NaNoWriMo—short for National Novel Writing Month—began in 1999 as a way for writer Chris Baty to complete a full-length novel of 50,000 words. Since then, NaNoWriMo has exploded in popularity as writers all over the world attempt to write a novel during the month of November. While NaNoWriMo is a competition of sorts, it’s not a competition between participants. Anyone can “win” as long as they adhere to the basic rules:
- Writing starts at 12:00am on November 1 and ends 11:59pm on November 30, local time.
- Novels must be a minimum of 50,000 words to win.
- Planning ahead of time and working from notes are permitted, but nothing written prior to November 1 can go into the novel.
- Novels can be on any theme, genre of fiction, and language and can be written as fanfiction, poem format, and metafiction.
After verifying the word count on the NaNoWriMo website, winners are given a printable certificate to show off their accomplishment. Besides that, there is no official prize for completing NaNoWriMo—except the satisfaction of having a full-length first draft of a novel. In 2004, NaNoWriMo began to embrace a younger crowd and launched the Young Writers Program aimed at students K-12. The overall goal of YWP was the same—to encourage writing—but the goals were lower. When a classroom signs up for YWP, they are given lesson plans and writing ideas to inspire the young writers, as well as reward items like stickers and pencils.
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