whichever comes first.

But The Office of Letters and Light – the beautifully named group of madpeople who run NaNo every year – are special. They participate themselves, and know the trials and tribulations, the ups and downs, the smiles and frowns of the project – and they genuinely want all their participants to have fun and just maybe triumph at the end of it. They pepper the website and NaNo inboxes with humor and silliness and cleverness and inspiration, and somehow cynicism and pessimism wither away in the onslaught.

It's kind of awesome.

And the fearless leader of this merry band, the one from whose forehead NaNoWriMo sprang fully formed and wearing a silly Viking hat, is Chris Baty. No Plot? No Problem! is both the tale of that genesis and a week-by-week primer on how to survive and succeed in a month of frenzied writing. It's irreverent, it's inspirational, it's subversive (I was scandalized – scandalized, do you hear! – at the tips on how to NaNo at work without getting caught), it's fun (no real surprise there), and it's practical – there's a truckload of good advice here, from a man who knows whereof he speaks. This is why I love NaNoWriMo, whatever my rocky road through it has been – it's all about joyful creation. Chris Baty brought something magnificent into the world. Thank you, Chris. show less

A good book describing some techniques to get past writer's block and win the NaNoWriMo (Nation Novel Writing Month) challenge. It's been a while since I read it, but I remember it being both entertaining and well written. I dock it a star only because I have mixed feelings about NaNoWriMo. It's a good exercise, but I'm not convinced weighing your novel by word count is a good approach.

50,000 words that were written is such haste that they should be scrapped and rewritten isn't much progress towards writing a novel... unless of course it helps get you over some kind of fear factor or other writing inhibition.

The world is saturated with reading material at the moment. It doesn't need your novel. Everyone could stop writing today, and show more we'd still have more literature than anyone could possibly read in a lifetime. The world doesn't need more books. Which doesn't mean I don't think good books aren't important or valuable. But I'd rather see someone take five years to craft a true masterpiece than slap out something in a month and try to hoist on an unsuspecting public. If you can write good stories that fast, more power to you, but you are a rare person.

On the other hand people writing for the joy and challenge of it is a cool thing. NaNoWriMo has helped breed a community of writers who compete with, support, and challenge each other.

I'd like to see more emphasis on quality and stronger participation in the follow up Editing challenge. Because while you may not need to start out with a fully formed plot, you do need to end up with one, or all you've accomplished is a high word count. show less

I've tried Nano and it didn't work for me. My process requires me to write in a different way than is described in this book. That said, there are tips in the book which are useful to new authors. I would be the last one to say the advice in this book is no good simply because it does not work for me.

The thing any writer must do with books on how to write is to hold on to the tips that work and let go of the ones which don't. Each writer must find their own path and what works for some may not work for others.

This was an interesting view into what works for the man who created Nano.

I fully intend to do NaNoWriMo this year, so what better way to prep than by buying the How-To book by its founder! The sub-title of this book is "A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days". I absolutely had a hoot reading it -- my favourite of his pieces of advice for the NaNoWriMo writer was to lower your expectations of your writing from "best-seller" to "would not make someone vomit". I LOVE THAT. Chris makes a very good case for why NaNo is such a great idea, and manages to make slogging out a minimum of 1667 words of shitty prose per day while ignoring everything else in your life for a full month sound like a fabulous idea.