Week four is the hardest part of this challenge. Excitement and buzz have worn off and the ending still feels miles away and possibly even pointless. And yet here it is: Everything now reduced to did I hit my goals or not. That’s why I like to tailor NaNoWriMo with my students so that it’s not only a 50,000 words do or die.

I’d planned spend the 3rd week of November talking about plot and conflict. Or plot and meaning. Or plot and purpose. But definitely plot. And then two things happened: one of my students wanted to quit and I had to abandon over 50,000 words of a passion project. My student wasn’t having any fun with NaNoWriMo, her manuscript didn’t make any sense, and it all seems pointless.

When I was young, my father used to say that the Devil is in the details. I went to college in North Carolina, where the expression was that God is in the details. Whoever is in there, details are important. Why else would supernatural beings reside in them?

Even if you are using this month to revise a finished draft, you can’t go wrong by starting with point of view. As you sit down to write over the next few days, ask yourself: Day One: Who is telling this story? Day Two: Why are they telling it? Day Three: When are they telling it?