This is something I handed out at the last Nanowrimo Fairbanks meet-up:
Ways to Get your Novel Going!
1. Get your characters into an argument.
2. Have your character have trouble with a mechanical object, electronic object, or just an non-human object etc.
a) For instance, have their car break down.
b) Or their computer crashes.
c) Or they are trying, vainly, to record a TV show on the VCR (or DVD recorder). Heck, maybe they are just trying to keep it from going 12:00 12:00 12:00 12:00 12:00 12:00
d) Both my ex and my current boyfriend have had extremely bad conflicts with filing cabinets. The cabinets lost, but were pretty useless afterward.
3. What’s your favorite rant? Voilá! It’s now your character’s favorite rant! Good places to start:
a) Driving. Tailgaters, people who pass on curves at 80 mph on CHSR. Etc.
b) Feral rabbits invading your barn, yard, garden? (well, it worked for me)
c) The way some people treat their kids, dogs, wives, husbands, etc.
d) Mac vs. PC (No, let’s NOT discuss this in our meetings!)
e) Dems vs. Repubs. (Same rules as above.)
f) The government of the United States of America. And subdivisions thereof: the IRS, CIA, National Park Service, Army, Marines, etc.
g) Waiting in lines.
h) One coming up soon: Christmas holidays. The shopping, the commercialism the whole overdone thing. The ignorance of most people about OTHER religions.
i) Your ex. We hope you parted as friends, but even so it didn’t work out for a reason.
j) People who talk on cell phones, in cars, in stores, too loudly, etc.
k) Those horrible phone systems where you have to keep talking with a robot or pushing 1, 2 or 3 and it's impossible to talk to a real person.
4. Suddenly your character has a brain tumor, or other serious condition.
5. Suddenly your character is mugged.
6. Your character gets knocked on the head and wakes up with some sort of psychic power, such as being able to see the jelly inside the doughnut, or being able to talk to dogs. It can be something very simple.
7. Your character finds how his/her best friend has been a werewolf all along. (Either literally or figuratively.)
8. Car accident.
9. One word: mother.
There are plenty more. Post your ideas in comments, Nanowrimo-ers!
