Whether it's your first time or your sixth time, writing a novella in 12 weeks isn't easy.
As a 2021 ONC Winner and 2023 Honorable Mention, I would know. After years of participation and reflection, I have lots of advice to share on how I did it. In...
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Hiya! This is the sixth mini-interview in a series with past ONC winners who have volunteered to reveal what they wish they knew before they started on their award-winning novella as well as their pro-tip about writing novella-length fiction in general.
In this installment, bigfivedonaldduckfan, Top 5 Winner of the 2023 ONC, tells all. Please consider checking out AJ's work, especially if you're a contemporary fantasy and or dark fiction fan.
Question One: What is one thing you wish you knew about the Open Novella Contest before you starting writing for it?
The first time I participated in ONC was back in 2019 and, coincidentally, it was also my first foray into writing original fiction on Wattpad. I had quite a bit of anxiety and a LOT of insecurities at the time, and even though the novella I wrote that year shortlisted, that prevented me from really interacting with the community around ONC. Which was a shame! Because in all the subsequent years participating, I managed to actually start putting myself out there and discovered that the community aspect is hands-down one of the best parts of the contest.
A lot of the writer friends I made on this site, I first met through ONC, and interacting with others really does make the contest so much more fun! It can be an excellent motivation to keep working on your entry and it can feel great to be able to share writing ups and downs with people who are busy writing a novella just like you. So whatever you do, try not to be like me that first year: as safe as that protective solitary bubble might feel, venture out of it if you can!
The best way to go about it, to me, is just finding ONC stories that look interesting to you and checking them out. If you enjoy it, read, vote, share your thoughts with the author and there you go, you're interacting with the community! Reading other people's entries can be a great learning experience, too, and if you're lucky, your potential new favourite author might just return the favour! Or you can repay a favour yourself if someone checks out your entry, given that you're genuinely interested in their story, of course. Either way, just don't neglect the community aspect of ONC: it's there to be enjoyed and explored!
Question Two: What's your best piece of advice or your favorite writing tip when it comes to working on novellas or entering your work into a contest?
I'd like to preface my answer by noting that every writer's different and what works for me may not necessarily be beneficial to someone with a wildly different writing process that's been serving them well so far. So take every ONC writing tip I'm about to give with a grain of salt, though I do hope there'll be something useful for people to take away!
One: Before you start actually writing your story, make sure you've figured out your general idea for how you want your novella to end and how you're going to get there. Seriously, I can't stress this enough. When you first see all those shiny interesting prompts and you're all excited to work with them, your story's premise and start will probably come easy, but if you don't know where it's going to go, you risk: (A) getting stuck and potentially missing a deadline or losing motivation, (B) pacing issues (including bits that just weren't necessary in hindsight? Rushing things you should've devoted more time to in hindsight?) and (C) an ending that feels like a let-down because it was rushed/abrupt/doesn't suit your story's tone/etc. The ending can literally make or break a story. You could be writing the greatest story ever told, but if you flunk the ending, that's how your tale will go down in history (Remember Game of Thrones season 8, anyone?). Don't underestimate the power of the ending!
Two: Minimize the chance you'll end up with a novel instead of a novella. Every year, I see people drop out of ONC because their novella turned into a novel on accident, and while that's absolutely, totally fine and undoubtedly the right choice for the stories they wrote, a novel won't win you this bloody contest. Try accounting for a word count between 20K-40K in your general outline. If you know your chapters are around 2k words give or take, you'll need a minimum of 10 chapters and a maximum of 20. Err on the side of caution: chapters can always end up longer than expected, and it's much easier to deal with an estimated 10 chapters becoming 16 than 20 chapters becoming 26.
Three: Speaking of word count, it's always possible you end up exceeding the 40K word count anyway. My winning entry had 45K words initially, so I had to (temporarily) cut at least 5K words to still be eligible. You can cover a LOT of ground cutting words by meticulously evaluating and rephrasing each sentence you wrote, but that very much is a time-consuming process. I personally like having the first draft of my novella finished a few weeks before the final deadline just so I can edit and do stuff like this. If possible, don't wait until the last moment – give yourself enough time to perfect your work!
Four: Save the major editing for last and don't be too much of a perfectionist in the contest's first stages. Definitely do check for major typos and errors before submitting for each milestone, but focus on getting your story written first. Do the bulk of the editing when the story's done. I promise, it won't run away.
Five: It can be really nice to take a couple hours in the week just to brainstorm. I have a side job that takes pretty much zero braining whatsoever, so I often work on autopilot and mentally tinker with scenes, plots and character development. I can safely say these moments have given me some of my most fruitful ideas. If your job isn't quite as mindless as mine, going out for a walk tends to be great for a brainstorming session as well! Fresh air's good for your health, anyway, so don't forget to get some in between all the writing sessions!
Six: Finally, write your story for you. Not for the judges or even your readers, but for you. As in, don't agonize over what other people will think of your writing to the point where you're writing to please someone whose preferences you can't even reliably know. It's much easier to write the story you want to read than the story someone else might want to read. And don't be afraid to take risks in your story here and there. I've found that parts of my stories I initially thought might be too strange or weird for others often ended up being my readers' favourite bits! Point is, don't let the hypothetical thoughts of others get in the way of the story you want to tell.
