Hate AI, but love writing challenges?
Want to take part in a global, fun project to write a Novella in one month?
Grab some friends, and take part in Novella November, by writing 1,000 words a day for the month of November, ending with a 30,000 word Novella to test and stretch your novel-writing skills!
Your goal is not perfection, but merely getting into the habit of writing a litte bit every single day :D
No website, no sign-ups -- Just a community initiative to write using only your own word!
What are the rules? Just Three so far!
#1 - No AI
#2 - No Plagiarizing
#3 - Wordcount for the month should only come from what you write during the month.
What does that mean?
Only words written during November should go towards your Wordcount for the month... but! Feel free to use your 30k words as a continuation of previous writing, or just make it the first 30k words in a longer novel!
Don't think you can write a whole entire 30k word story? Write a series of short stories that total up to 30k!
Not ready to write original works yet? Write a 30k word fanfiction that you can post after the month is over!
Share your writing experience, tips, encouragement, and questions in the #Novella November tag!
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EDIT, from the tags: Want a progress tracker? Track your progress with TrackBear!
https://trackbear.app/
Don't have a word processor? Use LibreOffice , the free and open-source alternative to Microsoft Word!
Want to organize/storyboard your Novel and don't want to pay a subscription? Try 7writer by Simon Haynes!
Want to be able to listen to your story aloud for proofreading using TTS (text to speech)? Try Balabolka!
Or, create some custom progress / Goal Cards in advance you can fill out as you reach word goals! For ideas and templates, search this blog for "goal cards" :D
Want to do a writing challenge in more than just November? Check out my ideas here for year round challenges to keep you writing consistently! Got feedback? Send it in, I'd love to see everyone's ideas!
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EDIT 2: I almost forgot to mention, if you are unable to write/type your story, you can also narrate/dictate your story to your preferred recording device!
If you're doing a Recording only and it doesn't automatically generate a transcript, it would obviously be hard to judge the word count -- but you're also working with a lot of obstacles, so I'd say if you're able to complete your story via voice recording from start to finish, you've definitely achieved the goal!
Edit #3: added the title "Novella November 2024 announcement post" to the top to make it more standard with my Ominous October and Drabble December posts (will be updating Outline October shortly) , added "Official Announcement Post 2024" to the tags so people can easily find the monthly events for 2024, and added a bit of bold to the third bullet point in the original post from September 2nd 2024 for emphasis.
"Gritty Kills Tony Stark" by Copulation Matrix.
Bound in April 2023
❤️🔥A very short fic about restorative justice. ❤️🔥 Cased in orange faux fur with guillotine pendant decoration ❤️🔥 The signs held up by the people on the endpapers are the original tags on Ao3, and they are waving banners with the Flyers logo and Ao3 logo on them. ❤️🔥 Modified artwork of "La mort de Maximilien de Robespierre" by Giacamo Alprandi c.1799)
I feel like this will only mean something to a very specific group of people
just watched calibre (2018) and honest to god couldn't not see it as an au of slow horses. vaughn forced to face his mistakes? nah, that's les arbres!river getting ✨punished✨
actually yeah this deserves its own post. river’s relationship with isobel and with spider being so similar… i loved you. i did love you. just not enough.
not enough stick around for you / not enough to not betray you. not enough to choose you over my freedom / my career. isobel wanted her own life, spider wanted his ambition.
i did love you. just not enough to choose you over the kind of life i wanted.
“I wish I knew how to quit you.”
if checking the slow horses tag obsessively was a job i would be making soooo much money
Every time you talk about giving yourself writing challenges, I think about how it would be fun to have a 'handicap bingo'- where you get a random writing 'handicap' like not being able to say any character's name, and have to write a full story with it. Idk. I think it would be fun
Min's Writing Challenge
Rules: Roll a d20, accept your fate, write a fic of your choosing and follow your fate to the letter. (Creative workarounds encouraged.)
Roll twice; you have to use both. If you roll another 1, the extra challenges compound accordingly.
Pick a single letter, A-Z. You're not allowed to use it for the entire fic. (Bonus challenge: E.)
Every sentence must be under ten words long. (Bonus challenge: five words.)
Pick a poetry/lyric style (sonnet, terza rima, ballad, etc). The whole fic must be written in that form. (Bonus challenge: keep it still obviously a normal fic, with appropriate tropes and narrative conventions.)
You must write in future tense.
You must write in first-person POV.
You must write in second-person POV.
Take your least favorite fanon concept/trope, and make it into something you want to write. (Bonus challenge: play the trope entirely straight - no subversions! - and make it enjoyable anyway.)
No character names allowed. (Bonus challenge: no dialogue tags either; you can't use descriptive phrases like 'the man in the prince costume' to work around it.)
No dialogue allowed. (Bonus challenge: no internal monologues allowed, either.)
Dialogue only - playscripts encouraged.
Epistolary fic - only letters, emails, notes, etc.
Write an AU, but the alternative universe is a profession!AU that you know nothing about. (Bonus challenge: no research allowed.)
Unreliable narrator. (Bonus challenge: the narrator is good at being unreliable, to the point that they might legitimately fool a reader.)
Whatever fic concept you have, you can only write the very ending of it. (Bonus challenge: you aren't allowed to use any exposition to explain how you got to that point.)
Write any AU of your choosing, but you must choose at least one major canonverse event/plot point and adapt it accordingly to your setting of choice. (Bonus challenge: Make the canonverse event and AU of choice absurdly incompatible.)
Must start in medias res, with a 'yep, that's me. Bet you're wondering how I got into this situation!' moment. (Bonus challenge: Don't plan what the in medias res situation is before you write it. Force yourself to resolve whatever bullshit you come up with on the spot. I've definitely never done this in my life, ever.)
You must write in outsider OC POV - no canon characters allowed. (Bonus challenge: No Sanders Shorts/related characters allowed.)
Pick a fairy tale, fable, or myth. The fic must be a retelling or reinterpretation of it. (Bonus challenge: you aren't allowed to reread or reference any version of it while you're writing - from memory only!)
Dealer's choice - pick from any of the above.
Good luck.
@chasing-caws Reminds me of Mickey—
"I have depression." - character who has been through extensive therapy.
"I feel dead inside all the time and nothing helps!" - character who does like, regular introspective thinking and is aware of the concept of mental health.
"Leave me the fuck alone I'll be fine once I get over my stupid shit." - repressed character.
"It's fine I'm just having an Empty Time. What? Yeah, empty times, you know, when everything is like bzzzzzz in your brain and you don't shower for two weeks. Why, what do you call it?" - ooooughhh now we're talkin