NaNoWriMo Rules You Have to Know

As soon as the seasons start to shift from summer to fall, it seems like every writerly corner of the Internet becomes consumed with one question and one question only:

Are you going to do NaNoWriMo this year?

If you’re asking yourself that question, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll talk about what NaNoWriMo is, the NaNoWriMo rules (official and unofficial), and some tips I’ve personally compiled to help you make the most of your NaNoWriMo experience.

What is NaNoWriMo?

Let’s consult the 2009 vlogbrothers video titled “NaNoWriMo!!!” In it, John Green defines NaNoWriMo like this: “In case you don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, it’s National Novel Writing Month, an annual event in which people try to write a fifty-thousand word novel in a single month.”

That sums it up nicely! NaNoWriMo takes place during the month of November, and its goal is to get its participants to write a novel of fifty-thousand words by the end of the month. Participants make accounts on the contest’s site and enter their daily word counts there. The site also uses daily word counts to project how long it will take the participant to finish their novel (even if they don’t win NaNoWriMo), how a participant’s word count compares to others in the area, and, of course, how close they are to complete their goal.

Often, online communities sort of drop everything to focus on NaNoWriMo. It’s nearly inescapable, and it’s not hard to understand why. Writing is often an intensely solitary activity, and while some writers might have in-person writer friends, a lot don’t. Events like NaNoWriMo give writers a real sense of community as they work towards their common goal, and this is the real magic of NaNoWriMo.

The First Three Rules for NaNoWriMo

We’ve talked about how to formally enter NaNoWriMo (setting up an account on the site linked above), but what are the rules? Surely it can’t be as simple as ‘write fifty-thousand words in a month.’

When NaNoWriMo was first founded, there was a set of rules governing how the contest would play out and what participation counted towards the end goal. Kelsey McKinney, writing for voxoutlines these foundational rules, which were put in place by Chris Baty in 2000:

1. The writing project must be new
2. It must be written by a single person
3. It has to be finished by midnight on November 30th

This is all straightforward, and the rules for NaNo haven’t changed much in the years since. Now, if you look on the Wikipedia page for current rules, they’re mostly just an expansion on the existing criteria. The contest begins at the start of the month and ends at the end of the month, the goal is fifty-thousand words, et cetera.

Do I have to follow these rules to participate?

What if you’re working with another writer or with a group of writers on a novel, or what if you’re working on a novel that’s going to exceed fifty-thousand words (almost all of them do)? What if you’ve got a project you’ve started, and you want to use NaNoWriMo to really focus on it?

That’s fine!

As the Wikipedia page points out, NaNoWriMo is a “self-challenge,” which means it’s mostly set up for participants to push themselves toward the goal. There’s not someone from the NaNoWriMo organization standing over your shoulder and going “uh, that’s not a brand-new idea. You already had that file on your computer. Pack up your pens and go!”

As long as you have put fifty thousand words in, you’ve won the contest.

Does this cheapen the deal? Not really. The biggest reward participants get for completing NaNo is the achievement itself: writing fifty-thousand words in a month. Sometimes NaNo will offer to print a copy of the participant’s draft or something like that, but usually, you get a certificate and a pat on the back. Most of the reward is in the work itself.

So if you want to follow the rules, follow them! If not, cool! It’s your life.

My (very unofficial) NaNoWriMo Rules: Tips for Having a Good Time

The existing rules for NaNoWriMo are just fine, but as someone who’s been a participant every year for a while, here are a few tips to making the most of your NaNoWriMo experience.

1. Don’t set out to write a novel

I know, I know, this is kind of the whole point of NaNoWriMo, but hear me out.

You’re almost definitely not going to write a great novel in a month. First drafts are rarely any good, and the first draft of something you manically typed over the course of a month is probably also not going to be very good.

John Green points this out in “NaNoWriMo!!!,” saying “as a rule, no great book can be written in a month.”

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t try to do your best or you shouldn’t try to write a book. It’s just to say that you should keep your expectations reasonable. What you’re going to end up with is fifty-thousand words—that’s all you can be sure of. It probably will not be a complete draft, since most novels are much more than fifty thousand words, and it will definitely be rough.

