National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) takes place every November. It is a worldwide writing challenge with a goal to write 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days.
Below are a few novels that began as a NaNoWriMo as well as some guides to writing novels this NaNoWriMo season.
Juvenile
The Truth About Twinkie Pie by Kat Yeh
“When twelve-year-old GiGi and her big sister DiDi move to Long Island from South Carolina for GiGi to attend a fancy new private school, GiGi has a new recipe for success and makes new friends, but then discovers a family secret that turns her life upside-down”– Provided by publisher.
Olivia Bean, Trivia Queen by Donna Gephart
After overcoming a number of obstacles, especially in the subject of geography, Olivia is on her way to Hollywood to appear on Jeopardy! and, she hopes, to reunite with her father who left the family two years ago.
National Novel Writing Month’s Young Novelist Workbook: Elementary School by Office of Letters and Light Young Writers Program
“Congratulations on accepting one of the most rewarding challenges ever: writing a novel in 30 days. Hundreds of thousands of authors all over the world participate in National Novel Writing Month. This year, you’re going to be one of them. We created this workbook to spark your imagination and guide you in your noveling journey. The activities inside will help you create characters, build settings, and hatch plots, and keep you motivated throughout the month. So what are you waiting for? Crack the cover and get going. At NaNoWriMo, we believe there’s a book in you that only you can write. And the world can’t wait to see it.” – from Amazon
Teen
With Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevdeo
“Ever since she got pregnant freshman year, Emoni Santiago’s life has been about making the tough decisions, doing what has to be done for her daughter and her abuela. The one place she can let all that go is in the kitchen. There, she lets her hands tell her what to cook, listening to her intuition and adding a little something magical every time, turning her food into straight-up goodness. Even though she’s always dreamed of working in a kitchen after she graduates, Emoni knows that it’s not worth her time to pursue the impossible. Yet despite the rules she’s made for her life – and everyone else’s rules, which she refuses to play by – once Emoni starts cooking, her only choice is to let her talent break free. From the author of National Book Award winner, The Poet X, comes a dazzling story of a girl with talent, pride, and a drive to create that keeps her fire burning bright.”– From dust jacket.
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan, but for Cath, being a fan is her life–and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, immersed themselves in the series when they were kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving. Her sister has grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told her she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone, and can’t stop worrying about her dad. Can she do this?
Brave the Page: A Young Writer’s Guide to Telling Epic Stories by Rebecca Stern
The founders of “National Novel Writing Month” offer practical advice on how to organize and commit to writing stories and novels, and include motivating essays from such popular authors as John Green and Scott Westerfeld.
Adult
Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes
In a small town in Maine, recently widowed Eveleth “Evvie” Drake rarely leaves her house. In New York, Dean Tenney, former major-league pitcher and Evvie’s best friend Andy’s childhood friend, is struggling with a case of the “yips”: he can’t throw straight anymore, and he can’t figure out why. An invitation from Andy to stay in Maine for a few months seems like the perfect chance to hit the reset button. When Dean moves into an apartment at the back of Evvie’s house, the two make a deal: Dean won’t ask about Evvie’s late husband, and Evvie won’t ask about Dean’s baseball career. What starts as an unexpected friendship soon turns into something more.
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
The Carls just appeared. Coming home from work at three a.m., twenty-three-year-old April May stumbles across a giant sculpture. Delighted by its appearance and craftsmanship–like a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armor–April and her friend Andy make a video with it, which Andy uploads to YouTube. The next day April wakes up to a viral video and a new life. News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens of cities around the world–everywhere from Beijing to Buenos Aires–and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the center of an intense international media spotlight…Now April has to deal with the pressure on her relationships, her identity, and her safety that this new position brings, all while being on the front lines of the quest to find out not just what the Carls are, but what they want from us.
Mastering the Process: From Idea to Novel by Elizabeth George
“As the author of twenty-four novels, Elizabeth George is one of the most successful–and prolific–novelists today. In Mastering the Process, George offers readers a master class in the art and science of crafting a novel. For many writers, the biggest challenge is figuring out how to take that earliest glimmer of inspiration and shape it into a full-length novel. How do you even begin to transform a single idea to a complete book? Elizabeth George takes us behind the scenes and into each step of her writing process, revealing exactly what it takes to craft a novel. Drawing from her personal photos, early notes, character analyses, and rough drafts, George shows us every step of how she wrote her novel Careless in Red, from researching location to imagining plot to creating characters to the actual writing and revision process itself. George offers us an intimate look at the process she follows, while also providing invaluable advice for writers about what’s worked for her–and what hasn’t. Mastering the Process offers writers practical, prescriptive, and achievable tools to creating a novel, to editing a novel, and to problem solve when in the midst of a novel, from a master storyteller writing at the top of her game”– Provided by publisher.