There are many things that many beginning writers don’t consider, but they are things that should be thought about. I’m not talking about the hours away from family, the strain on love ones, and the sleepless nights not understanding where you are heading in your plot line. However, these are tools that may lessing some of the above issues.

The standard things I tend to consider before writing a novel in thirty days in November are simple.

• Do I have character sheets for important characters?
• Do I have a description of the location in which I’m writing in?
• Do I have an outline or time line of events?
• Do I have a genre in mind?

Not stating you need any of the above. Steven King has already admitted he doesn’t use outlines. However, I tend to find having some or all the above at least firmly in my brain, if not on paper, it makes the process better. Granted the detail in the above sections depends on how you write.

Character Sheets– Mine tend to be rather short. This is a big contrast compared to when I create a Star Trek character for role playing. The main reason is I tend to need more information up front for role playing to understand my character. So I tend to pull out the Star Trek Encyclopedia and figure out who would have been at the academy when he was, and what major events he would have been involved in. It isn’t uncommon for me to end up with two to three pages of typed history. I wouldn’t recommend doing this for a writing character because they tend to act differently. I know that may sound weird, but I’ve found the only real information that is useful to write down is name, age, sex, height, weight, personality quarks, and what the character would wear normally in the story. The rest I tend to find comes from the character. However, its common for me to add to the character sheet while writing so I can remember new things I’ve discovered about the character.

Location– I also don’t spend much of time on this. Most of the time I don’t bother unless there are certain details that must be researched. Otherwise, the location itself tends to stay in my head. There have been a few times where I’ve pulled out Google maps of downtown Minneapolis to ensure my memory of locations was correct.

Outline/Time line– This one causes people many problems. Some writers refuse to use this tool, and others go over board and pre-plan every move before they start writing. The former group I feel tends to write more organic stories, but they tend to ramble and frustrates the reader with it’s wandering. The latter may be needed if you are doing a historical, but in pure fiction it can make the writing feel stilted. I tend to pick something between. My outlines/time lines tend to grow out of future scene ideas I have before I start writing or during the writing process. It also is a nice tool to update as you write so you can easily track down details you need and can’t remember later in your story. I don’t consider my time line/outline to be the end-all-be-all of the story. It’s just milestones or potential road markers as well as a way for me to keep my pacing while I’m writing. It isn’t uncommon form me to know my first few scenes, some scenes somewhere in the middle of my story, and the ones near my climax. This doesn’t mean I know the ending of my story. Just that something like *Insert Scene Here* will happen.

Genre– Strictly not needed, but if you are looking to be published you should have an idea if you are writing horror, romance, etc. It also may also define how you approach a scene. So it’s a nice thing to have in mind even if you have a mix of genres.

Do I have any of these at this point? Not really. I’m pretty set in terms of what I’m going to write. The [Snow on the Ground] song I did for NaNoWriMo pretty much showed me my Detective story had firmly become a horror story. Not stating there isn’t detectivish type things in it, but it no longer is the primary genre.