I like to approach NaNoWriMo as a giant word sprint. For anyone who doesn’t know: a word sprint is where you set a timer for a short amount of time, usually five to twenty minutes, and write as much as you can without stopping until the timer goes off. The objective of a word sprint is just to get something on the page—you can work with something, but not with nothing.

And as someone who has a really difficult time getting an imperfect something on the page (preferring the always-perfect-but-not-actually-real-and-therefore-unsellable-nothing), this makes NaNoWriMo a great opportunity for some actual trying . You’re going to have to revise your first draft, no matter what you do.

As John Green goes on to say in the video, “No great book can be written in a first draft no matter how long it takes you to write it…NaNoWriMo gives us discipline and it gives us permission to suck, which are the two things you most need if you’re going to be a novelist.”

2. Use NaNoWriMo for stuck projects

Speaking of getting an imperfect something on the page: I like to use NaNoWriMo strategically as a way to work on existing projects. This is in direct violation of the rules, but it works out nicely for me.

Like I said before, NaNoWriMo is a self-challenge. There’s not a NaNoWriMo police and there’s not a NaNoWriMo judge coming to live with you for the next month to keep you in line. You can pretty much use this contest for whatever project you’ve got that needs to be worked on. I personally like to use it to get lots of words written—sometimes these words go towards one draft, but sometimes they go towards work, short stories, poems, or whatever I need to do that month.

This might sound kind of antithetical to the spirit of the challenge. Couldn’t I do that any other month? Why use NaNoWriMo just to knock out my to-do list?

Glad you asked!

Again, in my opinion, the biggest appeal to NaNoWriMo is in the community that comes up around it. People post their word count goals and share their works-in-progress (#wip) on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, probably also TikTok (somehow, I’m not on WriterTok, but I assume it exists since BookTok does), probably also everywhere else. It’s free to join and it invites writers to try and do an impossible task, which is something that just kind of appeals to most writers.

NaNoWriMo also offers the ability to add friends on their website. This allows you to check on your friends’ progress, take a look at their projects, and generally connect with other people participating in the contest.

When I look back on the years that I’ve done NaNoWriMo, I remember a little of the projects I worked on—the Pinterest boards, the character templates, PrepTober events, stuff like that.

But mostly I remember the glow of my computer screen at one o’clock in the morning, my heavy eyelids and tired retinas, my hands constantly developing a cramp which would go on to haunt my mid-twenties with a passion (seriously, take care of your wrists, fellow typists). I remember telling my friends the moment I hit my word count goal and the moments my friends hit theirs.

Like I said before, writing is often lonely. There aren’t a ton of opportunities to connect with other authors working on their own projects with a ferocity like people bring to NaNoWriMo. Take advantage of the community, and some of the friendships you might find last well past NaNoWriMo.

Now, to my last unofficial rule…

4. Use NaNoWriMo to develop some writerly discipline

Before you get mad at me: I am definitely not saying that you should be writing fifty-thousand words every month. In fact, I would argue that you definitely shouldn’t be. Drafting is only one small part of the writing process, and not every day is going to be a drafting day. Fifty-thousand words is, respectfully, a crap-ton of words, and if you’re writing that many that often, they’re probably not great words (and I say this as a once-ghostwriter who used to crank out thirty- thousand words a week on the regular).

That being said, writing does require a tone of work, mostly in revision. Being a capital N novelist is going to involve writing when you do not feel like it and making writing a regular, structured part of your life. It might not be every day, but it’s going to have to be regular.

So, use NaNoWriMo to develop habits that work for you. Take note of what time of day you prefer to write, or what sorts of drinks you like to sip while you work, or whether you like to write outdoors or inside.

Does freewriting suit you best? What about typing? Maybe you love Microsoft Word, or maybe you’re really into Scrivener. Keep track of these kinds of things and make an effort to form some kind of schedule or regiment—this can be edited or changed as your needs fluctuate, but just as you can’t write a perfect first draft, you can’t become a disciplined author without at least a little effort.

bottom line

Use NaNoWriMo to ask yourself what it takes to get you to sit down and work on your novel regularly. Set monthly writing goals. Then, take these habits you built during NaNoWriMo into your future writing projects, and you’ll be well on your way to success.