How to Prepare for NovelEmber

How do you prepare for NovelEmber? Because, whether it’s your first novel or your fortieth, NovelEmber is a great chance to dedicate a month to writing and creativity. In this blog, we’ll share strategies for preparing yourself for an exciting and productive month of writing!

What is NovelEmber?

NovelEmber is a month-long online writing challenge during November each year! As a celebration of National Novel Writing Month, commit to writing 50,000 words of prose during the month, and claim a digital badge and printable certificate to celebrate your success. There are also options for other “rebel” goals if you want to take part in another way.

Learn more about the NovelEmber Challenge here!

Prepare for NovelEmber by choosing your project!

A great way to start with your preparation is to figure out what will you write for NovelEmber. As the name suggests, NovelEmber is primarily a novel writing challenge, but you can actually create anything you like! Our goal is to promote creative productivity and give you a good excuse to set aside time and hone your craft.

Here are just some ideas of what you could pledge to create during NovelEmber:

Write a novel, a novella, or even a novelette (more about fiction word counts here!)
Start a webnovel or piece of Serial Fiction
You could turn your TTRPG Game into a novel!

But maybe 50,000 words is too much?

We can’t all commit to writing 50,000 words in a month. It’s a lot. We get that.

So if 50,000 words of prose sounds like A LOT, but you still want to take part… how about being a 🏴‍☠️rebel? You can participate with your own goals too.

For example you might choose to:

Create an RPG adventure or D&D one shot adventure! (If you do, a good way to prepare is to check out our free downloadable RPG Adventure Template)
Write a short story – or several – instead of one big piece of prose! In that case, the novel preparation materials here will be helpful!
Try your hand a collection of poetry
Be an edit rebel: Set your goal as completing an editing pass of your work instead.
Set your own wordcount goal for free writing or worldbuilding during the month

Not sure what you want to write about yet? I recommend starting with a creative brainstorm.

How can you Prepare for NovelEmber writing?

If this is your first novel, check out our overview of How to Write a Fantasy Book. This short piece covers the fundamentals of novel writing.

I also recommend our guide on How to write a novel — the basics which goes through the steps of writing a novel: from the first draft, editing, and even publishing!

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. NovelEmber is about getting a first draft done – or at least, as complete as you can – within one month. So how can you prepare yourself for that?

Prepare your Worldbuilding for NovelEmber

Worldbuilding has some surprising benefits for your mental health, but it’s also a great place to start thinking about planning a novel, a story or an adventure!

If you’re starting a new world (or your very first!) in preparation for NovelEmber, I recommend taking our How to Start Worldbuilding course. It’s 10 lessons long and you’ll finish with a great world setting, and some plot ideas! That’ll put you in a strong position at the beginning of NovelEmber to start writing your novel.

A screenshot of our free How to Start Worldbuilding Course!

If you’re using a preexisting world, take a fresh look at your worldbuilding meta – the world drama section will give you lots of ideas for new stories in your world!

New to World Anvil? Make sure you check out our Beginner Tutorials and our World Anvil for Writers Guide so you’re ready to write in November!

Consider your characters for NovelEmber

Before NovelEmber begins, consider who the protagonists of your novel will be! Knowing your character well will put you in a great position when NovelEmber starts.

The character template on World Anvil is one of the best resources for creating main characters for your novel! Use the prompts to build out your character’s backstory, their flaws and dreams, and their motivations. Add images, and even a theme tune for that character, to get you in their heads.

And if you already have a world, you might already have interesting characters who’d make great protagonists for your story! Especially if you’ve taken part in previous Summer Camps – we always include at least one character prompt. Search through your articles on World Anvil (filter by Character template) to see who might make a great hero for your story!

Character creation resources for NovelEmber:

Learn about the 5 types of heroes
Learn about writing compelling characters
World Anvil’s character template
Search your own world for interesting characters you’ve overlooked!

Plotting your NovelEmber novel

If you’re a plotter like me, keep reading. If you’re more of a discovery writer (a.k.a. a “pantser”) , feel free to skip to the next section!

Let’s start with the practical plotting advice. There are a few different tools you can use to plot your novel on World Anvil, depending on what you like!

Personally, I plot my novels straight in the Manuscripts novel writing software! This guide takes you through how to plot a novel in World Anvil’s Manuscripts and is based on my process. It specifically uses the Save the Cat plot structure, but you can apply the same process to any plot template you like, or just use your own plot beats.

If you’re a visual plotter, Whiteboards might be more your speed. This will allow you to move things around, track threads, add images and visuals. This guide explains How to plot a novel using whiteboards.

Chronicles – advanced timelines – is great for complicated novels that have lots of different point of view characters. Here’s a guide on How to plot your novel with multiple POVs in Chronicles!

Plot resources for your NovelEmber Novel

Looking for more ideas for your plot?

The Canadian Caper – a rescue-operation plot you can use as inspiration for your novel!
How to plot a novel using the Hero’s Journey structure – a guide to the classic Hero’s Journey plot structure
Plotting in High Fantasy: Weaving Intricate Political Intrigue and Epic Quests – a guide specifically geared towards high fantasy plotting

Discovery writing resources to prepare for NovelEmber

If you’re not a plotter, no problem! Plenty of great writers start by throwing their character into a fascinating world and letting them get into trouble!

For an amazing opening, kick off with an in-world festival! It’s a great cultural showcase, and allows your characters to mingle, show off their personalities, and for different kinds of people to meet in unusual circumstances. Here’s a guide to worldbuilding festivals.

Throwing your character into a fascinating new location and seeing what happens: it’s a tried and tested method of writing a novel! These worldbuilding guides will help you plan locations that pop, so you can focus on the shenanigans when NovelEmber starts.

And remember: you don’t need to be a plotter to create conflict with plot devices! These 5 plot devices can be dropped into any stage of your story to shake things up and make them interesting! They’re great go-tos if you don’t know what should happen next in your novel.