Preptober has begun, my friends.

(Well, we’re already more than halfway through it, but, ya know…my schedule’s a little off)

The NaNo participants are gearing up for the month of 50k, plotting their novels, stocking up on coffee and tea (or Oreos 😛 ), and spending their money on notebooks, pens and pencils. Don’t forget the NaNo merch. 😉

But now we turn to the practical side of NaNo. Wearing the NaNo shirt and sipping from the NaNo mug is great fun, but we must prepare ourselves for the quest ahead. Having writing craft books on hand is a good step to take to prep and have for reference during November.

I’m not even sure yet if I’m doing NaNo this year, but I’ll be here with a few posts over the remainder of October and the month of November with tips and inspiration. 😉 Here are some of my favorite writing craft books. If you’ve read them, you can keep them close by during October and November for reference. And if not, now would be a great time to read them in time for NaNo kickoff. 🙂

#1: Structuring Your Novel (K. M. Weiland)

This book changed my world. It was my first writing craft book I read when I got serious about writing. I knew nothing about story structure, and this book was easy to understand. This book also has a workbook.

#2: Outlining Your Novel (K. M. Weiland)

I wouldn’t recommend this book for everybody. Because not everybody is an outliner. For me, I’m kinda in between being an outliner and a pantser, so this book delved a bit too much into outlining for my personal taste. But if you’re an outliner, this book would be perfect for you. Even if you’re a pantser wanting to outline your novel as prep for NaNo, you might be interested in this book’s workbook.

#3: Go Teen Writers (Stephanie Morrill & Jill Williamson)

This. Book. Is. Awesome.

It goes through the whole writing process in a simple and easy-to-understand way; from outlining to first drafts to querying agents. The drafting section will be helpful to refer to during November.

#4: Creating Character Arcs (K. M. Weiland)

I’m in the process of reading through this one, and so far it’s super good. I didn’t realize before how closely character arc and story structure were tied together. Weiland’s books are always really easy to understand and digest.

Other books I haven’t read but heard good things about…

• How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method
• 5 Secrets of Story Structure
• The Emotion Craft of Fiction: how to write the story beneath the surface
• Conquering Writers’ Block and Summoning Inspiration

A couple other books that you should keep handy…

• A dictionary (because writers need to know what words mean 😉 )
• A thesaurus
• A good novel to give your tired brain muscles a rest during NaNo.

I hope you’ll find these books helpful during the next couple months. 🙂

Write on,

Are you participating in NaNoWriMo? What genre is your NaNo novel? Do you have any of these books?