writers — Blog — Robert Bittner

It's the end of August. Which means the month that celebrates novel writing—November—is still a couple of months away. But if you're thinking about joining the thousands of others who will set aside time this fall to write the story you've been yearning to write, it pays to lay the groundwork before November 1 comes along. Otherwise, you may spend more time on research and character building than writing. (See my other post here about NaNoWriMo.)

Reaching your NaNoWriMo goals will be a lot easier with the help of an iPhone and/or iPad. For the last two years, I've been working entirely on an iPad, an enthusiastic convert to an iOS-only workflow .

iOS-only may not be in your future. But if you own an iPad or iPhone, either one or both are probably always close to hand. Which means novel writing doesn't have to wait until you have a few free hours at your desk. You can dictate ideas in the car, jot a couple of paragraphs at the doctor's office, and write a sentence or two while on-line at the Post Office. Even if these devices never push aside your main computer, they can be invaluable adjuncts.

The following apps can help:

Drafts (iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch)

Drafts is a note-taking app. It is also much more. But if you're in need of a way to very quickly capture ideas, Drafts may be just what you're looking for. What sets it apart from other note-taking apps, such as Apple's own Notes, is that it requires zero effort.

Want to quickly jot a note, remind yourself of a useful resource to check out, email a writer friend for advice? Tap the Drafts icon and start typing. There are no folders to open, no file names to come up with, no hassle whatsoever. As soon as the app opens, you can start typing. You don't even have to know what you want to do with what you've written; that's decided after you're done. Drafts gives you just about every option available for text actions: Send it as an email or Twitter post, add it to your calendar, post it to your blog, save it to Dropbox, copy/print/share it, etc.

For me, Drafts is mainly for easily getting text in and out again. It isn't ideal as a warehouse for text, though you can use it for that if you like. For the long-term storage of notes and ideas—or if I know the text never has to go anywhere else—I prefer Notes.

LiquidText (iPad-only)

If Drafts is "a note-taking app," LiquidText is a PDF reader. Sure, you can use it for that. For me, though, it is the app where I store all of my PDF and Web-based research. First, you can highlight important text—from both PDFs and Web sites, using the app's integrated browser. But use your iPad in landscape mode, and your documents shift to the left, opening up a workspace on the right side of the screen where you can actually drag and drop selected text for easy reference. Helpfully, each dropped bit of text remains linked to its place in the original document so you can always go back and see it in context.

Because LiquidText excels at this kind of document handling, it's particularly useful if you're gathering lots of information about, say, an unfamiliar location or occupation or anything else in your novel. For instance, if a character is confronting a rare illness, your 16-page research article from a medical journal is much more useful when you cannot only highlight the relevant sentences but literally pull them out for easy reference or even copying into other apps.

Scrivener (iPad)

Scrivener is my writing app of choice for everything from articles and nonfiction books to novels. (Even though I use it exclusively on the iPad these days, it's more full-featured on MacOS.) Much has been written about this, so I won't rehash its many features here. Just know that it was created specifically for writing novels. As such, it offers aids to organization, managing multiple drafts, and producing final text (including Word, .txt, PDFs, and e-book formats) that other "word processing" apps—including Word—cannot match.

If you're considering Scrivener, I'd suggest starting sooner than later. There's an extensive built-in primer that walks users through a complete project in very thorough detail, and it's worth spending time with it. Because of the learning curve, you won't wring the most out of Scrivener if you wait until you're ready to start writing before trying it out.

These are my top three picks for iOS. What are your favorites for fiction?

November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and it’s just one week away as I write this. If you’ve yearned to write a novel, this is the time to try. You’ll be joining with thousands of other writers across the United States who devote the month to bringing their stories to life.

The following tips can help you wring the most from your writing time – whether you’re participating in NaNoWriMo or simply devoting a concentrated month or two to getting a story out of your head and onto the page.

Know your characters. Brainstorm specific characters’ traits and histories before you start to write. Sure, it can be fun to dive in and discover who these people are as you work your way through their story. But if you only have a limited amount of time, it pays to have the details ironed out before you begin. Besides, the better you know your characters, the less likely it is that they’ll do something “surprising” as you write. . . and cause your book to veer off on unproductive and time-swallowing tangents.

Know your basic story. It’s been said that first drafts are where we discover what our story and themes are; subsequent drafts are where those elements get developed and honed. But you can save yourself some work come December and January if you begin your novel with a rough idea of where you’re going and how you think you’ll get there.

For instance, when I began my middle-grade novel, The Timespill, I knew at the outset what my narrator’s main goal was, what the climactic chapter would include, and, ultimately, how the story would end. I didn’t know exactly how I’d wind up there – and there were unexpected (and sometimes frustrating) revelations along the way – but I knew what I was working toward.

Make a chapter-by-chapter outline. When I spent three years writing my adult novel, Lost Time, I didn’t bother outlining. I let the book develop as it went along. As a result, it took me three years to finish the thing! But when I decided to devote this past September to writing a middle-grade novel from start to finish, I knew an outline would be essential for success. I didn’t have time to mess around or get sidetracked.

Outlining the novel helped me play with the scope of the story before getting down to the writing. Given the length I was shooting for (40,000 words), I mapped out how many chapters I’d need to get there. And since I wanted a game-changing plot complication halfway through – to help drive the second part of the book – I figured out where that needed to happen.

An outline doesn’t have to be detailed or restrictive. And you can ignore it if the story dictates. But if you’ve taken the time to prepare an outline, you’ll at least have a useful roadmap for when you need it. And you’ll know what you need to do next whenever you have the time to write.

Set reasonable goals. If you’ve never attempted writing fiction before, cut yourself some slack; it’s unreasonable to expect to go from 0 to 80,000 words in a single month. Never mind that we’re not just talking about typing. Character development, plot intracacies, research – they all require time and attention.

When I devoted September to writing The Timespill, my goals were to write five days a week and to produce an 1,800-2,500-word chapter every writing day. That would get me to my goal of a 20-chapter, 40,000-word novel with two writing days left over, just in case I needed them. (Turns out, I ended up with 21 chapters, but I’d generated so much momentum that I finished four days early.)

You won’t likely have time to polish/revise much of what you write if you’re going to stick to a one-month schedule. That’s fine. The point of NaNoWriMo – or any writing month, for that matter – is to commit to daily work that helps turn your novel-writing dream into reality. Best-case scenario: After a month, you’ll have a solid first draft of a middle-grade or YA novel – or a strong foundation for building a longer adult novel.

In my case, after writing The Timespill in September, I set aside October for two stages of revisions and for getting my “final” draft into the hands of a few objective readers. By October 21, I was able to send a polished manuscript (essentially my third draft, with minor fourth-draft changes) to my agent.

Writing a novel is hard work. Doing it in one month is kind of crazy. But if you think of yourself as a writer, all of the “crazy” is definitely worth it. I can’t tell you how satisfying it feels to type “End” at the conclusion of a story you’ve been dying to tell.

Here’s hoping you find your own happy ending.