7 Alternatives to NaNoWriMo

Following a set of controversies, the organization that branded itself NaNoWriMo and operated the official National Novel Writing Month, closed this past spring.

Now, speaking for myself, I never really used the official NaNoWriMo resources except for plugging the number of words I wrote into a website that illustrated by progress on a graph.

However, a lot of people did use those resources whether it was for community building, helping to keep themselves on track, or otherwise encourage their writing.

With that in mind, I wanted to mention a few of the alternative organizations/events I’ve heard of with writing events and tools. Bare in mind I haven’t used most of these and don’t necessarily endorse them. These are just names that have come up when I looked into what’s happening outside of NaNoWriMo this year, and a little bit about them.

Hopefully, if you are looking for an alternative, some of these provide compelling options!

Check your Local Library

This one is kind of cheating since I don’t know what might be available locally to each person reading this, but I want to shout out the local option before anything else.

With NaNoWriMo gone, I think there will still be a number of libraries, bookstores, and the like holding events. Many of them may have hosted official NaNoWriMo events in the past, and are now converting those to their own version of events.

For example, in central Iowa, the Des Moines Public Library has “November Novel Write-ins”. The description for the event pretty much says it all: “Drop in to one of DMPL's write ins and surround yourselves with others while you all try to write your novels. Stay the whole time or pop in for a quick writing sprint!”

Reedsy Novel Sprint

Reedsy is a platform that helps authors get their work published by offering writing advice and services, so it makes sense that the site would be pretty quick to fill the space left by NaNoWriMo.

This is a pretty one-to-one replacement for NaNoWriMo. The goal is to write 50,000 words before the end of the month. Plain and simple.

There is the fact that Reedsy requires participants to write their words right in the company’s propriety app/website. I personally don’t love that restrictions, but it might not be a deal breaker for others.

Helping balance that out is the fact that anyone who finishes the goal will apparently get a free subscription period for Reedsy’s services. There’s also a cash prize of $5,000 for the best first 3,000 words of the novel determined by a panel of judges.

Shut Up & Write!

As I understand it Shut Up & Write is a national organization that is similar to NaNoWriMo in that it aims to help people finish their novels through community.

The biggest difference on this one is that it’s not limited to just one month of writing. You set your own goals and figure out how you want to pursue to them. Maybe that is writing a book specifically in the month of November, but it might be a goal of chipping away at your novel over the course of the year.

There are both in-person and online writing groups that meet for this one, so there is a nice flexibility there for those who might be looking for community.

ProWritingAid

As I understand it, ProWritingAid is a software similar to Grammarly: an app that detects sentences and tells you how they likely come off and offers adjustments.

I’m not sure when it emerged, but they seem to have a NaNoWriMo replacement for authors to track their progress over the course of a month. Seems to be pretty straight forward: You plug in the number of words you’ve completed and get badges based on how much progress you’ve made. There’s also opportunities to set up buddy writing sessions.

From what I can tell that’s pretty much all it is. Assuming that’s the case, that’s pretty much everything I used NaNoWriMo’s website for, so this seems to me to be a very workable replacement.

Novlr

Novlr is an author resource website, offering advice and resources for getting your book published.

While nothing is locked in for them yet, this is a writing group that noted the end of NaNoWriMo and is working on tools to provide their own version of it. I don’t see a firm indication that they’re doing anything this year, but based on the initial place, it seems like they’d like to (either this year or in the future).

This is probably a good place to check back in with as it gets closer to November.

Rough Draft Challenge

Even before NaNoWriMo collapsed, YouTuber Heart Breathings created an alternative to NaNo call the “Rough Draft Challenge.”

This is another example of something that is a relatively one-to-one event comparable to NaNoWriMo. The main big changes are the 50,000 word mark and the fact the event isn’t limited to November. People are challenged to write their “rough draft” over the course of 30 days—rather they have a tiered system where people select their own goal of 10k words, 50k words, or 100k words.

Honestly, this is probably one of my favorite options on the list. Though I’ve “won” NaNoWriMo twice before, the 50,000 word count is a huge hurtle that (I can confirm) can cause burn out. Rolling out flexible options there invites goal setters to pace themselves a little more.

4TheWords

4TheWords is the last item on this list, mostly because it’s the least related, but partly because it’s the hardest for me to look into because it is behind a paywall.

The service gamify writing, not necessarily something I think I’d do, but I can see this being helpful for some brains. Based on what I’ve seen from it, you are able to plug your progress into the game and complete “quests” by maintaining certain writing habits and achieving particular goals.

I will say, I inevitably end up missing playing some video games whenever I try to write a novel in a month, so I could see a world where this scratches that itch while also making me keep a writing habit.

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